Should I move promotional email campaigns to a dedicated subdomain?
Summary
What email marketers say9Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Email on Acid explains that using a separate subdomain is a strategic move for protecting sender reputation, especially when promotional campaigns may have higher bounce or complaint rates. This keeps the main domain's reputation intact for transactional emails.
Email marketer from Litmus responds that using a separate subdomain allows for more precise monitoring of deliverability metrics specific to promotional campaigns. This helps identify and address any issues without affecting other email streams.
Email marketer from Gmass shares that by using a subdomain, you can better isolate and optimize open rates for promotional emails, potentially improving overall engagement and deliverability over time.
Email marketer from Sendinblue answers that implementing a separate subdomain for promotional emails protects your main domain's sender reputation, ensuring critical communications like password resets are delivered reliably.
Email marketer from StackExchange shares that a dedicated subdomain allows you to maintain brand consistency while clearly differentiating promotional content from other types of communication. This can improve user trust and recognition.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that when moving to a new subdomain, it's essential to warm up the IP address associated with it. This involves gradually increasing the volume of emails sent to build a positive reputation with ISPs.
Email marketer from Mailjet explains that using a dedicated subdomain allows you to isolate the reputation of your promotional emails. If your promotional emails have lower engagement rates, they won't negatively impact the deliverability of your transactional emails sent from your main domain.
Email marketer from Email Geeks explains that volume counts for something and you don't want to remove the promotional volume if your transactional volume can't stand on its own.
Email marketer from HubSpot responds that segmenting promotional emails to a subdomain helps avoid hurting your overall sender reputation, especially if those promotional emails are more likely to lead to spam complaints or bounces.
What the experts say5Expert opinions
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that a well-managed subdomain can protect your primary domain’s reputation. If promotional mail practices affect deliverability, the impact will be contained, preventing essential transactional emails from being affected.
Expert from Word to the Wise shares that If the sending volume for your promotional emails is substantial, moving to a dedicated subdomain requires an IP warmup strategy. A gradual increase prevents sudden volume spikes that may damage reputation.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that a 15-35% open rate suggests mail is going to the inbox and that the promotional mail is being delivered fine, and deliverability is not an issue. The expert also notes that the mail may not be as compelling as other content, resulting in slightly lower open rates, but they are still high enough that it's unlikely to hurt reputation.
Expert from Email Geeks suggests doing some inbox testing with seed lists to confirm mail is currently going to the inbox. They also mention testing deliverability across subdomains, but doesn’t see a strong reason to do so based on the information provided.
Expert from Email Geeks suggests to check acquisition or lifecycle metrics to ensure a fair comparison of campaigns if the audience isn't the same. Also mentions that separating good and not-so-good engagement metrics will add a small layer of reputational separation, but it might hurt the struggling campaigns more than it helps the good ones.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from Validity explains that consistent and correct authentication using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC on your promotional subdomain is crucial for ensuring that email providers trust your messages and deliver them to the inbox.
Documentation from Google Workspace Admin Help shares that subdomains can be used to organize different types of email traffic, such as marketing or transactional emails. This helps in tracking and managing the reputation of each type of email separately.
Documentation from RFC-Editor (though not specifically about email marketing, but related to domain architecture) explains that subdomains provide a hierarchical structure for organizing different aspects of a website or service. In the context of email, this allows you to clearly separate marketing efforts from core business functions.
Documentation from DMARC.org details that using a subdomain allows for more granular control over DMARC policies, enabling different policies for different types of email traffic. This enhances security and protects against phishing attacks using your domain.
Documentation from Microsoft explains that when using a subdomain, you'll need to configure SPF records specifically for that subdomain to authenticate your email sending. This ensures that email providers recognize your subdomain as a legitimate sender.