Why consider local and multi-sending domains

Local and multi-sending domains have many benefits for email marketing that you may not be aware of right now. That’s because not every ESP alerts you to this. Why you should definitely consider local and multi-sending domains?

If you have a local domain – the domain from which you send emails – with a good reputation leads to increased inbox placement. By using multi-sending domains – multiple local domains under 1 license – the reputation of brand A can never influence the reputation of brand B. I would like to tell you more about that and all the other advantages in this article.

Let’s start with the local domain. What is a local domain? The local domain is in fact a subdomain of your website (www.mybrand.com), from which your emails are sent. If you don’t use a local domain, your newsletter will be sent from your ESP, instead of from mail.mybrand.com

First of all, a local domain has advantages with regard to your relationship with your recipient. With a local domain, all images, links and buttons used within the email point to your local domain – just like those on your website point to your website. Your sender address user@ is also linked to the local domain. This helps the subscriber relate the email to your brand/company name. It prevents confusion, looks cleaner and more professional and ensures reliability.

Thanks to the local domain, the identity and authenticity are handled faster and better by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). In this way a reputation is built with the ISPs. The higher the reputation of the local domain, the faster and better the emails are delivered to the subscriber. The inbox placement is therefore increased by at least + 0.1%. This seems like a low percentage, but when sending larger volumes, it does become significant.

Those were two important advantages of a local domain. With multi-sending domains you can go one step further. This allows you to work for different brands and/or departments from one email environment/license. You have your own local domain for each brand/department.

Let me first explain when multi-sending domains are used in practice:

• Subsidiaries:  It can be confusing if a company has only one local domain with an ESP, but serves multiple brand names. The standard structure is used without the use of a ‘multi-sending domain’. With the implementation of the ‘multi-sending domain’, a distinction can be made between Brand a, Brand B, etc. For example: Coca-Cola can also use a local domain from fanta.com or sprite.com via multi-sending domains under the same license. This way you can easily implement multiple brand names in one environment.
• Different departments:  besides the marketing communication department, do other departments work with your ESP? Then you, as a company, can choose to send the marketing communications from a different domain than the communications that come from another department. Then, each department is responsible for building the reputation of the local domain.
• Desk : do you work from a desk for different companies? With multi-sending domains you can work from one environment for different companies, each with their own brand recognition and reputation management.

The multi-sending domain is used by the above parties because it has 3 advantages:

1.  It is possible to have one central database and place for your statistics, so that you can use the knowledge about reader behavior in all campaigns. It is also advantageous that you only have one login and one integration within your IT infrastructure. This is not the case if you work with multiple licenses.
2. As with the local domain, multi-sending domains help the recipient to recognize the brand/company name. It looks cleaner and more professional and avoids confusion. An additional advantage is that the recipient will not see a via notification.
3. As with a separate local domain, multi-sending domains make identity and authenticity faster and better handled by the ISPs. The inbox placement per brand is therefore increased by at least + 0.1%.

Suppose you work from an office for an erotic shop, but also for a supplier of sports watches. The erotic shop has to deal with spam-sensitive words and the collection of many e-mail addresses through giveaways. The supplier of sports watches has built up a qualitative database through confirmed opt-in. You don’t want the reputation of the erotic shop to damage the reputation of the sports watches. You can prevent this by emailing newsletters from multi-sending domains instead of different sender addresses from your desk. So not:  eroticshop@mail.agency.com  and  sport.watches@mail.agency.com . But it is:  newsletter@mail.eroticshop.com  and  newsletter@mail.sportwatches.com .

Curious about the technology? DNS, the domain name system, plays an important role in demonstrating identity and authenticity – factors that contribute to a higher reputation. For example, it is not possible to send an email with DMARC approval if your sender address is not in line with your local domain. The local domain is the key to success. Why and how? That’s a technical story, that our experts will be happy to explain to you.