Should I use a subdomain or my main domain for marketing emails?
Summary
What email marketers say10Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Email Geeks explains that subdomains maintain mostly separate reputations than the organizational domain, offering some protection to the organizational domain’s reputation affecting deliverability. The domain recipients see will continue to be example.com but the MAIL FROM domain will be foo.example.com.
Email marketer from ActiveCampaign highlights using a subdomain for marketing emails as a best practice. This helps protect your main domain and sender reputation in case of issues with marketing campaigns.
Email marketer from ZeroBounce recommends using a subdomain for marketing email to have more control over sender reputation and deliverability. Email Authentication is made easier by isolating traffic.
Email marketer from Reddit recommends using a subdomain for marketing blasts and promotions. They explain it protects your main domain's reputation for important emails like password resets and invoices. If a marketing campaign gets flagged, it won't impact core business operations.
Email marketer from Litmus stresses that email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) is crucial for deliverability. Using a subdomain allows for more granular control over authentication settings and can help isolate any authentication issues to the marketing domain.
Email marketer from SendGrid suggests using a dedicated sending domain (subdomain) for marketing emails to maintain a positive sender reputation. A good sender reputation is essential for high deliverability, and separating email types helps manage this.
Email marketer from GMass suggests that a subdomain for marketing emails is essential for protecting your main domain's deliverability and maintaining a positive sender reputation. The subdomain isolates risk.
Email marketer from HubSpot highlights the importance of sender reputation for email deliverability. They recommend using a subdomain for marketing campaigns to isolate any potential damage to your domain's overall reputation.
Email marketer from Mailchimp recommends using a separate subdomain for marketing emails to safeguard your primary domain's reputation. This practice helps isolate any negative impact from marketing campaigns and maintain the deliverability of important transactional emails.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum shares that deliverability issues on marketing emails can damage the entire domain's reputation, including transactional emails. A subdomain provides a buffer, preventing the main domain from being negatively affected.
What the experts say3Expert opinions
Expert from Spam Resource explains that separating marketing emails onto a subdomain helps to protect the reputation of the primary domain which should be reserved for important communications. The practice ensures that deliverability problems associated with marketing efforts do not negatively impact your transactional email stream.
Expert from Word to the Wise, Laura Atkins, explains that using a subdomain for marketing email allows you to isolate reputation issues. If your marketing campaigns have deliverability problems, it won't directly affect your transactional email sent from your primary domain, thus safeguarding important communications.
Expert from Email Geeks confirms that marketing and transactional emails should be separated as Mailbox Providers (MBPs) will treat them differently.
What the documentation says5Technical articles
Documentation from Google Workspace Admin Help explains that using a subdomain for marketing emails can help protect your primary domain's reputation. If your marketing emails have deliverability issues, it's less likely to affect your transactional emails sent from your main domain. They recommend setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records for your subdomain.
Documentation from AWS explains how dedicated IP addresses can improve email deliverability. Coupled with a subdomain, this provides greater control over your sender reputation and allows you to isolate marketing emails from transactional emails.
Documentation from RFC explains how SPF records work. Using a subdomain allows you to create a specific SPF record that authorizes only the mail servers used for marketing emails, limiting the potential impact of compromised credentials or misconfigured systems.
Documentation from DMARC.org explains that DMARC policies allow domain owners to tell recipient mail servers what to do with emails that fail authentication checks. A subdomain lets you implement a stricter DMARC policy for marketing emails without affecting transactional emails.
Documentation from Microsoft details how Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records identify the mail servers and domains that are permitted to send email on behalf of your domain. Keeping marketing and transactional email on different domains allows clearer identification.