What are the best practices and top local domains for email sending in Turkey and Romania?
Matthew Whittaker
Co-founder & CTO, Suped
Published 26 Jul 2025
Updated 16 Aug 2025
7 min read
Email deliverability can be a complex landscape, and navigating it in specific regions like Turkey and Romania adds unique challenges. While fundamental best practices apply globally, understanding local nuances, dominant email providers, and cultural expectations is crucial for ensuring your messages consistently reach the inbox.
My goal is to shed light on what it takes to achieve high inbox placement rates when sending to recipients in these countries. It's not just about avoiding spam folders, but about building and maintaining a strong sender reputation that resonates with local internet service providers (ISPs) and their filtering algorithms.
Ignoring these regional specifics can lead to significant deliverability issues, including messages being blocklisted (or blacklisted), throttled, or redirected to spam. I'll outline the strategies that can help you succeed in these vibrant markets.
Understanding the local email landscape
While specific, publicly available lists of top local domains or postmaster guidelines for Turkey and Romania are not always as prominent as for global providers, the general principles of deliverability still apply. Both countries have a mix of international providers like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook.com, alongside domestic email services and telecommunication providers. These local entities often have their own specific filtering rules and infrastructure, which may not be as transparent as larger global players.
For Turkey (or Türkiye, as officially requested), common domains include those provided by major telecommunication companies or internet service providers, as well as corporate email systems. In Romania, similar patterns exist, with local ISPs and national telecom operators playing a significant role in email traffic.
The key is to focus on foundational email practices that are universally accepted while paying close attention to recipient engagement and bounce rates from specific local domains. This proactive monitoring helps identify potential issues before they escalate.
Regardless of the specific country, fundamental email sending best practices form the backbone of good deliverability. These practices are universal and become even more critical when trying to build trust with diverse local networks. Ensuring your email list is clean and regularly updated is paramount. High bounce rates, especially hard bounces, signal a poor list quality and can quickly damage your sender reputation, leading to blocklisting or throttling.
Content relevance and engagement are also key. Emails that consistently receive high engagement (opens, clicks, replies) and low complaint rates are favored by email providers. Conversely, low engagement or high spam complaints can trigger filters. This is particularly important for local audiences, who might be more sensitive to irrelevant or poorly targeted content.
My advice is to always provide a clear and easy unsubscribe option. This not only complies with regulations like GDPR, which are relevant in Romania as an EU member, but also helps manage your list health by allowing disengaged users to opt-out gracefully, rather than marking your emails as spam. This contributes to a positive domain reputation.
Content customization
Local language: Translate your email content into Turkish and Romanian to enhance engagement and relevance.
Cultural sensitivity: Adapt your messaging and offers to align with local customs and preferences.
Domain strategy and authentication
Strong email authentication is non-negotiable for deliverability in any region, including Turkey and Romania. Implementing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is crucial for proving your legitimacy as a sender and preventing spoofing or phishing attacks that could damage your reputation. These protocols tell receiving servers that your emails are indeed from your domain and have not been tampered with.
I always recommend using distinct subdomains for different email streams, such as marketing.yourdomain.com for promotional emails and transactional.yourdomain.com for transactional messages. This compartmentalizes your sender reputation, so if one type of email experiences issues (e.g., a marketing campaign gets spam complaints), it doesn't negatively impact the deliverability of your critical transactional emails. This is a crucial aspect of email domain authentication.
A robust DMARC policy is key. It provides instructions to receiving mail servers on how to handle emails that fail SPF or DKIM authentication checks and sends you reports on these failures. Monitoring these DMARC reports from Google and Yahoo (and other providers) allows you to gain visibility into your email ecosystem and identify sources of unauthorized email. This proactive approach helps prevent your legitimate emails from being mistaken for spam.
Misconfigured records: Incorrect SPF or DKIM records can lead to authentication failures.
