What’s the difference between cold and marketing domain setup?

Cold email and marketing email serve different purposes, and domain strategy reflects those differences.

Marketing domain setup:

Often uses subdomains of the main brand domain

Prioritizes brand recognition and consistency

Benefits from existing domain reputation

Designed for long-term use with opted-in subscribers

Reputation protection through engagement quality

Cold email domain setup:

Typically uses separate domains from the main brand

Prioritizes reputation isolation (protecting the main domain)

Starts with no reputation, requiring warmup

May be rotated or replaced if reputation degrades

Reputation protection through volume limits and targeting quality

Key distinctions:

Cold domains are more expendable

Cold domains need more aggressive warmup

Cold domains face higher scrutiny from mailbox providers

Cold domains should not share infrastructure with critical transactional email

A merchant vessel and a scout ship require different preparations, even if they sail for the same fleet.