Summary
The decision to use a subdomain or an entirely separate domain for marketing emails and cold outreach is critical for email deliverability. Sending all email types from a single root domain, especially cold outreach, can severely damage your primary domain's reputation, leading to lower inbox placement and increased spam classifications. This summary explores the benefits of segregating email traffic, the implications for domain reputation, and best practices for warming up new sending domains.
Key findings
- Reputation isolation: Using separate domains or subdomains for different email streams (corporate, marketing, transactional, cold outreach) helps isolate reputation risks. This prevents the poor performance of one stream, like cold outreach, from negatively impacting the deliverability of essential emails sent from your primary domain.
- Cold outreach impact: Cold email strategies often result in higher complaint rates, bounces, and spam trap hits. Sending these from your root domain will inevitably tank its reputation, affecting all other email communications. It's often recommended to use entirely separate domains (cousin domains) for cold outreach.
- Subdomain benefits: For marketing and transactional emails, subdomains can be a good compromise. They allow you to protect the main domain while still benefiting from some brand association. However, a severely damaged root domain reputation can still trickle down and affect its subdomains.
- Warmup necessity: Any new domain or subdomain used for sending emails, especially with significant volume, requires a careful warming process to build a positive sender reputation with internet service providers (ISPs). This involves gradually increasing sending volume over time.
Key considerations
- Auditing current reputation: Before making changes, assess your current root domain's reputation. Tools and methods exist to help you understand if your current sending practices are causing issues, such as high bounce rates or emails landing in spam folders.
- Strategic separation: Consider a clear strategy for separating email types. For example, use separate subdomains for transactional and marketing emails, and completely separate domains for cold outreach.
- Dedicated IP vs. Shared IP: For high-volume sending, consider dedicated IPs, ensuring you can meet the volume requirements to sustain their reputation. For cold emails, relying on shared IPs of reputable providers (like O365 or Google Workspace) might be more effective to avoid immediate blocklisting.
- Warming up new domains/subdomains: Implement a gradual warming schedule when transitioning to a new sending domain or subdomain. This helps ISPs recognize your sending patterns as legitimate, preventing your emails from being flagged as spam. More information on this can be found in Dripify's guide on using separate domains for cold email outreach.
What email marketers say
Email marketers frequently debate the optimal domain strategy for different email campaigns. Many emphasize the need to protect their primary brand domain, especially when engaging in aggressive cold outreach or high-volume marketing. The consensus leans towards segregating email types to safeguard sender reputation and maintain high inbox placement rates for crucial communications.
Key opinions
- Risk mitigation: Marketers frequently express concern that cold emailing from the root domain can severely damage its reputation. This damage can then lead to core business emails, such as corporate communications, landing in spam folders.
- Subdomain for marketing: There's a strong inclination towards using subdomains for marketing emails to isolate potential negative impacts while still maintaining some brand connection. This helps in managing deliverability risks for promotional content.
- Dedicated cold outreach domains: For cold outreach, the prevailing view is to use entirely separate, often disposable, domains (sometimes called 'cousin domains') to absorb the high risk of blocklisting and reputation damage. This ensures the main brand is unaffected.
- Warmup protocol: Marketers consistently advise warming up any new IP or domain/subdomain used for sending emails, regardless of the email type, to build a positive sending history with mail service providers.
Key considerations
- Current reputation assessment: It is crucial to first determine the current standing of your root domain. If you are experiencing issues like emails going to spam or low open rates from sales teams, it indicates a compromised reputation that needs immediate attention.
- Bounce rate analysis: Regularly reviewing hard bounce reports and understanding the bounce codes can provide vital clues about list hygiene and potential deliverability problems, which may stem from a poor sender reputation. This can also indicate issues with the reasons why your emails are going to spam.
- Dedicated IP sustainability: If considering a dedicated IP for marketing or warm sales emails, ensure your sending volume is sufficient to maintain a healthy reputation on that IP. Insufficient volume can lead to inconsistent sending patterns, negatively impacting deliverability.
- Immediate action for cold outreach: If cold emailing from your root domain, cease immediately. Transition these activities to a separate, isolated domain. HubSpot's community forum discusses how even subdomains can hurt the main domain regarding email reputation from cold strategies.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks suggests separating all email types. They currently send marketing, warm sales, and cold sales emails from their root domain, which they understand is poor practice. They are setting up new domains for cold sales but are unsure if a subdomain for marketing would improve inbox placement, especially since their root domain's reputation might be damaged.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks states they moved from a shared IP to a dedicated IP for Pardot earlier in the year, which offered some improvement. They wonder if using a subdomain would further enhance their inbox placement, considering their root domain's potentially poor reputation from years of misuse.
What the experts say
Email deliverability experts strongly advocate for domain separation based on email type. They highlight the severe consequences of mixing high-risk cold outreach with legitimate corporate or marketing communications on the same domain. The focus is on isolating negative reputation impacts and strategically managing IP addresses to ensure optimal inbox placement across all sending streams.
