Should I use subdomains for transactional and promotional emails to protect my main domain reputation?
Summary
What email marketers say11Marketer opinions
Email marketer from SendGrid mentions that subdomains allow for better segmentation of your email sending. By using different subdomains for transactional and promotional emails, you can better track and manage the reputation of each type of email, minimizing the risk to your primary domain.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that the key advantage of using subdomains lies in their ability to contain deliverability issues. If one subdomain is impacted by spam complaints, it will have a limited impact on your core domain and other subdomains.
Email marketer from Digital Marketing Blog explains that using subdomains provides a safety net. If one subdomain's emails are flagged as spam, it’s less likely to impact the deliverability of emails sent from other subdomains or the primary domain.
Marketer from Email Geeks suggests that with sufficient volume, segmenting mail on 5321/5322/dkim can help, but it's difficult to know how each MBP handles domain reputation, and if you're worried about one stream going awry, try to make them seem distinct.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum responds that setting up subdomains for different email types is crucial. They advise using 'transactional.yourdomain.com' and 'marketing.yourdomain.com' to clearly separate traffic and manage sender reputation effectively.
Email marketer from Quora mentions that while dedicated IPs offer reputation control, subdomains offer a good balance between control and cost-effectiveness. They suggest using subdomains to segment email types, especially if you're not ready to invest in multiple dedicated IPs.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that subdomains are advantageous because if one subdomain gets a bad reputation, it doesn't necessarily affect your entire domain. This provides a level of isolation and protection for important transactional emails.
Email marketer from Tech Forum responds that best practice is to use separate subdomains not only for transactional and promotional emails, but also for internal communications, helping to avoid any crossover issues that could damage overall sender reputation.
Email marketer from Mailjet shares that using subdomains for different email types (transactional vs. marketing) allows you to segment your sending reputation. If your marketing emails encounter issues, it is less likely to affect the deliverability of your critical transactional emails.
Email marketer from Pepipost shares that a well-defined subdomain strategy is essential for email deliverability. They advocate for separating transactional, marketing, and bulk emails onto distinct subdomains to protect the main domain's reputation and improve overall email performance.
Marketer from Email Geeks explains that if one subdomain sends spam, the parent domain and potentially other subdomains' reputation could be impacted, as reputation systems are sophisticated.
What the experts say5Expert opinions
Expert from Spam Resource explains that using subdomains effectively isolates your brand reputation. This isolation helps ensure that problems with marketing blasts will not impact delivery of transactional email. The article advocates using subdomains to separate different sending streams and protect the core domain.
Expert from Word to the Wise, Laura Atkins, addresses that subdomains are a good idea to segregate streams of mail for reputation purposes, by segmenting using d= for DKIM signatures, different ESPs, etc. This allows for more granular management of your email sending reputation and improved deliverability.
Expert from Email Geeks shares that you can set up authentication with subdomains (DKIM signature with d=promotions.company.com or d=transactions.company.com) without changing what the user sees, giving you some benefits of subdomains without extra headache.
Expert from Email Geeks recommends fully separating subdomains for from addresses when growing significantly, setting up a fully authenticated subdomain (with its own DKIM) for each subdomain.
Expert from Email Geeks expresses that it's not necessarily a best practice to use subdomains in the 5322.from, but it's a fine practice and won't hurt you. Also, if you’re sending wanted mail to folks who’ve opted in to your message, then the chances of you having domain based reputation problems is slim.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from Google Workspace Admin Help explains that using subdomains can help organize and manage email traffic, potentially isolating reputation issues. They recommend setting up separate subdomains for different types of emails to protect the main domain's reputation.
Documentation from Microsoft explains that maintaining a good sender reputation is crucial for email deliverability. While they don't explicitly advocate for subdomains, the document emphasizes the importance of segmenting email streams and monitoring reputation, which can be facilitated by using subdomains.
Documentation from RFC explains that DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) can be configured on subdomains, allowing you to authenticate emails sent from those subdomains. This helps improve deliverability and protect your domain's reputation.
Documentation from SparkPost explains that using subdomains is a common practice to separate email streams. They suggest isolating promotional emails on a separate subdomain to protect the primary domain's reputation from potential deliverability issues caused by marketing campaigns.
Related resources5Resources
Related questions
No related questions found.