Email plays a big role in your online business – you use it to connect with clients, confirm appointments, send newsletters, offer customer support, and a lot of other things. If you’re like me, sending emails is a huge part of your day. That’s why it’s important to be as efficient as possible when handling emails. In this article, I’ll show you how to get multiple email addresses from one email account – and why that will be helpful to your business!
Organizing Your Emails
One way to be more efficient with managing your email is to have multiple email addresses. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but it’s a great way to organize your incoming messages. However, I’m not suggesting creating separate accounts for each purpose – that can be a hassle.
Fortunately, there’s a simple trick that makes things easier: it’s called plus email addressing (also called sub-addressing). It allows you to create customized versions of your main email address without setting up any new email accounts. This can help you stay more organized, improve workflow, test your website easily, and even track where your leads and spam are coming from.
What is “Plus Email Addressing”?
Plus email addressing is a simple trick that lets you create custom variations of your email address by adding a “+” and a keyword right before the “@” symbol.
Let’s say your regular email is john@gmail.com. You can use versions like:
- john+test@gmail.com – for testing contact forms
- john+amazon@gmail.com – for purchases made on amazon
- john+newsletters@gmail.com – for newsletter sign-ups when you opt in to other people’s email list
The best part? All of these still go to your regular inbox – john@gmail.com. You’re not creating new email accounts; you’re just customizing the address you already have.
It’s a quick way to sort, track, and manage your emails without adding any extra complexity.
How “Plus Email Addressing” Can Help Your Business
1) Test Forms More Effectively
When setting up contact forms, appointment schedulers, or email sign-ups, you need to test if they work properly. Instead of creating a new email account, just use a plus address like john+test@gmail.com to send yourself test emails.
2) Keep Your Inbox Organized
Running a business means receiving emails from customers/clients, signing up for newsletters, and participating in marketing campaigns. Plus email addressing helps you organize these emails automatically. You can use variations of your primary email (+test, +newsletters, +shopping, etc). Then, you can set up email filters to label or move these emails into folders for easy sorting.
3) Track Where Emails Come From
Want to know which of your marketing efforts are bringing in the most leads? Use different plus addresses for different campaigns:
- john+test@gmail.com (for Testing your own opt in forms )
- john+ads@gmail.com (for tracking ads you might run)
- john+newsletter@gmail.com (for signing up for other people’s email list)
By checking which email receives the most messages, you can see which platform is driving more traffic to your business.
4) Reduce Spam and Junk Emails
Have you ever signed up for something and started getting tons of spam emails? With plus addressing, you can track where spam is coming from. If you start getting unwanted messages at john+companyname@example.com, you’ll know which company sold your email or added you to a spam list. Then, you can easily filter or block those emails. So swap out “companyname” to “bestbuy” or “target” to know where the email originally came from.
Common Email Services That Support “Plus Addressing”
Many popular services have the plus addressing feature, including Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, Apple Mail, and ProtonMail. If you use one of these, you can start using plus addresses right away.
Gmail and Google Workspace (formerly G Suite): Fully supports it. You can use yourname+anything@gmail.com, and it will go to yourname@gmail.com.
Outlook.com / Microsoft 365: Supports it, but you must enable it in your account settings.
Yahoo Mail: Does not support traditional + sub-addressing, but offers “disposable addresses” as an alternative.
iCloud Mail: Does not support traditional + sub-addressing, but offers “Hide My Email” as an alternative.
ProtonMail: Supports Plus Addressing and more.
Self-hosted email (e.g., with cPanel or custom domains): Depends on your email server and settings. Many support it if configured properly.
Situations Where It Might Not Work
Some email forms or websites reject email addresses that contain a + sign, even though they’re valid. If you’re using business email through a hosting provider, plus addressing may not work unless they’ve enabled it in their mail server settings.
Video to Help Explain How Plus Addressing Improves Email Filtering
A Few Extra Email Tips
1 ) Use a Branded Business Email
While plus email addressing is great for organizing and testing, it’s still important to have a branded, professional business email for your customers. Instead of yourbusiness@gmail.com, consider using yourname@yourbusiness.com with your domain name.
2) Set Up Email Filters
Most email services let you create filters to automatically label, move, or sort emails based on the address they were sent to. This is especially helpful if you get a lot of inquiries or orders.
3) Test Your Website’s Email Deliverability
If customers fill out a form on your website, their messages should arrive in your inbox. Use plus addressing to test if emails are coming through properly and not going to spam.
If you struggle with keeping up with all your emails, check out my 4 simple solutions to manage email overwhelm.
Final Thoughts
When you’re running a business, your inbox isn’t just for messages. It serves as a central hub for customer support, sales leads, marketing, and daily operations. The way you manage your email can make a big difference in your productivity and professionalism.
That’s why plus email addressing is such a fantastic tool. It gives you the flexibility of having multiple email addresses without the headache of managing multiple accounts. This simple trick can help you work smarter and stay focused on what matters most – serving your clients and growing your business.
Try using plus email addressing today and see how much easier it can make your day-to-day communication.
