Everything You Need to Know About Email Subdomain: Examples, Best Practices, and More

Ever received different emails from multiple email addresses of the same company? What was your reaction like?

We bet you went like, “Oh how professional they are! Using multiple emails for respective purposes!”. 

That’s what email subdomains are. They are like branches stemming from your main domain, each with a purpose to serve. For example, say you have a main domain called example.com. You can create sales.example.com or suppor.example.com email subdomains to send your sales and support emails, respectively.

Email subdomains help showcase your brand more professionally and create credibility among users. In this blog, we’ll talk more about what email subdomains are and why you should use them.

Let’s get started!

Why Should You Use Email Subdomains?

Email subdomains can make your brand’s communication methods much better. And the better at communication you get, the more engagement you can expect from your users. Here are some reasons you should start using email subdomains:

• Structure for Organisation: You can set up a clear and sensible structure for your email communication ecosystem by giving each department or purpose its name. This organization encourages clarity and speed, which makes it easy for both internal teams and people outside the organization to find their way around.

• Better Branding: Each subdomain gives you a chance to strengthen your brand’s personality. Using email subdomains can help your brand look more professional and united, whether it’s through custom subdomain names or consistent branding elements in your email addresses.

• Better Deliverability: Email subdomains can make it easier for emails to get delivered. By separating email traffic by its source or purpose, you can better control your image, lower the risks of your emails going into spam, and increase the overall email open rate, click rate, and click-through rate. 

• Targeted Communication and Marketing: You can better tailor your message and targeting strategies when you have subdomains set aside for marketing efforts or specific groups of customers. This kind of crowd segmentation lets you send personalized emails that connect with different groups of people, which leads to more involvement and sales.

• Data Analysis and Tracking: Running your email campaigns on different addresses lets you do more detailed tracking and analysis. By looking at success measures that are unique to each subdomain, like open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates, you can learn a lot about how well your communication is working and make decisions based on data to make it better.

How to Set Up an Email Subdomain?

Now that you know how important email subdomains can be for your business, it’s time to get yours ready. But unfortunately, there’s no one-for-all guide to setting up an email subdomain.

The reason is, that the process varies depending on email service providers, DNS providers, etc. So, the best thing to do would be to talk to your providers. 

Yet, Here’s a brief rundown to give you an idea about how you should go about it—

• Configure DNS: Use the DNS control tool that your domain registrar or hosting company gives you to access your domain name. For each subdomain you want to set up, you need to make a new DNS record. For each record, you need to say what kind of record it is (for example, MX, CNAME) and point it to the right email server or hosting service.

• MX Records: Set up MX (Mail Exchange) records for each email subdomain to list the mail servers that will receive emails sent to addresses in that subdomain. Check the MX records to make sure they point to the right email server or service provider.

• Set up SPF and DKIM: To improve security and delivery, make sure your email subdomains use SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) authentication. Follow the steps your email service provider gives you to add SPF and DKIM TXT records to your domain’s DNS records for each alias.

• Set up the email server: Make sure that your email server or hosting site can handle both incoming and outbound messages for each subdomain. To successfully handle email traffic within the subdomains, set up accounts, aliases, and forwarding rules.

• Test and Verify: Once the DNS and email server settings are set up, make sure that emails sent to and from the subdomains are served properly and without any problems by trying them thoroughly. Make sure that SPF, DKIM, and any other authentication tools are set up correctly to avoid problems with email delivery and spam filtering. 

Things to Consider While Setting Up Email Subdomains

Setting up an email subdomain is indeed a hefty procedure, but all your efforts might go in vain if you are not careful throughout the procedure and after. That’s why we have compiled a list of the things you must consider while setting up your email subdomains. 

Follow The Right Email Authentical Protocol

Standards for email verification include SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), DMARC (Domain-based Message verification, Reporting, and Conformance), and BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification).

These methods add an extra layer of security and trustworthiness to your email. Make sure that your email subdomain follows these rules.

Warm Up Your New Subdomains 

Even though subdomains are part of your root email domain name, inbox providers see senders from subdomains as new and unknown. In order to build faith and credibility, a gradual warming-up process is needed. What does it mean?

Well, it means not to start sending bulk emails from day one. Rather, send emails to your most engaged users first, then slowly send more emails over a few weeks, and keep a close eye on performance metrics to make sure you get the results you want.

Maintain Consistency 

Consistency is the key regardless of what you are doing and the same applies for email subdomains as well.  It is important to keep your emails’ internal links consistent if you want to give your users a smooth experience. 

Even though your emails may come from a different subdomain, all of your internal links must lead to pages on your main domain. This not only keeps your online appearance consistent but also helps people remember your brand.

Before you send out marketing emails, use email testing tools to find and fix any broken links.

Set Up Redirects from Subdomains to the Main Domain

To keep users from getting confused or having problems, you must set up redirects from your email subdomains to your root address. You can keep your online presence consistent and increase user interaction by making sure that if someone types your subdomain into their web browser, they are automatically taken to the right page on your main website. 

Set up Rules for How to Handle Replies from Subdomains

Managing communication well is key to responding quickly to customer questions and comments. Set up rules in your Email Service Provider (ESP) to make sure that answers to emails sent from subdomains are sent to the right inboxes or team members who can handle customer questions. This makes it easier to respond quickly and will help you make the customers more satisfied. 

Monitor Deliverability and Performance

For your email subdomains to keep working well, you need to keep checking their deliverability and performance data. To see how well your email efforts are doing, keep an eye on important metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and where the emails land in people’s inboxes.

You can use different email marketing tools to keep track of those metrics and maintain your overall email marketing efforts. Regular monitoring will also help you by providing information about where you can improve and give you an idea of what the users like better.  

Email Subdomain Examples 

It’s understandable if you feel a bit clueless about what to name your email subdomains. Primarily, it’ll depend on what type of business or organization you are and what type of emails you want to send. 

But it’s definitely a great idea to see examples. So, let’s go over what email subdomains a few renowned companies use. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, email subdomains are a key part of making email communication more efficient, safe, and consistent across all sizes of companies. You can make your email subdomains work better and keep your good sender reputation by following the best practices we mentioned. 

Hopefully, with this newfound knowledge, you can use your email subdomains for different purposes, like the big brands are doing. If you have any confusion, don’t forget to reach us through the comments.