Key opinions
- Cold email risks: Experts universally agree that cold email strategies, due to their inherent nature, will negatively impact any domain's reputation, whether it's a subdomain or a root domain. It is therefore crucial to isolate these activities.
- Structured domain hierarchy: A recommended setup includes using the root domain for corporate emails, a marketing subdomain for promotional content, a transactional subdomain for automated messages, and an entirely separate, unrelated domain for cold outreach.
- Root reputation trickle-down: If the root domain's reputation is severely damaged, it can negatively affect the deliverability of emails sent from its subdomains, even if those subdomains are well-managed. This underscores the importance of maintaining a healthy root domain.
- IP strategy for cold emails: Using a dedicated IP for cold emails can lead to IP blocklisting, as recipients have no incentive not to block unknown IPs associated with unsolicited mail. Many cold email products use shared IPs from reputable providers like O365 or Google Workspace to avoid this issue.
Key considerations
- Immediate cessation of cold outreach on root: Experts emphasize that any cold emailing from the root domain should be stopped immediately to prevent further damage to its reputation. This is the first critical step in a domain recovery strategy.
- Dedicated IP volume requirements: When using dedicated IPs for marketing or warm sales emails, it's essential to understand and sustain the required sending volume. Failure to do so can hinder positive IP reputation development. For more, see our article on sending marketing and transactional emails from separate IPs or subdomains.
- Understanding bounce reports: Thorough analysis of hard bounce reports, including specific bounce codes, is crucial. This helps identify underlying issues with email lists or recipient server configurations that may be contributing to poor deliverability.
- Strategic domain warming: A structured and gradual warmup process is consistently recommended for all new domains or subdomains, along with new IP addresses, to build a positive sending reputation with ISPs and ensure consistent inbox delivery.
Expert view
Email expert from Email Geeks states that any cold email strategy will ultimately damage the reputation of any domain, whether it's a subdomain, root domain, or even a 'cousin' domain. This highlights the inherent risk associated with cold outreach and the need for isolation.
Expert view
Email expert from Email Geeks recommends a segmented domain strategy: the root domain for corporate emails, a marketing subdomain for promotional content, a transactional subdomain for automated messages, and a separate 'cousin' domain for cold emails, if absolutely necessary.
What the documentation says
Official documentation and technical guides consistently emphasize the importance of reputation management in email deliverability. They often recommend isolating high-volume or high-risk email streams to prevent negative impacts on a primary domain. The underlying principle is to ensure that different email types do not jeopardize each other's ability to reach the inbox, leveraging domain hierarchy and authentication protocols.
Key findings
- Domain reputation and age: Subdomains inherit the age and some reputation of the main domain, which can be an advantage as newer domains are often viewed with suspicion by email providers.
- Email stream control: Using separate subdomains for different email types (promotional, outreach, transactional) allows for better control and monitoring over each stream's deliverability and performance.
- Protection against blocklists: Separating email traffic helps prevent the entire domain from being blocklisted if one stream, particularly cold outreach, experiences deliverability issues or is flagged for spam. This protects the core business email flow.
- Customization and control: Subdomains offer full control over configuration, including setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records, which are crucial for email authentication and deliverability. For more information, see our guide on a simple guide to DMARC, SPF, and DKIM.
Key considerations
- Brand consistency: While subdomains offer protection, they still maintain a strong association with the main brand. This can be beneficial for marketing but requires careful management to ensure consistent branding and messaging.
- Reputation inheritance: Understand that a subdomain may inherit some of the reputation, good or bad, from its parent domain. Therefore, maintaining a healthy root domain reputation is paramount. To learn more, check out our article on how long it takes to recover domain reputation.
- Monitoring and analytics: Effective monitoring of deliverability metrics for each subdomain or separate domain is crucial. This includes tracking open rates, bounce rates, and spam complaints to quickly identify and address issues.
- Authentication setup: Each new sending domain or subdomain requires proper setup of email authentication records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) to ensure emails are verified and trusted by recipient servers. This is a fundamental step for improved deliverability.
Technical article
Documentation from Sopro states that a subdomain inherits the age and reputation of its main domain. This is a crucial factor because many email providers view newer domains with suspicion, making an aged subdomain more trustworthy from the outset.
Technical article
Documentation from EmailLabs explains that separate subdomains can be effectively used for promotional, outreach, and transactional emails. This segregation grants senders superior control over the deliverability and performance of each distinct communication type.
Related resources
8 resources
Related pages
Should I use a subdomain or separate domain for prospecting outreach emails to protect my sender reputation?
What are the pros and cons of using the same domain or subdomain for both cold outreach and regular email sending?
Should I move promotional email campaigns to a dedicated subdomain?
Should I use separate IPs or domains for transactional vs marketing emails?
Should transactional and marketing emails be sent from separate domains or subdomains?
Why use subdomains for email marketing deliverability?
How long does it take to recover domain reputation from bad/low to high
What happens when your domain is on an email blacklist?
A simple guide to DMARC, SPF, and DKIM
Should I use a new subdomain to warm up old contacts?
