What Is an Email Subdomain and How to Use It
In today's world, where email has become a universal form of communication, businesses must constantly look for ways to optimize their email marketing strategies.
One such strategy that has gained popularity in recent years is the use of subdomains in email marketing.
By utilizing separate subdomains for transactional and marketing emails, businesses can decouple their reputations and enhance their email deliverability, resulting in higher engagement and better customer experiences.
In this article, we'll delve into the world of subdomains by exploring the benefits they offer and examining why they're essential for any business looking to take its email campaigns to the next level.
One such strategy that has gained popularity in recent years is the use of subdomains in email marketing.
By utilizing separate subdomains for transactional and marketing emails, businesses can decouple their reputations and enhance their email deliverability, resulting in higher engagement and better customer experiences.
In this article, we'll delve into the world of subdomains by exploring the benefits they offer and examining why they're essential for any business looking to take its email campaigns to the next level.
What Is an Email Subdomain?
An email subdomain is a domain that is used specifically for email communication. It appears as a prefix to the domain name in an email address after the "@" symbol.
For example, in the email address "john.@sales.warm.com," "sales" is the subdomain. The main domain, in this case, is "warm.com." By using a subdomain for email communication, you can separate your email communication from your website and create a unique identity for your email communication.
For example, in the email address "john.@sales.warm.com," "sales" is the subdomain. The main domain, in this case, is "warm.com." By using a subdomain for email communication, you can separate your email communication from your website and create a unique identity for your email communication.
What’s the Difference Between an Email Domain and an Email Subdomain?
In email marketing or cold emailing, reputation plays a vital role.
The domain and subdomains that you use for sending emails are among the factors that influence your reputation.
A main (parent) domain has a distinct reputation from its subdomains. This is useful because it allows you to manage the reputations of different kinds of outreach separately.
For example, imagine your business has different teams that handle transactional and marketing emails. Transactional emails see high levels of engagement because people are likely to interact with password resets and other transactional messages. However, your marketing team's emails may not be seeing the same level of engagement.
If you send both types of emails from the same main email domain, there's no good way to ensure that important transactional emails are reaching customers' inboxes without being affected by poor engagement from marketing emails.
However, if you use a subdomain for your marketing messages and another subdomain for transactional emails, you can decouple the reputations of these different kinds of outreach. This helps you to ensure that your transactional emails are not affected by deliverability issues.
Using subdomains to send all mass communication can also help mitigate negative consequences if something goes wrong.
For example, if someone sends an email campaign from your parent domain without an unsubscribe option and your company gets blacklisted by ISPs, all company emails will go straight into recipients' spam folders, impacting the effectiveness of your email marketing in catastrophic ways.
However, using subdomains to send mass communication can limit the business impact of such errors. If the email in question had been sent using a subdomain, only that specific subdomain would be blacklisted, allowing other emails sent by your brand to go through unaffected.
The domain and subdomains that you use for sending emails are among the factors that influence your reputation.
A main (parent) domain has a distinct reputation from its subdomains. This is useful because it allows you to manage the reputations of different kinds of outreach separately.
For example, imagine your business has different teams that handle transactional and marketing emails. Transactional emails see high levels of engagement because people are likely to interact with password resets and other transactional messages. However, your marketing team's emails may not be seeing the same level of engagement.
If you send both types of emails from the same main email domain, there's no good way to ensure that important transactional emails are reaching customers' inboxes without being affected by poor engagement from marketing emails.
However, if you use a subdomain for your marketing messages and another subdomain for transactional emails, you can decouple the reputations of these different kinds of outreach. This helps you to ensure that your transactional emails are not affected by deliverability issues.
Using subdomains to send all mass communication can also help mitigate negative consequences if something goes wrong.
For example, if someone sends an email campaign from your parent domain without an unsubscribe option and your company gets blacklisted by ISPs, all company emails will go straight into recipients' spam folders, impacting the effectiveness of your email marketing in catastrophic ways.
However, using subdomains to send mass communication can limit the business impact of such errors. If the email in question had been sent using a subdomain, only that specific subdomain would be blacklisted, allowing other emails sent by your brand to go through unaffected.
Why You Should Use an Email Subdomain
- Better organization: Using email subdomains can help to organize email communication and create clear structures for different departments or teams within an organization. By using subdomains like "sales.example.com" or "support.example.com" for different departments, you can easily separate and manage different email accounts. This can also help to streamline communication and make it easier for employees to find the emails they need.
- Improved email deliverability: By using a dedicated email subdomain, you can establish a unique reputation for your email communication. This can help to improve deliverability rates and ensure that your messages reach your recipients' inboxes. When you use a separate subdomain for email, you can also separate the reputation of your email communication from the reputation of your website. This can be particularly useful if your website has a poor reputation due to spam or other issues.
- Better tracking and analytics: Using a separate subdomain for email communication can make it easier to track and analyze email performance. By using a subdomain like "email.example.com," you can set up separate tracking and analytics tools that are focused specifically on email. This can provide more detailed insights into open rates, click-through rates, and other metrics that can help you optimize your email campaigns.
- Branding: Using a subdomain in your email address can help to reinforce your brand and make your email communication more recognizable. By using an email address like "john.doe@sales.example.com," you can promote your sales team and create a consistent brand identity. This can also help to establish trust with your recipients and make it easier for them to recognize your emails in their inboxes.
If your business is using Google Workspace, a subdomain can be created with the instructions on Google’s support page.
All other email service providers will provide similar solutions on their support pages.
Conclusion
Email subdomains can be a useful tool for improving email organization, deliverability, tracking, and branding.
It is clear that using subdomains in email marketing can have significant benefits in terms of managing reputation, enhancing email deliverability, and minimizing the impact of errors. By decoupling the reputations of different types of outreach and using separate subdomains for each, businesses can ensure that their transactional and marketing emails are not negatively affected by one another.
Additionally, using subdomains for mass communication can help to protect a company's reputation in the event of an error, as only the affected subdomain will be impacted, leaving other emails unaffected.
By using separate subdomains for different departments or purposes, you can better manage your email communication and create a unique identity for your brand.
Overall, utilizing subdomains in email marketing can be a powerful tool for optimizing email campaign performance and improving the user experience.
It is clear that using subdomains in email marketing can have significant benefits in terms of managing reputation, enhancing email deliverability, and minimizing the impact of errors. By decoupling the reputations of different types of outreach and using separate subdomains for each, businesses can ensure that their transactional and marketing emails are not negatively affected by one another.
Additionally, using subdomains for mass communication can help to protect a company's reputation in the event of an error, as only the affected subdomain will be impacted, leaving other emails unaffected.
By using separate subdomains for different departments or purposes, you can better manage your email communication and create a unique identity for your brand.
Overall, utilizing subdomains in email marketing can be a powerful tool for optimizing email campaign performance and improving the user experience.
