How can I segment my sales team's email sending from the main domain?

The primary way to protect your main domain is by setting up your sales team to send emails from a dedicated subdomain or an entirely separate domain. This isolates their sending practices, so any negative impact from aggressive outreach does not affect your core domain's reputation.

Is email authentication important for sales emails sent from a separate subdomain?

Yes, proper email authentication (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC) is crucial for all domains, including those used by sales. It verifies your emails are legitimate and helps prevent spoofing, which in turn protects your sender reputation.

What are the key indicators that my sales team's email practices are negatively affecting domain reputation?

High bounce rates, frequent spam complaints, and low engagement (opens and clicks) are major red flags. Regularly monitor these metrics through your email service provider or tools like Google Postmaster Tools.

How can I improve the quality of sales email lists and content?

Focus on list hygiene by regularly cleaning lists to remove invalid addresses, and encourage the use of double opt-in. Also, ensure sales content is personalized and avoids spammy keywords to improve engagement and reduce complaints.

What role do policies and monitoring play in preventing negative domain impact?

It is advisable to establish clear, enforceable policies for sales email volume and content, and ensure management understands the importance of these guidelines for overall company deliverability. Proactive monitoring of blocklists and deliverability metrics helps catch issues early.

How can I prevent my sales team's email practices from negatively impacting my domain reputation? - Sender reputation - Email deliverability - Knowledge base

Managing domain reputation is a critical task for anyone involved in email, and it becomes even more complex when sales teams are involved. Their rapid, high-volume outreach, especially cold emails, can easily jeopardize a carefully built sender reputation. I’ve seen firsthand how aggressive sales tactics can lead to increased spam complaints, higher bounce rates, and ultimately, a damaged domain reputation that impacts the entire organization's email deliverability.

When marketing teams carefully nurture their sender reputation, it’s frustrating to see sales practices unintentionally undermine those efforts. My concern usually centers around maintaining email deliverability for all corporate communications, not just marketing sends. The challenge intensifies when sales moves to a new system with different IPs, yet still operates under the same primary domain. This shift often means less control over their sending behavior, increasing the risk of being blocklisted (or blacklisted) and negatively affecting the domain’s health across the board.

The key is to implement strategies that allow sales teams to conduct their outreach effectively while protecting the core domain’s reputation. This involves a combination of technical configurations, clear policy enforcement, and continuous monitoring. Let's explore how to navigate this challenge.

Domain separation and dedicated sending

One of the most effective ways to shield your primary domain is to separate sales outreach traffic from your main marketing and transactional emails. This means using distinct subdomains or even entirely separate domains for your sales team. By isolating this traffic, any negative impact from aggressive sales practices, such as high spam complaint rates or bounces, will be contained within that specific subdomain or domain, rather than affecting your core brand identity.

For sales teams heavily involved in cold outreach, using a separate domain is often the safest bet. This provides a clear demarcation, ensuring that even if a domain takes a hit and ends up on a major blocklist or blacklist, your primary business communications remain unaffected. While using a subdomain is a good step, an entirely separate domain offers maximum isolation and protection for your core business domain.

Shared domain risks

Centralized reputation: All email activity impacts one shared domain reputation.
High impact: Aggressive sales tactics can quickly damage overall deliverability.
Brand perception: Negative sending practices from sales can harm your brand.

Dedicated subdomain benefits

Reputation isolation: Sales email reputation is separate from marketing.
Reduced risk: Protects core business email deliverability.
Improved control: Allows for targeted management of sales sending practices.

Strong email authentication

No matter which domain or subdomain your sales team uses, robust email authentication is non-negotiable. This includes Sender Policy Framework (SPF), DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC).

Properly configured authentication records tell mailbox providers that your emails are legitimate and prevent spoofing. If your sales team is on a separate subdomain, ensure it has its own unique DKIM key and is correctly configured for SPF. DMARC, built upon SPF and DKIM, gives you control over what happens to unauthenticated emails and provides valuable reports on your sending activity. You can learn more about these in our simple guide to DMARC, SPF, and DKIM.

Example DMARC record (p=none)DNS

v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc_reports@yourdomain.com; ruf=mailto:dmarc_forensic@yourdomain.com; fo=1;

Implementing DMARC with a p=none policy initially allows you to monitor your email streams without affecting deliverability. Over time, as you gain confidence in your sales team's sending practices and authentication setup, you can move towards a quarantine or reject policy, which actively protects your domain from unauthorized use. This phased approach is crucial for minimizing risks while enhancing security.

List quality and sending volume

Sales teams often rely on purchased or outdated email lists, which are a major red flag for mailbox providers. These lists can contain spam traps, invalid addresses, and disengaged recipients, leading to high bounce rates and spam complaints. It's critical to emphasize the importance of list hygiene. Regularly cleaning email lists to remove inactive or invalid addresses helps maintain a healthy sender reputation. High bounce rates are a significant negative signal that impacts your email domain reputation.

Encourage the use of double opt-in for any new leads when possible, ensuring that recipients genuinely want to receive communications. This practice significantly reduces spam complaints and builds a more engaged audience. Additionally, advise sales to avoid sending large volumes of emails to cold contacts too quickly. A sudden spike in sending volume, particularly to unengaged recipients, can trigger spam filters and lead to blacklisting or blocklisting.

