# Role-based email addresses

> Why addresses like sales@ or admin@ are risky for marketing email and how MailMachine protects you.

Source: https://www.kualo.com/knowledgebase/senders-deliverability/role-based-email-addresses
Updated: 2026-06-10

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Role-based addresses - like admin@, help@ or sales@ - belong to a company, department or group rather than a single person. They usually feed a distribution list of several people, which makes them a poor fit for marketing email.

## Why they're risky

Role-based addresses are easy to scrape from the web, so they're prime targets for spammers - and senders with a lot of them look like they're using a harvested or bought list. Specifically:

- **Consent is unclear** - mail goes to several people, so you can't prove each one opted in.
- **Spam traps** - some honeypot traps use role-based addresses to catch and blacklist senders.
- **Automatic blocking** - blacklist operators like Spamhaus may treat mail to these addresses as spam by default.
- **Reputation** - they raise your complaint risk and drag your sender reputation down.

## How MailMachine protects you

MailMachine keeps a master suppression list of more than 400 common role-based addresses, updated frequently to protect your delivery. We don't publish the full list, but it means many role-based addresses are kept off your sends automatically.

If you have genuine, provable opt-in for a specific role-based address and need it whitelisted, [open a support ticket](/knowledgebase/getting-started/how-to-create-a-support-ticket-in-mykualo).

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_Source: Kualo Knowledgebase — https://www.kualo.com/knowledgebase/senders-deliverability/role-based-email-addresses · © Kualo Ltd._