Why You Need Separate Domains for Cold Email
Your primary domain (where your website is, for example bluecake.com) should only send emails to people who expect them: customers, colleagues and newsletter subscribers who opted in.
Never send cold emails from your primary domain. Mailbox providers such as Gmail and Outlook score each domain on how recipients react to its emails. Cold emails get more spam complaints and fewer replies than normal emails, even when they are done well. If your primary domain's reputation drops, everything sent from it can start going to spam, including:
- Your team's day-to-day emails
- Invoices and password reset emails
- Your newsletters and marketing emails
Using separate domains for cold email keeps that risk away from your main business. If a cold email domain gets a poor reputation, you can rest it or replace it for about $11.
Cold email is a great way to offer a useful service to the right people, but it is often abused by spammers. That's why mailbox providers are strict about it, and why the setup in this guide matters.