What is Email Forwarding: The Secret to a Tidy Inbox
Email forwarding is the process by which emails sent to your primary email address are automatically forwarded to another email address, for example, to your domain account.
Time is money in the corporate world, so you save money by managing your time well, right? Email forwarding can be very helpful in this situation. Enabling this function is a smart shortcut because it centralizes communication, saves time, and ensures you don’t miss any vital communications.
Let’s explore email forwarding in more detail and see how it might genuinely improve your efficiency and time management.
What is Email Forwarding?
The process of automatically rerouting an email message from one email address to another is known as email forwarding. The term forwarding implies that an email has been forwarded — or relocated — to a new location. This operation can be used for different purposes.
Email forwarding can be a great tool for communicating with different clients. Creating a different forwarding email account for each project you run can enhance your business operation. When you forward all client messages about a specific project to the team members involved, the communication will remain organized.
Email forwarding is an excellent method for coworkers, employers, and employees to communicate within the company. It is a great alternative when you need to send a mass email containing an important notice or a project update that needs to reach a bigger group of people at once. Simply include all relevant email addresses in the field section or BCC field and press forward. This allows all team members to collaborate on inquiries and avoid missed messages.
Set Up a Forwarding Email Account
A forwarding email account is usually created with the purpose of being configured to automatically send incoming messages to another email address and prevent mailbox flooding. In most cases, the original email address acts as the source.
The designated forwarding address can belong to either your second account or to someone else’s, for instance, to your employees. Moreover, you can use one forwarding email account for multiple primary email addresses and vice versa.
What Is the Difference Between Forwarding and Redirecting Email?
This confuses a lot of email users, so let’s break it down.
Emails that are forwarded will appear to have come from your address, while emails that are redirected will appear to have come from the original sender’s address.
If you reply to a redirected email, that reply will be sent to the original sender. Further, when you reply to a forwarded email, your reply will be sent to the email address from which the message was initially sent.
Remember, redirection is not the same as setting up an email account to automatically forward an email to another address. If you need to redirect emails, you must set up the redirection protocol.
The Difference Between Rerouting an Email and CC
Forwarding an email means rerouting a received email to a new address, where the recipient can see the sender’s address.
When you use the CC option to include additional recipients, all recipients in the email thread see each other’s addresses. A good example is when you work on a project and send an email to your co-worker and CC your supervisor or boss.
How Does Email Forwarding Work?
The email rerouting (forwarding) operation is quite simple. It’s an instantaneous process and involves forwarding emails from the source email address to the intended email address or addresses.
It goes like this: You set up an old email address to forward all incoming messages to a new email address. A client, for instance, sends a message to the old email address. His message will be automatically rerouted to the email address you specified to receive the forwarded messages.
Any email can act as a source email address.
Here are several good source address examples where email forwarding comes in handy:
- Your old professional email address that you don’t want to use anymore, but people still know;
- Your private address, that you no longer want to use for work purposes;
- A temporary email address, such as a sales follow-up email address, you created for a specific reason — for instance, for different types of email campaigns.
When your old address acts as a source, people who message you there will still reach you. As long as you’ve set up forwarding to your current address, communication remains seamless.
How Do You Set Up Email Forwarding?
The process of configuring email forwarding is fairly simple. The number of steps varies according to the email service provider you choose. Platforms like Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, iCloud Mail, and AOL Mail all use similar processes.
To help you get started, here is a step-by-step guide:
- Access your email settings: Open a new email account or log into an existing one. Click on the settings menu that may be found in your inbox’s upper right corner.
- Look for the forwarding section: In the settings menu, find the section related to forwarding or POP/IMAP settings (advanced mail protocol that is less relevant for basic email forwarding).
- Add a forwarding address: Now locate the button or option to “Add a forwarding address.” Here, you’ll enter the email address where you want to receive all your incoming messages. Just like some providers practice email throttling, they also place limitations on the number of forwarding addresses you can add.
- Keep a copy (this is an optional step): You have the option to retain a copy of the forwarded email in your original inbox if your email providers allow it.
- Verify the address: You may be asked to confirm the forwarding email address by certain email providers. Refer to the email you received for information on verifying the forwarding address.
- Save changes: You should always click the “Save Changes” button to enable email forwarding.
If you have questions about how to set up email forwarding or how to use specific features within your email service provider, consider exploring their official help documentation.
How Can We Use Email Forwarding in Email Marketing
In the world of digital marketing, email remains one of the most effective methods for reaching and engaging with your targeted audience. Before we delve further, the following must be pointed out: regular email forwarding (rerouting) and forwarding in email marketing serve two different purposes.
The point of forwarding in email marketing is for subscribers to share your marketing content to someone else (word-of-mouth marketing). When leveraged correctly, email forwarding, besides email automation, can ostensibly influence the outcome of your email marketing campaigns.
This is how email forwarding should be used in email marketing:
- To extend organic reach: Whenever your marketing email is shared between colleagues or friends, your content reaches a broader audience outside of the primary mailing list and attracts new potential customers. Planning a good email forwarding strategy is an answer to how to get email subscribers.
- To enhance engagement: When your marketing emails contain valuable, informative content or offer some special deal, always include clear calls-to-action such as “Share this with a friend!” Encourage your email marketing subscribers to forward it to their friends and family. This will boost engagement and interaction beyond the targeted audience.
- To improve relevance: Marketers can use email forwarding as a great strategy to test which types of emails and contents are most often shared among their audience.
Make sure your emails are designed in a proper email format for forwarding. Keep the layout simple since it is not unusual for formatting to change when emails are forwarded.
Benefits of Email Forwarding in Email Marketing
Email forwarding offers several advantages that can streamline your communication and improve your email management. We’ve listed them in the table below.
| Benefits of email forwarding | Results |
| Simplifies the process of managing multiple email accounts | All your emails are grouped in a single inbox. |
| Increases subscription rates, business, and sales inquiries | It reduces response time and keeps customers satisfied and informed. |
| Enhances sales efficiency and automation | Trigger sales automation and efficiency by forwarding your sales email. |
| Streamlines sales process | Forwarding emails to sales tools and CRMs makes it easier to track conversations and close deals. |
What are the Risks of Email Forwarding?
While email forwarding can expand your reach and manage your workload, it can also present a great security risk at the same time.
Here’s how:
- Data leakage: Email forwarding can sometimes impact the security of your emails and lead to data leakage, like some confidential parts of an email (financial data, sensitive company information, personal data, etc.) This can lead to unauthorized access to your company or any of your accounts and documentation. Make sure all your clients are trusted senders.
- Deliverability issues: Sometimes, an untrusted email sender name can negatively impact forwards by marking messages as spam, making them less reliable.
- Compliance and regulatory issues: If your business operates in industries where confidentiality is mandatory, email forwarding might pose a problem. For example, in healthcare, relaying emails that contain Personal Health Information (PHI) might lead to fines and penalties.
Email Forwarding With Campaign Refinery: Never Miss a Lead
Are you struggling with your emails landing in spam folders?
At Campaign Refinery, we focus on deliverability bringing you the highest deliverability rate on the market. Our selective vetting process allows us to partner with the best, cleanest, and most successful senders — reputable companies that prioritize the same values as we do.
Our system provides the most important features to our elite group of senders:
- Unmatched deliverability: What good are your emails if your recipients don’t see them? Make sure they get your content to their primary inbox. Every time.
- Unique features: Our unique features will keep your list clean and your emails exceptionally engaging.
- Exceptional support: We have a clean UI, but we’ll hold your hand until you feel comfortable with it.
Don’t settle for the average. Apply to join Campaign Refinery today!
Written by Teodora Rauh
