Hi all! Curious to hear people’s thoughts on using cold domains vs. primary domain for outbound outreach. We’ve been testing cold domains through Unify, but haven’t seen the same results as when we were using primary domains. Wondering if others have run into the same thing.
We’ve run into that too — primary domains almost always get better reply rates because of the trust factor. Cold domains are safer for deliverability, but they need more warmup + better alignment with SPF/DKIM/DMARC to perform anywhere close. What’s worked for us at Panoptic is a hybrid: use cold domains for volume but set them up really tight, while keeping the primary for smaller, higher-value touches. Happy to share the setup we use if helpful! Best, Sourabh Panoptic Analytics panopticanalytics.com [email protected] LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sourabh85/
It's really hard to replicate the real authority you get with primary domains, but there may be other factors at play too (e.g. human copy, previously conversational history, lower volumes etc.) The challenge with primary, of course, is that there is a real volume limit. We're seeing a clear need to run both types of campaign in parallel - lower volume, hyper relevant, human-in-the-loop 1:1 campaigns via primary domains; and then higher volume, still hyper relevant, automated 1:many campaigns via secondary. Happy to chat through how these systems work together!
Make cold warm then use them