Froms and Randomization
Froms are a key in establishing creditability in the email space. Just like a letter in the mail, froms establish credability and trust. In email marketing there are two different froms to be aware of, the domain from and the display form. For example:
“John Henderson” jhenderson@myspeicaldomainsite.com
The name “John Henderson” is the from that will show up when the user decides to delete or open your message. It’s very important when sending a campaign built on trust and user history that this name remains the same. “John Henderson” can be changed to anything you want, it’s dynamic.
jhenderson@myspeicaldomainsite.com on the other hand, is the actual from address that will be recieveing bounces and replys. Always, ALWAYS! make sure this is an active address. Not only will you lose out on potential sales and inquirys but you could face legal issues for not being Can-Spam compliant. (Read more about Can-Spam here). When sending out a campign blast you can choose to only use one from. You don’t have to include the “John Henderson” part if you so choose. The email crawler will just read the from as jhenderson@myspeicaldomainsite.com
When it comes to from randomization, I do not reccomend creating a bunch of from names and rotating through. This is a very common spammer tactic and you can be flagged for spam very easily. For higher volume delivery, I do reccomend having a few domains to rotate through in the from message. By higher volume I mean list sizes above the 100,000 database threshold. Randomizing domains can help with deliverability because you are able to avoid some ISP mailing limits by rotating. Again, this is for higher volume delivery only. In most instances you want to keep the same domain and from in ALL of your campaign drops.
Filed under: Inbox Truth