Using @gmail.com or @yourdomain.com for outreach

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Which do you think would be more effective?
 
@yourdomain.com seems more professional and less likely to be spam.
 
Surely. But it also depends on an industry. In domaining, no sane domainer would outreach end users from gmail. But for less savvy demographics, i donnow, mommy forum owners just for example, maybe it doesn't matter so much.
 
Buy a domain and put something on it. I've not seen a difference in testing [or contractual requirements to do it a certain way necessitating a 'test'] between what the domain actually is (a personal blog for the outreacher, the company site itself [I don't like this one as if some people hit spam it impacts the underlying business e-mails], a pretend hosting company, a pretend intranet site for the company you're outreaching for. The only interesting difference is with the personal blog option it often ends up being linked to by random 'kind' webmasters... so help yourself to a domain that might be worth something small to sell, or use for another project when you're done with the project if you choose that one :wink:

It seems like delivery to outlook.com/hotmail particularly and to a lesser extent yahoo and gmail is lower for a brand new domain so 'warming it up' by sending a bunch of messages to test accounts, friends etc with e-mails there before you start your serious outreach might be worthwhile. Having them all unmark as spam (if spammed - it won't always be the case...) etc.
 
I would say use both.
Why ? your domain sounds more professionnal. and the IP addresses of google servers will be likely less marked as spam.
How ? You need to have a (paid) Google Apps account, and setup your domain name in it. Then you have your "own" gmail.
 
I would say it depends on what type of link are you trying to get

For most 2 step link building ( broken link building or content enhancement) where you're mostly buttering them up in the first email i've found more success with a regular gmail account.

For more brand building ones (such as guest posting, sponsored content) i've found that using a domain has been much better.
 
If you don't mind the added trouble, another great way is use abbreviated, but clearly related domains, to offset the potential negative hit from blacklisting. This can help protect your main, money emails. For example:

  • Main domain: broseph.com
  • CDN/email/url-shortener domain: bro.com
Few extra bucks and a bit of setup, could serve as a useful buffer, if you need to go to that extent. If you've built any sort of significant list, it is worth the time and money to protect it. Some people are downright assholes, and will report you as spam, report you to honeypot/blacklist sites (even if it wasn't a low quality email), just to watch the world burn.
 
I've been using Gmail because its been getting better delivery rates than @mydomain.com and I don't want to take any risks just yet of emails being marked as spam or not going through. But, I think that @domain.com would probably look more professional. However, in my limited experience, I've seen a load of professional people who have a gmail or hotmail email address listed on their website.
 
A custom domain will always be more effective.

I'm not sure if custom-domain aliases still work for Google Apps, I've moved to Office 365 which they don't allow cross-domain aliases anymore and require additional subscriptions to do so. But my workaround is simple.

Even if you are managing multiple domain names and you're reaching out for one of those domains, you can use a @parentdomain.com and say this is the establishment that manages this domain, among others.

Boom, you've raised the bar.
 
Raymond Luo said:
A custom domain will always be more effective.

I'm not sure if custom-domain aliases still work for Google Apps, I've moved to Office 365 which they don't allow cross-domain aliases anymore and require additional subscriptions to do so. But my workaround is simple.

Even if you are managing multiple domain names and you're reaching out for one of those domains, you can use a @parentdomain.com and say this is the establishment that manages this domain, among others.

Boom, you've raised the bar.
Click to expand...

Yep, custom domain aliases still work in Google Apps. IIRC, I think I have like a dozen just on one main email address.
 
As stated above the @yourdomain.com is more professional looking for sure, BUT........

If I am trying to get a link from somewhere and I know that the person on the other end does SEO, I use a Gmail, and play the "I am not sure what I am doing" card with people. Just basically make it sound like I am new to all of this, and how I am learning SEO.

I can't tell you how many times that has landed me insane links. I am not sure if it is just people feel like they are taking advantage of someone, or I am lucky, but playing the dumb card with the "ELITE SEOS" of the internet is like taking candy from a baby.

Outreach is all about making the person on the other end feel like they are getting a deal and knowing what they want to hear. If you are going for decent sites that do marketing, you gotta step your psychological game up and make them do what you want.
 
If it's a professional company or service, I'd use a custom domain. For a smaller blog, Gmail.
 
Use your domain if it's not an informal blogger outreach situation. Setting up a domain email is pretty easy and you can even get imap for free if you use a free provider like zoho.

You can only have one domain per free account, but I've used burner emails to create new accounts for each new domain.

They used to (or still do?) offer free activesync support, but I haven't had the greatest experience with that. I'd stick with imap.
 
In the end, while it's nice and looks more professional to have a @yourdomain.com email, in the end it's not mandatory. I've seen many well-established people use a gmail.com email for stuff like charging with PayPal for their services. It goes along with the thinking of MVP (minimum viable product), where you should just do the minimum you need in order to get your business running, and Gmail is reliable email after all. If you're getting a website just for a domain email, it may be best to avoid all that time spent on setup and just keep it simple.
 
@Nat makes a good point with delivery from gmail less likely to be marked as spam. We deal with a lot of local city, county and state organizations and I'm constantly having to submit a request to white list IP addresses. Even sending from multiple servers you get that. But, these organizations are more cautious about that. If you can get away with it and your email goes through definitely use your domain.
 
Sometimes with a domain it can be considered spam. I had a lot of customer emails and even shipping confirmation emails from our fulfilment provider going straight to their spam folders.

So on the one hand Gmail is good for this as they are more likely to not go to spam, but on the other hand a lot of it depends on the subject and the content, whether there are images etc (most of the time if there was an image in my sig the email would go to spam).

Alternatively for extra insurance you can check out Sendgrid or a similar service.
 
@yourDomain. EASY.

How do you get rich? BRANDING.

Everytime your brand is read, seen, or heard... It's being put into the mind of a person. That's free marketing.
 
Id stay away from gmail, there as a fuss about it a few months ago because people were actually contacting other site owners who linked to them asking to remove the link saying they were trying to clean up their link profile etc.... the usual email we have all had.
However
The email was not from the site owner, it was from a competitor and it wasnt targeting the removal of their spammy links it was trying to kill off the better backlinks.
 
I have never tried it personally but i am sure using @Edu email will have much better impact in outreaching .
You can buy @Edu email id and Outreach by it by showing yourself as a Student and working on some BLAH BLAH project and it will give you some good results .
 
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