One of the trickiest things about setting up business emails is that you can’t limit your company to just one email address.
You’ll probably need a separate email address for the CEO, accounting, marketing, and other departments, along with email addresses for key people who are points of contact for customers within the business. That can lead to a lot of different individual inboxes to manage. Luckily, an email alias is a straightforward and often free solution that can make it all a lot easier to deal with.
There are lots of great reasons to set up an email alias that is different from your primary address but still goes to your inbox. It can be useful for both your professional and personal life to better organise your email inbox and gain additional security and privacy. Aliases can be used to quickly identify incoming messages from various sources, and it can also be used for signing up to things online. Most major email services including Gmail and Microsoft allow you to set up one or more email aliases.
What is An Alias Email?
When starting in business, the cost of getting up and running can be a source of stress. It’s important to consider the basic business essentials that you will need, including a professional email address.
Your business email address is going to act as the marker for your digital presence and will often be the main way that customers interact with your business. When you set up your primary email address, this will be the main address that your business sends and receives emails from. Moreover, this is the address your entire contact list sees when you’re reaching out.
However, an email alias is a feature that allows you to create other email addresses that automatically forward incoming messages to your primary business email address. This eliminates the need to set up additional email boxes or pay added fees to your email provider.
For example, your main company email could be johnsmith@company.com and you can set up an alias address at js@company.com using the same email domain.
Also known as an alternate email, an email alias refers to a forwarding address. It could also be defined as a nickname that you can use to protect your real name on the internet. For businesses, it could be the name of a department or marketing campaign.
An alias has a separate inbox, but it does not need to be opened to manage any emails that are received by it. All incoming messages are forwarded to your primary email account. It will also use all the same contacts and account settings as your primary account.
The Main Benefits of Using an Email Alias
There are various reasons why you may want to use an email alias. Some of the main benefits of using an email alias include:
- More effective inbox management: Everything is delivered to the same inbox, which can make tracking communication easier, and you can set up email automation and filters to simplify the process even further.
- Businesses can save valuable time by avoiding the need to jump between accounts.
- An email alias can be used to keep a primary work email private, while still receiving emails in the primary inbox. This can be handy if you want to track your competitors by signing up for their email marketing campaigns, for example.
- Aliases can make things easier for new small businesses in terms of sorting, as these companies might not yet have a customer service or accounts department.
Email aliases are a great solution for any business that needs to receive emails for different employees or departments in the same place.
When Are Aliases Email Accounts Useful?
One of the main benefits of using an email alias is the ability to create a professional, digital presence for your company. For example, when you first start your business, you may be the only one running it, which will only require one email which is your primary email for any inquiries.
However, you may want to add a different email address for sales leads and billing inquiries. Using an email alias allows you to create both of these addresses but receive any emails sent to either one in your primary inbox.
Email aliases are generally considered to be a temporary measure that is used until a company grows further and takes on more employees able to manage different inboxes. However, they can also be used as a permanent solution for sorting issues or problems with misspelled emails.
For example, if you are aware of any common ways your email address is spelled wrong, you can add these as aliases to help to prevent any emails from being undelivered.
Alternatives to Email Aliases
A shared mailbox is an alternative solution to an email alias that may be worth considering. They allow for sending and receiving emails with shared addresses, and multiple users can log into the shared mailboxes to management. Like email aliases, they do not charge any additional fees, making them an ideal option for companies where an email alias does not fit all needs.
You can also consider a temporary address, but you do run the risk of losing your emails once it expires.
When to Use an Alias Email Address?
There are various situations where an email alias can be useful. These include:
Somebody in the Company Fills Multiple Roles
If you or somebody that works for your company takes on multiple roles, creating an email alias can be a useful way to organize communications. It will help you avoid the need to switch between multiple inboxes, making it easier to keep track of all received emails.
Keep Former Employee Contacts
Another reason to use alias email addresses for your employees is to allow you to stay in contact with people who reach out to former employees. That way, an employee’s original address (johnsmith@company.com) remains active even when John Smith leaves the company, allowing you to read new emails for this person in a separate mailbox.
Temporary Email Addresses
A temporary email address can be a useful feature when you need to register with a service but have concerns about how reliable it is. If you don’t like the idea of using a temporary email service, you can use an email alias instead. Once you no longer need the alias, you can just delete it to stop receiving any emails to that address.
Keeping Your Personal Email Private
Keeping your personal and professional lives separate is always a good idea. Because of this, you may want to avoid using a personal email address for your business. You can use an alias to continue receiving any emails that you get to your primary inbox, without disclosing personal information or looking unprofessional.
How to Create Email Alias Using Different Services?
Now that you know how useful an alias email can be for your business, it’s worth knowing how to set up an email alias with some of the most popular services. Here are the step by step instructions for all the ones worth mentioning.
Add Alias on Gmail
Gmail allows each user to create up to thirty aliases free of charge. To do this, start by signing into your Google Admin console with an administrator account. Access the Users section via the Home Page, then find the desired user and open that account page in the Users list.
Find and click on Alternate email addresses under the User Information section. Then, you can enter an alternate username. Bear in mind that you will not be able to create an alias that has already been assigned to somebody. Once you are finished, save your changes. Add the new alias to your primary email account so that you can start sending emails from the alternate address.
Add Alias on Outlook
Outlook is another email service where users have the option to create multiple aliases free of charge. To create an email alias on Outlook, head to the Add an Alias page, and sign into your account if needed.
Choose from either ‘Add an existing email address as an alias’ or ‘create a new Outlook email address and add it as an alias’ depending on which one you want. Then, click on Add Alias. Bear in mind that you cannot add any existing @live.com, @hotmail.com, or @msn.com addresses as an alias, and you will not be able to add an alias that is already associated with a Microsoft account.
Add Alias on iCloud
If you use iCloud mail (also known as Apple mail), you can create an alias by opening your iCloud mail and clicking on the gear icon in the sidebar. Then click on ‘Preferences’, before choosing ‘Accounts’ and then ‘Add an Alias’. You will then be able to enter all the required information such as the full name, alias, label, and label color. Click on Ok, and you’re done.
What is the Difference Between an Alias and a User?
You may be wondering, how are email users and email aliases different? An email alias is an account that can be used to have emails forwarded to an existing email address. It does not have its own inbox, or storage, meaning that messages will be forwarded to the primary email account and stored on the main account server.
In other words, you can fully use your real email address, while the alias is just a connected email that is used for forwarding emails.
How Do Domain Aliases and Email Aliases Differ?
In addition to aliases for emails, you can also set up aliases for your domains. In this case, the alias comes after, rather than before the @ sign. For example, if you have two companies, a domain alias can be very useful for receiving emails from both companies into the same inbox, helping you manage your communications more effectively.
Wrapping up
You’ve probably sent emails to numerous alias addresses without even knowing it in the past. Now that you know how useful they can be for any kind of business, you can consider them as a useful addition to your email marketing tool stack.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the better solution, an alias email or a new email address?
It depends. If all you want to do is forward emails and not use an address for outbound emails, then an alias email is the better choice. However, if you want to send out new emails, then a new email is the better alternative.
Can anyone create an alias email?
Yes, as you can see from above, most email service providers offer this option. However, you will most likely have to pay for it.
What can I use as my alias email?
Any email that you want on your own domain. Your primary and alias emails don’t have to be similar in any way. For example, you can set up an alias raccoon@domain.com to your main email janesmith@domain.com.
