D for Domains in A to Z of Email Marketing

“D” for Domains is todays topic from our A-Z of Email Marketing Series. Domains is many ways is truly the building block of the online networking world. In layman’s language you can understand “Domains” just as Name or Label of a computer connected to the internet. To read more about Domains and understand its relevance in emails, read more.

So what is a Domain

In layman’s language you can understand “Domains” just as Name or Label of a computer connected to the internet. So now that we broadly understand that domains are nothing but “address” or “names” of the actual computer, Let us understand how domains work.
Domains provide a easy and simple way to remember the address of the computer. In actuality all information transferred over the internet is sent or received from a sending server and received using a receiving server. These servers talk to each other through a set of protocols like -:

  • SMTP
  • POP
  • HTTP
  • FTP
  • And many others.

 
These protocols define the communication standard and type of data to expect. The sending server sends the data to another server by transmitting data over these protocols.

When sending data or receiving data how do servers identify each other?

Servers identify each other using IP Address. The domains names are basically nicknames / easy to remember reference of this address.

Especially when it comes to emails the data is transferred from one server to another via the SMTP Port. The Servers receive incoming data through this port and identify the sender, message information from the “Email Header”. The Email header contains important information about the email senders domain, ip address.

So why are domains important from Email Marketing Perspective.

The domain dns informs the server about important data that is wrapped in the email header. Example SPF records, DKIM records, MX records, etc. This information helps the receiving server to identify and authenticate emails. If the information is found incomplete or has discrepancy emails land into SPAM. This is why understand domains and how to configure them is important.

How do domains affect the deliverability of my emails into Inbox?

Three important factors that improve the delivery from the domain point of view are -:

 

  • Configuration / authentication – SPF records, DKIM
  • Domain Reputation – check blacklisting
  • Domain Age
There is also a new development in context to domains for email purpose which is called BIMI. We will be sharing more information about this in our future articles.