Can I Send Cold Email From My Main Company Domain?

What is at risk

Your main domain carries the email your business depends on: invoices, contracts, support, replies to customers, password resets. Receiving providers judge that domain by everything it sends. Google's sender guidelines say: "If messages from your domain are frequently reported as spam, future messages from you are more likely to be marked as spam. Over time, user spam reports can lower your domain's reputation."

Cold email draws more spam reports than mail people asked for; Google warns that people who didn't sign up "might mark your messages as spam." Put it on the main domain, and normal company mail inherits the result: ordinary emails to customers can start going to spam, and repairing a domain's reputation can take a long time.

Why a subdomain doesn't solve it

A subdomain such as outreach.yourcompany.com looks separate, but providers tie it to the primary domain:

• Google's sender FAQ says "Messages sent from the same primary domain count toward the 5,000 limit" for bulk sender status, and gives the example of mail from a subdomain counting toward the parent.

• Bulk sender status "doesn't have an expiration date."

• The Postmaster Tools Compliance status dashboard "uses data from subdomains to determine compliance, but provides status for primary domains only."

Aliases on your main mailboxes don't help either: they share the domain's reputation.

How to set up separate domains

1. Register separate domains that are recognizably yours, for example variations of your brand name.

2. Redirect each one to your website, so a recipient who types the domain lands somewhere real.

3. Set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC on each. See SPF, DKIM and DMARC for cold email.

4. Create up to 5 mailboxes per domain with real sender names. See mailboxes per domain.

5. Warm up every mailbox for at least 14 days before cold email.

6. Choose .com where you can. See .info vs .com.

When a prospect replies and becomes a real conversation, you can move it to your main address from your side. The main domain then only carries mail people want.

If you already sent from your main domain

1. Stop cold email from it now and move campaigns to separate domains.

2. Check that SPF, DKIM and DMARC pass for your normal mail.

3. If you send to personal Gmail accounts at volume, check the Postmaster Tools spam rate and delivery errors for the domain.

4. Check your domain against public blocklists and Google Safe Browsing.

5. Watch whether normal emails to customers land in spam, and ask a few customers to check.

What we recommend at Outreach2day

Don't send cold email from your main company domain. Use separate domains, bought in the app or connected by pointing their nameservers to us; we set up SPF, DKIM, DMARC and the redirect to your website on each.