Email Subdomains: Improve Deliverability & Organization

When sending an email, simply hitting ‘send’ is rarely enough to ensure your message lands where it should. Many steps can be taken to improve email deliverability: one such step is email subdomains. Here we’ll dive into email subdomains and explain why they’re important.

What is an Email Subdomain?

A subdomain is a subset of a larger domain name. It functions as an extension of the main domain, allowing you to create separate sections of your website under the same root domain. Subdomains are often used to organize and navigate different sections of a website, such as blogs, stores or support pages.

What’s the Difference Between an Email Domain and an Email Subdomain?

An email domain is the part of an email address that comes after the “@” symbol, representing the main domain name. For instance, in the email address user@example.com, “example.com” is the email domain. An email subdomain, on the other hand, is a subset of the main email domain. It appears before the main domain and is separated by a dot. For example, in user@mail.example.com, “mail.example.com” is the email subdomain.

Why Use an Email Subdomain?

Using an email subdomain can offer several advantages:

1. Organization: It helps in categorizing and managing different types of emails, such as marketing, transactional and support emails.
2. Reputation Management: By separating different types of emails, you can protect the reputation of your main domain. If one subdomain gets blocklisted, it won’t affect the others.
3. Tracking and Analytics: It allows for better tracking and analysis of email performance, as you can monitor the success of emails sent from different subdomains separately.

How Email Subdomains Improve Deliverability

Subdomains can significantly improve email deliverability by isolating different types of email traffic. This isolation helps in maintaining a good sender reputation for each subdomain. For instance, if your marketing emails are sent from marketing.example.com and your transactional emails from transactional.example.com, any issues with the marketing emails won’t impact the deliverability of your transactional emails. This separation ensures that your critical emails reach their intended recipients without being affected by the performance of other email types.

Best Practices: Multiple Subdomains in Action

1. Segmentation: Use different subdomains for different types of emails (news.example.com for newsletters, promo.example.com for promotions, for example).
2. Consistent Monitoring: Regularly monitor the performance and reputation of each subdomain to quickly address any issues.
3. Testing: Before fully deploying a new subdomain, test it with a smaller audience to ensure it functions correctly and maintains deliverability.

Email Subdomains at SMTP2GO

If your top-level domain is verified with SMTP2GO, you can send emails from subdomains without needing to verify each one individually, provided that these subdomains are present in your DNS.

Using email subdomains is a strategic approach to managing and improving email deliverability. By organizing different types of emails under separate subdomains, you can protect your main domain’s reputation, enhance tracking and analytics, and ensure that your emails reach their intended recipients.