Create new domain name for marketing emails?

[Sausagestore]

Is anyone on the boards sending out thier newsletter or marketing emails using a different domain name then thier main domain name.

For example instead of sending emails from mydomain.com send it from newsletter-mydomain.com

My reasoning is that I don't want my regualar domain marked as a spam domain and be banned from major ISPs and email providers. If the new one i create starts getting blocked then I can just create a new one without losing anything.

[Autographs]

I do this and I'm not sure how well it works.. What I do is this..

Main Site http://www.autographdealer.com
Mail site http://www.autographmail.com

But I think my problem in doing this may be that Both site are on the SAME server, so If you are thinking about this and don't want to get your main site looked at as a Spam site, you may want to make sure that it's on a different server.

I think Now that I have answered your questions I may go do this myself :)

I'm very interested to see what others have to say on the matter.

Greg

[Tom O'Leary]

Hi Sausagestore! You could certainly sign up to another ISP just for your bulk emailing. We do not recommend any ISP in particular, however, you should sign up with an ISP or mail host who offers full SMTP services ( www.ispfinder.com or www.thelist.com are good sources to locate one ).

As a desktop bulk email provider (GroupMail), we do not recommend the use of Free ISPs or Mail Service Providers if you are serious about legitimate bulk emailing. Also, you should contact the ISP or Mail Service Provider you intend to use and verify with them that they will allow bulk mailing through their servers, in order to avoid being shut down without warning. Work with your ISP, not against them.

If you fulfill permission marketing requirements (opt-in and opt-out, etc.) and work within your ISPs sending policy; you should have no problems.

You spam when you send unsolicited commercial email, regardless of how many messages you are sending. The fact that you are sending in bulk does not mean that you are a spammer. I receive the New York Times email each day. I'm sure that there are hundreds of thousands of people on their mailing list - but they are not spammers. They use permission-based subscriptions and have built a nice list over time.

Here are a couple of articles I wrote that you might find useful

Permission Email: 5 Key Requirements

Email Deliverability: 10 Steps to Romance ISP Filters

All the best

Tom

[PumaSpirit]

Autographs has a point about the 2 domains being on the same server. If being blocked for spam is your concern use different servers. But then again, why do you foresee being blocked for spam??? Do you plan on spamming? NOT a good idea, no matter what domains/servers you use.

Creating a sub-domain also works to keep things separate (newsletter.yoursite.com) Google likes sub-domains and, unless they changed algorythms again, rate your main site higher when you have a sub-domain or 3.

[tricker]

Hello,

I think you should have to create a subdomain and start working on it...






Search Engine Marketing Solutions

[wpriley]

I like to use a third-party mailing house in part because of the concerns you've expressed. My two favorites are VerticalResponse (no charge for list building, maintenance or storage; a small fee for each outgoing E-mail) or Constant Contact (fixed monthly fee based on your list size; unlimited mailing at no additional charge). The cheapest service depends on your list size and mailing frequency.

Because of their internal anti-SPAM safeguards, I'd be surprised to see either of these services blacklisted as a SPAM source.

Both offer list building tools, templates (or the freedom to use your own format), delivery and click-thru statistics, and automatic list flagging of bounces and opt-outs. I also like the ability to schedule multiple E-mail campaigns in advance with precise control of the day, hour and minute each campaign's E-mails are dispatched.

[colr]

You wont be blacked by domain, since if I wanted I could send out spam reportadly from billyboy@microsoft.com if I wanted. Spam assasins will block by IP address, so as stated above, your concern is to get them running from a different server.

Lots of ISPs run a free 30-day period which you could take advantage of for a month, then hop server!!!

[danners02]

another reason to use a third party specialist is they genrally have worked hard to forge links with htmail, yahoo, google, etc to ensure their servers are whitelisted so emails from them are not tagged as junk and filtered to users junk mail folders - www.campaigner.com is a good service IMO

[arthurakay]

You can set up another domain to send your emails - we have done this for clients in the past. As an outsourced email marketing company (Fathom SEO), we typically host the domain for you on our servers, so your website's domain would not get tagged.

However, PumaSpirit brings up a great point - are you planning on Spamming? If your database is legit (double opt-in, preferably) and you messages are relevant, there shouldn't be an issue with Spam. So why even bother with a separate domain?

One more point: ISPs frown upon changing your domain name frequently. If you are getting blocked and keep moving the domain around, the ISPs will notice and take internal action against you.

By the way... can Sausage really be Spam? Aren't they different meats?

[daveberk]

I run an affiliate-type website. Against our policy one of my affiliates unknowingly hired a spammer to send an email campaign.

The campaign was sent from what looked like a network of "zombie" computers (probably virus/trojan infected) using a variety of bogus "From:" addresses and IPs.

One of the emails went to a "honey-pot" email address (used to catch spammers). The owner of the email address saw my affiliate website mentioned in the email (it was not the "From:" address and was certainly not sent from my server, but just directed people to my website) and complained to my ISP and my domain registrar.

Once I found out what had happened, I quickly spoke with the affiliate and sent out a message to all affiliates prohibiting the use of unapproved email campaigns.

I have a good relationship with my ISP and was able to explain what happened and what steps we took to avoid the problem in the future. My ISP was cool - no problems since.

My domain registrar however (starts with a "G" ends with a "y") threatened to TAKE AWAY my domain name unless I paid them $200 to "clean up" this "spam issue". Or I could pay them $75 and they would ALLOW ME to transfer my domain to another registrar.

I tried to explain to them what happened but they didn't care how it happened only that there was a complaint about my website and I had to PAY to have it "cleaned up".

Here's the problem: I had/have NO CONTROL over who sends emails in any form with my domain name in them. If a competitor decided to discredit me they could easily start sending spam both with a "From:" address showing my domain as well as a link to my site in the message body.

How do I protect myself from that???

IF G-----y is going to take away my domain or extort money to "clean up" the "issue" and it was not caused by my actions, how can I respond? I can't even protect myself!

That's what worries me more than being accused of sending spam. I am very careful about what is sent from my domain, but there is NO PROTECTION from misrepresentation and the unwillingness of domain registrars like G-----y to even consider the issue from my point of view.

If they are this unwilling to examine the matter with an open mind when it is clearly not my fault, what chance have I when the complaint may come from an email that was sent from my server?

I am not trying to bash G-----y, they were my favorite and often recommended registrar until this incident. But they have sufficiently scared me such that I am quickly moving my domains away from them to a more “enlightened” registrar.