What is an email prefix and domain?

An email composes of multiple pieces.

The email prefix is the information that comes BEFORE the @ symbol in the address you're sending to. This information usually is a user name that is determined when an admin creates the account. For example, in the email address [email protected], “jesse” is the email prefix.

Whilst it can be a name it can also be a department like "sales" or "support". It could also be "newsletter" or "hello". Whatever works for you.

An email prefix can include letters, numbers, and dashes.

When emailing your customers in Bento the prefix you use will not have any effect on your delivery. A few customers have reached out before because they believed that changing their prefix would change their reputation. This is not true as reputation is tied to both your IP address and domain.

We recommend that for automations or sequences you use an email address that is personal and goes to an inbox of someone in your company. This will maximize delivery and sales opportunities.

We've noticed that customers of ours that encourage replies have the best open rates and have their emails prioritised in the right inboxes.

For newsletters or broadcasts you can use a "newsletter" or "no-reply" email address if you don't want to respond (not recommended).

An email domain on the other hand is the information that comes AFTER the @ symbol in the address you're sending to. For example, it's the "bentonow.com" part in jesse@bentonow.com.

The domain can be any web address that you personally own. In Bento, you can use as many domains as you want to send to your customers - we don't mind - but do be aware that your reputation is tied to both your IP and domain.

Just because you switch domains doesn't mean you have a fresh reputation. Neither does just switching providers.

All domains that you send from will also need to be warmed up using batched sending in Bento which is easy to configure and details about that are available in our other guides.

Hope this helps!