eMail Service Providers (ESP) and Alias Accounts

[William Davis]

Evaluating eMail Service Providers ESP.

1. Any thing we should consider when choosing ESP?
2. Is SPS, DKIM and DEMARK account configuration option something I need when replying to an email send via automated marketing service?
3. If we chose one email account with multiple aliases for our employees and/or groups using a desktop email clients, would employees and/or groups have access to sensitive emails sent directly to management (e.g.: Vendors, Accountant, Bank, Merchant Account, etc.)?
4. Can email alias from and reply to be personalized with alias name?

[ILoveHostasaurus]

If the service is not from Microsoft or Google, historical availability and/or security issues are something to research. Most commercial providers will handle all the anti-spam/anti-forgery techniques for you automatically. Marketing services will typically use a From on your domain but a 'return path' on a subdomain delegated, or specific to, them, so they can sign the messages without it involving your production email service, and those replies will still come to your normal mailboxes.

How aliases and multi-access mailboxes work are dependent on the email provider. If Office 365 (hosted Exchange), you can have aliases to mailboxes, and mailbox owners can choose to delegate access to their mailbox to others in the org, but it is not on by default, and otherwise only an admin would have access to staff mailboxes. You can of course make use of public folders as a place to deposit messages that should be shared among staff.

Sending replies from an alias address would also be provider specific. I don't think Microsoft, for example, makes that easy; in Outlook I can select different hosted accounts but can't choose to send a reply from an alias. I could probably find a way if I had to, but it would not likely be convenient. Typically if such a scenario is necessary, it may be better to utilize a helpdesk solution vs trying to pick and choose which address to reply to from email software.