When sales teams are sending a high volume of emails, especially cold outreach, it's important to monitor their sending behavior closely. Implementing a domain warming plan for new sales domains or subdomains can help establish a positive sending history. This involves gradually increasing email volume over time, mimicking natural sending patterns. This practice signals to email providers that your sending practices are legitimate and helps optimize your sender reputation. Our article on improving B2B sales email deliverability provides further strategies.

The problem

Sales teams often prioritize reach over engagement, leading to practices that can harm domain reputation. This includes rapid, large-volume sends to unverified lists, resulting in high bounce and complaint rates. Such practices directly impact the trust signals email providers use to assess sender credibility, pushing emails to spam folders or leading to blocklisting (or blacklisting).

Sending to purchased lists: Often includes spam traps and inactive addresses.
High volume, low engagement: Emails deleted unread or marked as spam.
Lack of authentication: Leaves domain vulnerable to abuse and misidentification.

The solution

Implementing clear guidelines and technical safeguards can mitigate risks. This includes proper domain setup, strict list hygiene protocols, and adherence to email best practices. Educating sales teams on the impact of their sending habits is also crucial for fostering a culture of deliverability responsibility, leading to better outcomes for everyone involved.

Domain strategy: Separate sales emails onto a dedicated subdomain.
List hygiene: Regularly clean lists and use double opt-in processes.
Content quality: Focus on relevant content with clear calls to action.

Content quality and engagement metrics

Content quality also plays a significant role in domain reputation. Emails with overly promotional language, excessive images, or malformed HTML can trigger spam filters, regardless of authentication. Work with your sales team to craft clear, concise, and personalized emails that avoid spammy keywords and deceptive practices. The content of your messages is analyzed by both spam filters and sender reputation systems. Even legitimate sales outreach can suffer if the content resembles spam.

Engagement metrics are a powerful indicator of your domain’s health. Low open rates, low click-through rates, and high rates of emails being deleted unread can negatively affect your email domain reputation, as can high unsubscribe rates. These signals tell mailbox providers that recipients aren't interested in your emails, which can lead to poorer inbox placement. Conversely, positive engagement like opens and replies improves your reputation.

Monitor your team's campaigns closely. If you observe low engagement or high complaints, adjust your strategy immediately. This might involve refining targeting, improving content, or adjusting sending frequency. Tools like Google Postmaster Tools can provide valuable insights into your domain's performance, including spam rates and reputation. Our guide to improving email reputation offers more comprehensive steps.

Metric	Impact on reputation	Action for sales
Bounce rate	High rates signal poor list quality, damaging trust with providers.	Regularly clean lists, verify emails before sending.
Spam complaints	Directly impacts sender score and can lead to blocklisting.	Improve targeting, personalize content, offer easy unsubscribe.
Engagement (opens/clicks)	Low engagement signals irrelevance, leading to spam folder delivery.	Segment lists, create compelling subject lines and content.

Policy enforcement and continuous monitoring

Even with technical safeguards, effective policies and consistent enforcement are vital. Establish clear guidelines for your sales team regarding email volume, targeting, content, and list acquisition. Ensure management understands the potential impact of unchecked email practices on the entire company’s email communication and is committed to enforcing these policies.

Without management buy-in, even the best policies can falter. It's important to demonstrate the business consequences of poor domain reputation, such as lost leads, missed communications, and increased IT support costs. Emphasize that a damaged domain reputation follows you, even if you switch email service providers or sender addresses. This shared understanding can foster a more responsible approach to email sending.

Continuous monitoring of your domain and IP reputation is essential. Regularly check major blocklists (or blacklists) to see if your domain or sales-specific IPs have been listed. Use tools that provide insights into your deliverability rates and potential issues. This proactive approach allows you to detect problems early and take corrective action before they escalate, preventing widespread deliverability issues. Our guide to understanding email domain reputation offers more details.

Views from the trenches

Best practices

Establish clear, enforceable guidelines for sales email volume and content, ensuring management is on board with their implementation.

Always use a dedicated subdomain or a completely separate domain for sales outbound and cold email campaigns.

Common pitfalls

Sending high volumes of emails too quickly, especially to unverified or cold lists, without warming up the domain or IP.

Using purchased or outdated email lists that contain spam traps, leading to high bounce rates and spam complaints.

Expert tips

"If your sales team uses a plugin or system for mass outbound contacts, they may be spamming, which can result in domain blocks by Google or recipient companies. A separate GSuite account and domain for sales outreach mail is often necessary. If you’re blocked by a recipient company, getting mail to them again is almost impossible."

"Outbound acquisition efforts of any scale can severely damage your email program's foundation. It's crucial to alert leadership about potential damage and convince them to proactively manage and silo these acquisition efforts."

Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks says that it depends on the sophistication and aggression of the sales team’s operation. They advise clients to put sales teams on their own subdomain with separate DKIM keys.

2022-04-04 - Email Geeks

Marketer view

Marketer from Email Geeks says that if sales is doing any cold outreach, they should be on their own domain, as overly aggressive sales teams can break domain reputation at B2B filters.

2022-04-04 - Email Geeks

Safeguarding your domain's reputation

Protecting your domain reputation from your sales team's email practices requires a multi-faceted approach. It's not just about technical configurations, but also about education, policy, and continuous monitoring. By implementing domain separation, ensuring strong email authentication, prioritizing list hygiene, monitoring sending volume and engagement, and enforcing clear policies, you can significantly mitigate the risks.

Remember, proactive management and open communication with your sales team are key. A healthy domain reputation benefits everyone in the organization, ensuring that all important communications reach their intended recipients.