Should I use a separate domain or subdomain for bulk email sending?
Summary
What email marketers say11Marketer opinions
Marketer from Email Geeks recommends using subdomains of the organizational domain and using clear and consistent naming schemes in DNS. They suggest delegating a subdomain of the brand's primary domain to the ESP (e.g., email.customerbrand.com) as the best option.
Marketer from Email Geeks explains that a subdomain can affect organizational domain deliveries if there are serious issues with email practices. Using the same organization domain helps mail filters understand content, leading to more stable reputation and campaign performance and avoids unexpected phishing warnings and shared IP reputation issues.
Email marketer from Gmass advises setting up a separate subdomain specifically for sending mass emails. This keeps your primary domain's reputation clean, so deliverability of important emails are not impacted.
Email marketer from HubSpot shares that using a subdomain for marketing emails is a best practice as it protects the reputation of the primary domain, helping ensure that important transactional emails are delivered reliably.
Marketer from Email Geeks says even when using a subdomain, you must ensure your brand name or campaign layout is not being filtered by ISPs and good practices must be followed for deliverability.
Email marketer from EmailToolTester recommends using a subdomain to segment email sending activities. If a bulk email campaign experiences issues, it will not affect the deliverability of other emails sent from the primary domain.
Email marketer from ActiveCampaign explains that using a subdomain for marketing and promotional emails is a best practice to isolate your email sending reputation. They recommend using separate subdomains for different types of email communications.
Email marketer from Web Hosting Talk Forum shares that using a subdomain for bulk email is crucial to protect the main domain's reputation. If you mess up with bulk sending, you don't want it to impact your transactional emails.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that using a subdomain (e.g., mail.yourdomain.com) for bulk emailing is a common practice to separate marketing emails from transactional ones, helping to prevent your primary domain's reputation from being negatively affected if your marketing emails are flagged as spam.
Email marketer from Mailjet explains that using a subdomain is a common practice for bulk email sending as it isolates the sending reputation. This way, issues with bulk sending are less likely to negatively impact the main domain's reputation.
Email marketer from Sendinblue suggests using a subdomain for marketing emails. If you are sending a high volume of emails, consider using a dedicated IP address as well to further isolate your sending reputation.
What the experts say3Expert opinions
Expert from Word to the Wise, Laura Atkins, explains that using a subdomain for marketing mail allows you to separate reputation. It prevents marketing issues from affecting your transactional email deliverability.
Expert from Spam Resource, Laura Atkins, explains the importance of setting up the proper infrastructure and points out using a distinct subdomain is one element of this.
Expert from Email Geeks says industry best practices suggest using a subdomain.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from Postmark advises using a subdomain for marketing emails as it allows you to separate your email sending reputation. This means that problems with marketing emails will not impact the deliverability of transactional emails sent from your main domain.
Documentation from Google Workspace Admin recommends setting up a dedicated domain or subdomain for sending marketing emails. This helps protect your primary domain's reputation and ensures better deliverability for important transactional emails.
Documentation from AWS SES details that using a separate domain or subdomain for different types of email (transactional vs. marketing) helps maintain deliverability. If marketing emails cause issues, it won't affect the deliverability of critical transactional emails sent from the main domain.
Documentation from Mailchimp recommends using a dedicated sending domain for marketing emails. Separating your marketing email activities by using a dedicated subdomain helps protect the domain reputation.
Documentation from SparkPost explains the importance of setting up a separate sending domain (subdomain) for marketing and promotional emails to protect the reputation of your primary domain, which should be reserved for transactional emails.