Transactional vs Marketing Email: Understanding the Difference

All emails are not created equal. Mixing them up leads to disaster. Sending marketing blasts from your main business email address is the fastest way to get blacklisted.

Transactional Email

These are emails triggered programmatically by a specific user action.

• Examples: Password resets, order confirmations, shipping notifications, 2FA codes.
• Priority: High. Users expect these instantly (within 10-20 seconds). If a password reset takes 10 minutes, the user leaves.
• Deliverability: Usually high because users want and expect these emails.

Marketing Email

These are one-to-many broadcasts sent by you to a list.

• Examples: Newsletters, product launches, sale announcements.
• Priority: Lower. It's fine if a newsletter arrives 10 minutes late.
• Deliverability: Lower. These are often marked as spam by users or filtered by Gmail's "Promotions" tab.

The Cardinal Rule: Separate IPs

If you send your marketing newsletter from the same IP address as your password resets, and one user marks your newsletter as Spam, your IP reputation drops. Suddenly, your critical password reset emails start going to Spam folders too. Solution:

1. Use Postmark or SendGrid (Transactional Stream) for system emails.
2. Use Mailchimp or ConvertKit for marketing.
3. Never mix the streams. Use different subdomains (e.g., notifications.example.com vs newsletter.example.com).