Build Your Brand With These Email Sender Name Best Practices

When you check your email, you see an intriguing subject line: 'Exclusive Insights into Market Trends.' 

You pause for a moment, curious about the sender's expertise or if it aligns with your interests. 

Finding no recognizable source, you hesitate and decide to move it to the archive folder.

When readers decide whether or not to open your email, 42% of them look at the sender name. It can be more important than your subject line.

Following a set of email sender name best practices will impact everything from your brand to deliverability. Your sender name will affect open rates and engagement, too.

We’re going to share our top email sender name best practices, but first let's look a little closer at why they are so important.

What Should My Sender Email Be?

“Sender email” can mean two things, and it's important to know the difference.

First of all, there is your sender email address. This is the address that your email is coming from, for example, [email protected]. 

You probably have several emails through your domain, such as [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], etc. The purpose of each of these is usually self-explanatory.

Your sender name, on the other hand, is what is displayed in the From line. While an email address might be [email protected], the sender name could be “Pat from YourCompany.”

There are several important considerations when you choose a sender name. You should almost definitely use more than one.

This is valuable real estate that many businesses ignore. 

Why Trust Us? All beehiiv writers are carefully vetted for their knowledge and experience. Jacob Bear has been writing email marketing campaigns for nearly a decade and was recently named a Top Copywriting Voice on LinkedIn.

14 Email Sender Name Best Practices

There aren’t many absolutes when it comes to choosing a name, but these email sender name best practices will put you ahead of most people. 

One: Always Include Your Business Name, if You Have One 

Most people won't open an email if they don't know who it's from. Spam filters pick up on this behavior. 

Always include your business name.

However, don't just use your business name. Best practices require more than that.

Two: Use a Sender Name Related to the Purpose of the Email.

When you're trying to establish a personalized relationship with your readers, it's good to use a first name, yet also identify your company. 

For example, a sales-related email to qualified prospects might use “Pat from YourCompany” as the sender name. 

The sender name shows that this email came from a real human being and not an impersonal automation. At the same time, you’ve identified your company in case the reader doesn’t know who Pat is. 

A first name also works well with newsletters.

On the other hand, your sender email name could identify the purpose of the message. For example, you could use the sender name “YourCompany Special Offers” when you're having a sale. 

Three: For Transactional Emails, Keep It Simple

You don’t want your readers to miss an important, “official” message. For critical information, use sender names such as “YourCompany Support,” “YourCompany Orders,” etc. 

You’ll see this in the real world with sender names such as “Google Alerts” and “JetBlue Reservations.”

The sender name for a transactional email should instantly tell your reader what the message is about.

Four: Choose a Sender Name That Fits

When a message is not purely transactional, the sender name should fit your overall branding and marketing strategy. 

At the same time, it shouldn’t be too long. You want it to fit most displays without being clipped off. It’s always worth sending a test email to make sure your sender name fits.

Five: As a Creator, Use Your Name

If you’re a thought leader or an influencer, use your full name. Your readers want to hear from you, not your business. Once your content develops a following, your name is your business. 

Six: Make Use of Segmentation

Your readers have different interests. Sometimes different sender names will fit each segment.

One of our writers used to have a newsletter (now defunct) called “Bicycle Freedom.” About half the readers were bike touring enthusiasts, while the others were interested in a lead magnet he wrote about personal adventure. 

While all the emails came from the address “[email protected],” his sender names included “Jacob--Touring via Appia,” and “Jacob from ‘Rapid Route’” (the name of the lead magnet).

Analyze the reasons your readers subscribed, and choose a sender name for each segment. 

Seven: Never Use an Email Address as Your Sender Name

Simply using your email address is lazy marketing. Not only are you missing a valuable opportunity, but it looks impersonal and spammy. 

Eight: Split Test Your From Names

If you're not sure which name is going to work best, do an A/B test. Split your list in half, send an email with one of your sender names to the first half, and send an identical email with a different sender name to the other half. 

Split-testing sender names is well worth the trouble. This is a high-leverage variable that you want to get right. 

Nine: Monitor Your Campaign’s Analytics 

Engagement and spam complaints are important indicators of the impact of your sender name. Use your email service provider’s analytics to watch these important metrics.

Ten: Send Email From Your Customized Domain

If you use a company name as part of your sender name (for example, Tyler from beehiiv), your email may look suspicious if it doesn’t come from an address that includes @beehiiv.com

Eleven: Avoid Generic Names Such as “Info,” “Donotreply,” or “Sales.” 

These are fine for an email address, but not for a sender name. They look impersonal, and fewer readers are likely to open them.

Twelve: Avoid Unfamiliar Names 

We talked about the importance of adding your business name to the first name of a person your reader may not recognize. The same applies to any unfamiliar name. 

Make sure your readers know that you’re the sender. Emails with unrecognizable sender names get deleted.

Thirteen: Look at How Your Sender Name Displays on Different Devices

Send a test email and look at it on a phone, tablet, desktop, etc. If the sender name gets clipped short on any of these devices, consider creating a shorter one.

Fourteen: Use Variation Sparingly

We’ve given you the rationale for using more than one sender name. However, this is not a license to change them with impunity.

Most of these email sender name best practices are designed to avoid reader confusion and prevent your email from triggering spam filters. 

If you use too many different sender names, you will defeat the purpose.

What Is the Best Practice for Email Domain Names?

If you don’t have a customized domain name, your email address will simply include your email service provider’s domain. 

There are several advantages to a customized domain, including:

• Stronger personal branding

• Trust and consistency

• Better customer experience 

The best practice for email domain names is to have a customized domain.

Does Changing Sender Name Affect Deliverability?

The sender name is just one of many factors that affect email deliverability. Changing the name may not have a significant impact if all your other best practices are in place.

However, being inconsistent may confuse your readers. If you change your sender name and a reader doesn’t know the email is from you, they may delete it or mark it as spam. This will impact the reputation of your domain and hurt your deliverability.

How Do I Send an Email With My Sender Name?

Many creators ask this question, and the answer depends on the email service platform you use. 

As an example, we'll show you how to do this in beehiiv.

Setting Your Email Sender Name With beehiiv

Go to Settings. In the Admin section, select Publication and go to the General tab. 

Next, scroll down until you see the header “Sender Name.” (There should be a small text explaining what you already know: Your Sender Name is not your email address). Click the pencil icon on the right to add or change your Sender Name.

As soon as you make a change, the pencil icon will turn into the word “Save.” Click this to save your new Sender Name.

While you’re looking at this, here’s another feature you should note. You may have more than one person writing content in your business, or you might occasionally bring in a guest blogger.

If that’s the case, you may want the sender name to be the name of the person who wrote the content. 

Rather than changing your sender name settings every time someone writes a new post, simply toggle on the switch where the text says, “Use author as sender name for posts.” Every writer will get the credit they deserve. 

Now that you know how to set your email sender name, there’s something else you should know.

We’ve been working hard to make all these email sender name best practices easy or automatic when you use the beehiiv platform.

This includes a whole suite of tools that enable segmentation, 3D analytics, and A/B testing.

beehiiv also has innovative ways to grow your list and build new revenue streams.

If you start a beehiiv newsletter, it may turn out to be the best practice you ever adopted.