Issue #169 All About Email

Hi, friend. 👋

Welcome to Issue #169 of All About Email!

Last week, in Part Four of our mini-series, we began to examine “Breaking Down the Basics of Deliverability.”

This week, we conclude Part Four by discussing subdomains and why you should use them for emails.

After four weeks, with an average of over 1,000 words per email, you’ll be pleased to know I’m scaling things back a bit today.

Let’s go! 👇

Subdomains and the Basics of Deliverability

🚨 Domain Authority (Reputation) is vitally important when sending and receiving emails.

🧠 Subdomains are mainly used for email marketing because they separate the sender reputation of your core domain from email marketing activities.

Separating the sender reputation of your core domain may seem unnecessary when you initially consider it, but you should do it.

🤦‍♂️ After all, you don’t want your marketing emails to tank the deliverability of your peer-to-peer (business) emails and vice versa.

⚡️ As you scale any outbound strategy, the following becomes more valuable than simplicity:

• Increasing your control over deliverability.

• Decreasing the risk of the approach. 

What is a Subdomain?

OK, friend, for some of you, heads are scratched, and you are feeling a bit lost; maybe you are even asking the question, “What is a subdomain, and how do I set one up?“ 👇

• Subdomains are free to set up. The only cost is time...and it's not much.

• Subdomains are typically implemented and assigned to different sending operations.

✅ The simplest way to start using subdomains is to separate your communications into different subdomains:

• Your peer-to-peer (business emails).

• Cold outreach and follow-up emails.

• Transactional emails

• Marketing emails

• Operations, etc.

Confused, friend? Let’s look at some examples. 👇

Above and below are some great examples of subdomains:

hello.  |  chat.  |  news.  |  blog.  |  learn  |  app.

Ticketmaster uses three subdomains:

• [email protected]

• [email protected]

• [email protected]

Can I Switch?

⁉️ So, you've been using your primary domain, example.com, and you want to switch to [email protected]. Can you do this?

✅ You can, but with caution.

🧠 If you want to switch to a subdomain, it must be:

• Verified

• Authenticated

• Warmed up

• Bonus: Tell your contacts that you are changing the email-sending domain and what they should expect while you transition from the old address to the new one.

If you immediately start sending emails using the new subdomain without performing the above, it will lead to deliverability issues.

💡 Remember, friend, we covered the basics of authentication and verification last week.

Further Reading

📰 As part of our mini-series, each topic covered might include additional reading resources for building the workshops and these emails.

This week’s resources on Deliverability and Subdomains are:

• Email subdomain best practices - Allegrow and Litmus.

• Inbox placement (deliverability) data.

• DMA - Benchmarking Report 2024.

• Mailgun - The basics of email subdomains.

That’s it for This Week 👋

⏭️ Next week is our last regular email of the year before a special edition on December 30th. 🎉

📈 Next week’s topic is “Email List Growth“.

⚠️ In case you missed last week’s announcement…I’m launching a paid version of this newsletter in the New Year! More details to follow, but:

• This free version of the newsletter is going nowhere!

• This free version is going to get better!

See you next week! 😀

Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc. I currently have “Classified” slots and a Main Sponsor slot available.

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• 500 - Weeks of email magic: a milestone celebration. 🎉 (Action Rocket)

• Landmarks - Email clients support landmarks, which should be used (sparingly) to let users navigate emails more easily. (Sarah Gallardo)

• All Wrapped Up - RGE’s End of Year Wrap-Up Collection. (Really Good Emails)

• A New Landscape - iOS 18 impact on email marketers: How to safeguard engagement & demand. (Cordial)

• Fancy a Giggle? - Overheard in my Gmail inbox... (Lauren Meyer)

• Hands-on - With Apple Intelligence, inbox tabs & message summaries for iOS 18.2 (Knak & Nicole Merlin)

• How Does It Work? - Alison Gootee and Al Iverson discuss how Blocklists work. (Valimail)

• Accessibility Basics - The Accessible Digital Ecosystem. (Sarah Gallardo)

• Cannot Unsee - Email Inspiration from Liquid Death. (Email Love)

• Electric Boogaloo - Anecdotes From the Abuse Desk Vol. 1 (Alison Gootee)

• Unveiling - The Really Good Emails Awards 2024. (Really Good Emails)

• LinkShortener - Special offer for my readers - 50% off branded short links, QR codes, and link-in-bio pages. Use code: “ALLABOUTEMAIL50” (LinkShortener.io)

If you have a question about this email or email marketing, reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