Alignment issues: DMARC requires SPF or DKIM to align with the From domain. This is essential for preventing email spoofing and ensuring that your messages are delivered to the recipient's inbox, not their spam folder. You can learn more about optimal ways to deploy SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
Navigating local domains and ISPs
While there isn't a widely publicized list of top local domains for email sending in Turkey and Romania in the same way we might identify Google or Microsoft globally, the general approach to dealing with various ISPs remains consistent. Focus on monitoring your deliverability rates to different domains and proactively address any emerging issues. Larger local telecom companies often operate their own mail servers and may have unique filtering policies.
One strategy is to segment your email lists by domain. This allows you to identify if a particular local domain is causing high bounce rates or low engagement, which might indicate specific filtering challenges. Once identified, you can investigate further, perhaps by reaching out to their postmaster (if publicly available) or adjusting your sending patterns to that specific domain. This method allows for targeted troubleshooting rather than a blanket approach.
For both Turkey and Romania, it's beneficial to prioritize legitimate opt-in practices to build a strong sender reputation from the outset. ISPs, whether local or global, are increasingly sensitive to unsolicited email. Always respect user preferences and provide clear value in your communications. This foundational respect for the recipient is key to long-term deliverability success.
Aspect
General best practice
Local considerations (Turkey & Romania)
Domain type
Use subdomains for different email types (e.g., marketing, transactional).
Consider using .tr or .ro ccTLDs for enhanced local trust. Utilize specific subdomains for regional campaigns. Dedicated email domains or IPs can improve deliverability.
Authentication
Implement robust SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records.
Ensure full compliance with Google and Yahoo's new requirements for sender authentication, as these global providers are dominant in both regions.
List hygiene
Regularly clean lists, remove invalid addresses, and manage unsubscribes gracefully.
Pay close attention to bounce rates and engagement metrics specifically from Turkish and Romanian domains. Segment lists by region.
Views from the trenches
Best practices
Ensure all your email authentication protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) are correctly configured and monitored, as this is universally critical.
Segment your email lists by country to analyze deliverability metrics for Turkey and Romania separately.
Use clear, concise, and localized subject lines and email content.
Common pitfalls
Ignoring local anti-spam legislation and data privacy laws, which can lead to compliance issues and deliverability penalties.
Sending to unengaged subscribers, resulting in high spam complaint rates and damage to sender reputation.
Failing to monitor DMARC reports for authentication failures that indicate spoofing or misconfigurations.
Expert tips
Proactively engage with local ISPs if you notice consistent deliverability issues, as some may offer specific guidance or whitelisting processes.
Consider engaging local deliverability consultants or partners who have direct experience with the specific nuances of these markets.
Regularly test your email placement using tools that provide insights into inbox delivery rates within Turkey and Romania.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks says they found their Romanian team had no specific insights to offer on local email delivery nuances, suggesting that broad best practices are often the focus.
2023-01-25 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks says that while there aren't many unique best practices for Romania and Turkey, maintaining good list hygiene and proper authentication are crucial everywhere.
2023-02-10 - Email Geeks
Final thoughts on sending to Turkey and Romania
Achieving optimal email deliverability in Turkey and Romania, like any international market, hinges on a combination of universal best practices and an awareness of regional dynamics. While specific local domains may not publish detailed guidelines, consistent adherence to authentication standards, list hygiene, and engagement strategies will always be your strongest allies.
By focusing on these core principles and proactively monitoring your email performance in these regions, you can build and maintain the sender reputation needed to consistently reach inboxes and foster successful communication with your audience.
Gmail, 
Yahoo, and 
Outlook.com, alongside domestic email services and telecommunication providers. These local entities often have their own specific filtering rules and infrastructure, which may not be as transparent as larger global players.
Google or 
Microsoft globally, the general approach to dealing with various ISPs remains consistent. Focus on monitoring your deliverability rates to different domains and proactively address any emerging issues. Larger local telecom companies often operate their own mail servers and may have unique filtering policies.
