Business Email Address Format: The Right Way to Write It

A business email address looks simple, but the format rules out a surprising number of mistakes. This guide covers the structure, common errors, naming conventions for teams, and how foreign-trade companies should pick a prefix.

The basic structure

localpart@subdomain.domain.tld

• localpart: the mailbox name, e.g. sales, john.doe, info
• @: separator, always required
• subdomain.domain.tld: your registered domain, e.g. company.com or mail.company.com

The whole address is case-insensitive in practice — Sales@company.com and sales@company.com are delivered to the same mailbox — but using lowercase is universal convention. Mixed-case addresses work technically but break some old address books and auto-complete fields.

What's allowed in the localpart

Rules per RFC 5321/5322:

• Letters a-z, digits 0-9
• Dots ., hyphens -, underscores _
• Dots can't be first or last, and can't appear consecutively (john..doe@ is invalid)
• Maximum 64 characters
• Special characters like + and % work but are uncommon; some providers strip or reject them

Common format mistakes

• john.doe.@company.com — trailing dot is invalid
• john..doe@company.com — consecutive dots are invalid
• John Doe@company.com — spaces are not allowed
• john-doe@companycom — missing the dot in the domain
• @company.com — empty localpart
• Over 64 characters in the localpart

If you're collecting addresses from customers, validate at submission time. The cheapest correct check is a regex on the structure; the most reliable check is sending a verification message with a confirmation link.

Naming conventions for teams

For a company with multiple people, pick one convention and stick to it. The most common patterns:

Pattern	Example	Best for
first.last	john.doe@	General use, scales well
firstinitial lastname	jdoe@	Short, common in large companies
first	john@	Small teams, informal
role	sales@, support@, info@	Shared inboxes, doesn't tie to a person
department.role	sales.jane@	Larger orgs with departments

Avoid patterns that change when someone leaves — john.doe@ becomes useless when John leaves, but sales@ stays valid forever. For external-facing roles, use role addresses; for individuals, use name-based.

Foreign-trade email prefixes

For companies dealing with overseas customers, the prefix is the first thing a buyer sees. Some guidance:

• Use a real name, not a role: jane@company.com reads as more trustworthy than sales@company.com to a buyer who's been scammed before. Pair with a signature that includes a photo and WhatsApp number
• Keep it short and easy to spell: buyers will type it into WhatsApp, Skype, and their phone. jane.wong@ is fine; jane.wong.intl.sales@ is not
• Avoid numbers and underscores: jane123@ and jane_wong@ look unprofessional to Western buyers
• One address per person, not per inquiry: don't rotate addresses like sales-2024-q3@. You lose history and confuse CRM systems
• Use a role address as a fallback: info@ as a catch-all listed on your website, but have a real person reply from their named address

Subdomains for separating functions

A common pattern is to put different sending streams on different subdomains:

• notify.company.com — transactional mail (password resets, OTP codes)
• news.company.com — marketing newsletters
• company.com — person-to-person business email

This separation protects reputation. If your newsletter gets a spam complaint, the daily person-to-person mail from company.com is unaffected because the domains are evaluated independently by inbox providers.

Setting up an address in Rovela

In the dashboard: Mailboxes → New mailbox. Choose the domain, type the localpart, and assign it to an owner or shared inbox. No DNS changes are needed once the domain is already added — the MX and DKIM records are managed automatically.

For shared role addresses like sales@, create the mailbox as a shared inbox and grant access to the team members who should be able to read and reply.