Should I use separate subdomains for marketing and transactional emails?
Summary
What email marketers say14Marketer opinions
Marketer from Email Geeks recommends that, assuming sufficient volume in both, its 100% recommended.
Email marketer from Mailgun Blog explains that using subdomains for different types of emails (marketing vs. transactional) helps isolate reputation. If your marketing emails have deliverability issues, it won't affect your transactional emails.
Email marketer from StackExchange user User123 explains that using subdomains for marketing and transactional emails allows you to build separate reputations for each type of email, increasing the likelihood of emails reaching the inbox.
Email marketer from ActiveCampaign Blog shares that using subdomains helps segment your email traffic. This segmentation allows you to monitor the performance of each type of email separately and address any deliverability issues without affecting other email streams.
Marketer from Email Geeks says separating mail streams with different subdomains is a good and common practice.
Email marketer from ConvertKit shares that using subdomains will protect your primary domain's sender reputation. It allows you to troubleshoot deliverability issues independently without impacting other email streams.
Marketer from Email Geeks explains that what is considered sufficient volume is really quite dependent on the target domain. Where it could be 1,000 for X, could be 10,000 for Y, but if you're numbering in the thousands total, you should be fine.
Marketer from Email Geeks agrees from a deliverability standpoint. It may also help ISPs classify email in the appropriate inbox folder (in Gmail, Outlook,...).
Email marketer from Gmass explains that the general recommendation is to use a subdomain for cold email outreach (marketing emails). If you make a mistake with your cold email outreach, it won't affect your main domain's reputation.
Email marketer from Litmus Blog emphasizes the importance of using separate subdomains to manage different email streams effectively. It highlights that this practice allows for better monitoring and troubleshooting of deliverability issues specific to each email type.
Email marketer from Customer.io shares that they recommend using a separate sending domain for marketing and transactional emails for greater control over deliverability.
Email marketer from Reddit user u/EmailPro shares that by using different subdomains, you can isolate any reputation damage caused by marketing campaigns, protecting the deliverability of important transactional emails.
Marketer from Email Geeks shares that it's a good idea to separate mail streams with different sub-domains and matching DKIM signing.
Email marketer from Email on Acid Blog explains that separating marketing and transactional emails onto different subdomains helps protect the reputation of your main domain. If your marketing emails encounter deliverability issues, your transactional emails—which are critical for user experience—remain unaffected.
What the experts say2Expert opinions
Expert from Spamresource explains that many companies use different subdomains for different classes of mail, for example transactional vs marketing. This allows the business to send from different IPs and use different authentication for different classes of mail.
Expert from Word to the Wise advises using separate IPs and domains to handle marketing vs transactional emails and implement dedicated feedback loops and suppression lists. This isolates your transactional sends, which must get through.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from SparkPost Documentation suggests separating sending domains or subdomains for different email streams as a best practice for managing sender reputation and improving deliverability. This is particularly useful for isolating transactional emails from marketing campaigns.
Documentation from Microsoft recommends to use different domains for different purposes, like transactional and marketing. This ensures that any deliverability issues with marketing won't affect the reliability of transactional emails.
Documentation from SendGrid Documentation recommends using separate subdomains to send different types of email (e.g., marketing and transactional) to protect your primary domain's reputation and improve deliverability.
Documentation from Google Postmaster Tools Help suggests that using separate sending domains/subdomains can help isolate deliverability issues and maintain a healthy sender reputation, particularly when sending different types of emails.