What Is an Email Subdomain?

Every email address consists of the sender's username and the sender's domain (yourname@yourcompany.com). An email subdomain is an extra component of your main (or "root") domain and is added as a prefix to that domain (yourname@example.yourcompany.com).

Your subdomain is related to your root domain, but it has a separate IP address. Therefore, email servers and Internet service providers (ISPs) treat it differently than your parent domain.

Email Subdomain Benefits

If you send a high volume of messages to customers (e.g., newsletters, invoices, vouchers), using a subdomain is recommended to maintain your sender reputation. A subdomain has a different email reputation than its parent domain, which can increase your reputation and help avoid undelivered messages from unique components of your company.

Plus, by using a custom subdomain, your email deliverability improves, which lets you reach the inbox more consistently. Since this option allows you to send engaging, targeted content to specific audiences, you can interact with customers in specific ways instead of casting a wide net with general emails.

Subdomains for Transactional and Bulk Email

Separating your transactional emails from your bulk (marketing) emails is a best practice that preserves your sender reputation. Subdomains are your best bet to make that happen.

If you produce new marketing campaigns often, you can protect your reputation by differentiating those promotional messages from transactional emails through subdomains. For example, you might use marketing.yourdomain.com and transactional.yourdomain.com as sending domains to distinguish the two types of emails to improve your overall deliverability.

If you choose not to set up email subdomains and recipients flag your promotional messages, your root domain's reputation will be negatively impacted. Taking that one step further, delivery of your transactional emails (which have the highest engagement rate) is critical because they are created by a user's action. If payment receipts or password resets land in the Spam/Junk folder, your reputation suffers, so having a subdomain for these communications is important.

What Does MxToolbox Suggest?

Creating and implementing subdomains to reach customer inboxes is a common practice with several benefits. If your business wants to improve its email reputation and increase message delivery rates, subdomains might be the solution.

MxToolbox's Delivery Center lets you pinpoint any current or potential email issues to increase your inbox delivery rates. If you need assistance setting up your Delivery Center subscription, our expert Support Team is ready to help!