What are the risks of sharing a sending domain with a partner and how does primary domain reputation affect others?

Summary

Sharing a sending domain with a partner is widely recognized as a significant risk to email deliverability and sender reputation. Both experts and documentation emphasize that a partner's poor sending practices, including spammy behavior, can negatively impact your domain's reputation, leading to blacklisting and reduced deliverability, regardless of your own efforts. This is because email providers and security protocols often consider the overall domain reputation, not just individual sender behavior. Using a dedicated sending domain is strongly recommended to maintain a positive reputation and protect your ability to reach recipients' inboxes.

Key findings

  • Shared Reputation Risk: Sharing a domain means sharing its reputation, making you vulnerable to the negative impact of a partner's actions.
  • Domain-Wide Impact: A primary domain's reputation directly affects all subdomains and associated senders, regardless of their sending practices.
  • Blacklisting Threat: Poor sending practices from a partner can lead to blacklisting, harming the deliverability of all users sharing the domain.
  • Best Practice Recommendation: Using a dedicated sending domain is crucial for maintaining control over your reputation and ensuring reliable deliverability.

Key considerations

  • Avoid Shared Domains: Prioritize using a dedicated sending domain to minimize the risks associated with shared reputations.
  • Monitor Partner Practices: If sharing is unavoidable, closely monitor your partner's sending practices and ensure they adhere to email marketing best practices.
  • Domain Authentication: Implement domain authentication protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) to enhance sender credibility and improve deliverability.
  • Reputation Monitoring: Regularly monitor your domain reputation using tools like Google Postmaster Tools and Sender Score to identify and address potential issues promptly.

What email marketers say
10Marketer opinions

Sharing a sending domain with a partner introduces significant risks to email deliverability. A primary domain's reputation directly affects all associated subdomains and senders. Poor sending practices by one partner can lead to blacklisting and negatively impact the deliverability of others, even if they adhere to best practices. Experts recommend using dedicated sending domains and actively monitoring domain reputation to protect email performance.

Key opinions

  • Reputation Impact: A poor primary domain reputation negatively affects all subdomains and associated sending addresses.
  • Blacklisting Risk: Partner's poor sending practices can lead to blacklisting, impacting your deliverability.
  • Shared Risk: Sharing a domain means your reputation is tied to the sending practices of others.
  • Dedicated Domains: Using dedicated sending domains is crucial for maintaining a positive sender reputation.

Key considerations

  • Monitor Reputation: Actively monitor your domain reputation to identify and address issues promptly.
  • Authentication: Implement domain authentication to improve sender credibility.
  • Sending Practices: Ensure all partners follow email marketing best practices.
  • Dedicated IP: Consider using a dedicated IP address for greater control over your sending reputation.
Marketer view

Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum explains that sharing a domain with a partner can lead to blacklisting issues. If your partner engages in spam or poor sending practices, your emails may also be marked as spam due to the shared domain reputation.

May 2024 - Email Marketing Forum
Marketer view

Email marketer from StackExchange shares that shared sending infrastructure, including domains, can lead to deliverability problems if one user is blacklisted. It's essential to isolate sending activities to protect your reputation and ensure reliable delivery.

March 2022 - StackExchange
Marketer view

Email marketer from Quora answers that sharing a domain with a partner for sending emails can be risky. If the partner engages in spammy practices, it can negatively affect the domain's reputation, leading to your emails being flagged as spam even if you follow best practices. This can ultimately damage your deliverability rates.

June 2024 - Quora
Marketer view

Email marketer from Mailchimp shares that using a shared domain can negatively impact deliverability because your sending reputation is linked to the other users on that domain. Poor practices by other users can lead to blacklisting, affecting your email performance. It is recommended to use a dedicated domain.

February 2022 - Mailchimp
Marketer view

Marketer from Email Geeks shares that since you have the primary domain, your reputation matters the most. So in case your reputation tanks, it could have an effect on their mailing too...to some extent.

April 2023 - Email Geeks
Marketer view

Email marketer from EmailBlog.com shares that a bad domain reputation can affect the deliverability of all senders using that domain, even if some are following best practices. It’s crucial to monitor your domain reputation and take steps to protect it.

September 2024 - EmailBlog.com
Marketer view

Email marketer from GMass warns that sharing email sending domains leads to issues with reputation and deliverability. They suggest that by using a shared domain, your ability to get emails delivered suffers as your deliverability rate is at the hands of others and the domain reputation.

August 2023 - GMass
Marketer view

Email marketer from SendGrid emphasizes that using a dedicated sending domain is crucial for maintaining a positive sender reputation. Sharing a domain introduces risks from other senders' activities, potentially harming your deliverability. They recommend domain authentication and monitoring.

March 2024 - SendGrid
Marketer view

Email marketer from MarketingCompany.blog explains that the single most important thing is that if a primary domain's reputation tanks it will impact all subdomains and associated sending addresses. It is vital to protect your reputation.

December 2021 - MarketingCompany.blog
Marketer view

Email marketer from Reddit explains that if a primary domain's reputation tanks, it can impact all subdomains and associated sending addresses. Even if your sending practices are clean, the negative reputation of the main domain can affect deliverability for everyone sharing it.

May 2021 - Reddit

What the experts say
3Expert opinions

Sharing a sending domain with a partner poses significant risks to email deliverability and sender reputation. All experts agree that a partner's sending practices can negatively impact your domain reputation, potentially leading to blacklisting and compromised deliverability. Sharing domains should be avoided altogether to prevent potential damage.

Key opinions

  • Shared Reputation: Sharing a parent domain means sharing email reputation, which introduces significant risks.
  • Negative Impact: Partner's spammy behavior negatively impacts your domain reputation and deliverability.
  • Compromised Deliverability: A compromised domain leads to problems with deliverability and sender reputation.
  • Direct Impact: Actions of your partners directly affect your ability to reach recipients' inboxes.

Key considerations

  • Avoid Sharing: Avoid sharing sending domains altogether to prevent potential damage.
  • Monitor Practices: Closely monitor your partner's sending practices if sharing is unavoidable.
  • Dedicated Domains: Opt for dedicated sending domains for better control over reputation.
  • Security: Implement security measures to prevent domain compromise.
Expert view

Expert from Email Geeks explains that if you’re using the same parent domain you’re going to be sharing email reputation and you absolutely should not share sending domains at all because that’s going to break a lot of things.

September 2024 - Email Geeks
Expert view

Expert from Word to the Wise explains that a compromised domain can lead to serious problems with deliverability and sender reputation. If you share sending domains, the actions of your partners directly impact your ability to reach your recipients' inboxes.

March 2021 - Word to the Wise
Expert view

Expert from Spam Resource explains that sharing a sending domain with a partner exposes you to their sending practices. If they engage in spammy behavior, it negatively impacts your domain reputation and deliverability, potentially leading to blacklisting.

February 2025 - Spam Resource

What the documentation says
4Technical articles

Sharing a sending domain with partners can significantly harm your sender reputation and email deliverability. Documentation from multiple sources, including Google, Microsoft, RFC, and Auth0, emphasizes that poor email practices from one partner can lead to your emails being marked as spam or blocked, regardless of your own sending practices. The overall domain reputation, not just individual sender behavior, is taken into account by email providers and security protocols. Therefore, a custom, dedicated domain is always preferred to protect your reputation.

Key findings

  • Reputation Dilution: Sharing a domain dilutes sender reputation due to poor practices of partners.
  • Spam Marking: Emails can be marked as spam or blocked, even with good sending practices.
  • Overall Reputation: Email providers consider the overall domain reputation, not just individual senders.
  • Security Risks: Poor partner security implementation can open the door to reputation damage.

Key considerations

  • Monitor Practices: Closely monitor the email practices of any partners sharing your domain.
  • Control Access: Carefully control who has access to share your sending domain.
  • Dedicated Domain: Implement a custom and dedicated domain for sending emails to isolate and protect reputation.
  • Security Protocols: Ensure strong security measures are in place to protect domain integrity.
Technical article

Documentation from Auth0 describes that the issue with using a shared domain as part of email deliverability is it opens the door to domain reputation issues from others, and that a custom domain should always be implemented.

May 2024 - Auth0
Technical article

Documentation from RFC outlines that domain name system security needs to be strictly monitored. Any partner who damages this can damage your own reputation and how the internet sees you.

February 2025 - RFC Editor
Technical article

Documentation from Microsoft outlines that sender reputation is influenced by domain reputation. Sharing a domain with a partner who engages in spammy behavior can severely damage your reputation, even if you follow best practices. It is crucial to monitor and control who shares your sending domain.

November 2022 - Microsoft
Technical article

Documentation from Google Workspace Admin Help explains that sharing a domain with partners can dilute your sender reputation if their email practices are poor. This can lead to your emails being marked as spam or blocked, even if your sending practices are excellent. Google's algorithms consider the overall reputation of the domain, not just individual senders.

October 2021 - Google Workspace Admin Help