Why Companies Use Different Email Domains for Emails

You open your inbox and see a message from Bear, a company you vaguely recognize.
But the sender isn’t @bear.com — it’s @getbear.com.

The logo looks fine. The design looks professional. But your instincts kick in — something feels off.
Why isn’t this coming from the real domain? Is it a scam?

With phishing attempts skyrocketing after COVID-19 (source), it’s harder than ever to know what’s real.

That uneasy moment is exactly where phishing thrives.

And yet, in many cases, the email is completely legitimate.

The Problem: Marketing Domains That Look Like Phishing

Let’s start with that “Bear” example — but it’s not as far-fetched as it sounds.

Imagine you get an email from a company you vaguely know, Bear, that helps teams organize notes.
The sender’s address says hello@getbear.com.

Your first thought is probably:

“Wait, is this a scam? Someone’s imitating them.”

But in reality, getbear.com is their legitimate domain. The Bear note-taking app uses it for newsletters and updates.

And they’re not alone:

Grammarly, whose main website is grammarly.com, often sends emails from @send.grammarly.com.
Blockchain, whose main website is blockchain.com, sends emails from @email.blockchain.com.
Ryanair, whose main website is ryanair.com, often sends marketing emails from @marketing.ryanairemail.com.
Airbnb sends booking confirmations from @airbnbmail.com.
LinkedIn uses @e.linkedin.com for notifications and invites.

All of these are genuine companies, not scams.

Yet to the average person — or even to someone working in IT — those sender domains look exactly like what a phishing campaign would use.

Scammers exploit this confusion constantly. They’ll register lookalikes such as ryanair-mail.co, then copy the branding pixel-for-pixel.

Because the real companies already use alternate domains, these fakes blend in almost perfectly.

It's hard to know if it's a phishing or legitimate email

So the “Bear” email that seemed suspicious?

It’s actually a side effect of modern marketing.

But it also shows why even legitimate brands are making trust harder for their own users.

Why Legitimate Companies Do This Anyway

Let’s break down the main reasons corporations and startups often use different sending domains — even though it makes them look suspicious to the average user.

1. Protecting the Main Domain’s Reputation

When companies send thousands of marketing or cold outreach emails, some recipients will mark them as spam — even if they signed up for them.

If all those emails were sent from @bear.com, the main domain could get a bad sender reputation.
Once that happens, even legitimate transactional emails (like invoices or password resets) might land in spam folders.

To avoid that, marketers send campaigns from a secondary domain such as @getbear.com.
That way, any deliverability issues affect only the marketing domain, not the core business operations.

It’s a defensive move — but it creates a visibility problem.

2. Tracking, Automation, and Third-Party Platforms

Many companies use tools like HubSpot, Lemlist, Mailchimp, or Apollo to handle bulk campaigns.
These services often recommend — or even require — a separate domain for outreach.

It lets them track opens, clicks, and bounces, while maintaining a consistent email infrastructure separate from the company’s main servers.

Example setups might include:

@news.bear.com (newsletter)
@support.bear.com (customer support)
@getbear.com (cold outreach)

Each domain is configured differently, often with its own SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records.
To the recipient, though, this looks like brand inconsistency — and for someone cautious about phishing, that’s a big red flag.

3. Legal and Marketing Flexibility

In many countries, marketing messages must include unsubscribe links and tracking mechanisms.
Using a secondary domain helps keep these systems isolated from critical corporate email infrastructure.

Agencies running campaigns for clients also prefer separate domains, so they can operate safely without direct access to the brand’s primary mail systems.

But once again — the more technically isolated these systems become, the less recognizable they look to regular people.

Why This Looks (and Feels) Phishy

Most phishing emails rely on small domain variations:

bear-support.com instead of bear.com
bearinc.co instead of bear.com
getbear.app instead of bear.com

So when a legitimate company actually uses those same variations, it muddies the water.
The user’s defense mechanism — “check the domain” — suddenly doesn’t work as well.

You might think:

“Wait, I thought I was supposed to distrust anything that’s not exactly the main brand domain.
Now they’re telling me this is real?”

It creates what security experts call trust dilution — when even legitimate behavior starts resembling scam behavior, users begin to tune out security cues entirely.

🕵️‍♂️ Quick Fact:
Even legitimate emails can pass SPF, DKIM, and DMARC checks — because these only verify that the domain owns the mail, not that it’s trustworthy.

How to Tell If a Different Domain Email Is Legitimate or a Scam

For everyday users, this practice creates a challenge: if companies legitimately use different domains, how do you tell the difference between real and fake?

Here are some practical checks:

1. Look for official references

Does the company mention these domains on its website or help center?
Many corporations list their official email domains publicly.

2. Check SPF/DKIM/DMARC records

If you’re tech-savvy, use tools like MXToolbox to see if the sending domain is authorized.

3. Consistency matters

Even if multiple domains are used, legitimate emails usually follow a pattern (e.g., @something.example.com).
Scam emails often use unrelated or misspelled domains (e.g., @examp1e-secure.com).

4. Links inside the email

Hover over links — do they point back to the real company website?
Fraudsters often hide malicious URLs behind official-looking text.

5. Tone and content

Legitimate companies rarely use urgency traps like “Click now or lose access in 2 hours.”
They also almost never ask for sensitive information via email.

The Risk: When Everyone Looks Like a Scammer

The internet’s best defense against phishing used to be simple:

“Always check the domain.”

That advice is becoming less reliable.

Because as legitimate companies continue using alternate domains for deliverability and tracking, the visual distinction between real and fake grows thinner.

Scammers don’t need to outsmart filters — they just need to mimic corporate marketing practices.

This is why we now see phishing emails that pass SPF, DKIM, and DMARC checks — because they’re sent from domains that technically belong to the scammer, but visually imitate the brand’s alternate marketing domain.

For example, if the real company uses @getbear.com, an attacker might register @trybear.net — which looks just as plausible.
To the untrained eye, both are “probably fine.”

How Companies Could Do Better

Legitimate senders share some responsibility here.
If a company wants to use alternative domains, they can still make it less confusing for users by:

1. Publicly listing all official domains

Add a support page like “Our official email domains” — major companies like Apple and PayPal already do this.

2. Keeping names close but consistent

Instead of getbear.com, use a subdomain like mail.bear.com.
It keeps the brand visible and authenticates more cleanly.

3. Clear sender identity

Email “From” fields should read something like:

Bear (Official Sales Team) <sales@getbear.com>

Rather than just:

Bear Sales <getbear.com>

4. Signing all mail properly (SPF/DKIM/DMARC)

This makes the email verifiable even if the domain differs.

5. Educating their audience

Even a short note on their contact page — “We may send emails from getbear.com for outreach purposes” — helps build confidence.

What You Can Do as a Recipient

If you receive an email from a brand using an unfamiliar domain, take a step back.
It might be legitimate, but it’s worth verifying.

Here’s a quick checklist:

Search the domain itself
Look up getbear.com — does it redirect to Bear’s official site or appear on their contact page?
Check the sender’s intent
Is it trying to sell, warn, or scare you? Legitimate cold sales rarely pressure you with urgency or fear.
Hover over links
Are they going to the real site, or somewhere unrelated?
Look for mismatched branding
Spelling mistakes, pixelated logos, or broken footers are often signs of a fake.
If unsure, don’t click
Go directly to the company’s website or official support channels and confirm.

The Bigger Picture

We’ve entered a strange phase of email trust.

Corporations use alternate domains for valid technical and marketing reasons — yet that very behavior blurs the line between authenticity and deception.
The result? Even cautious users can’t always tell the difference between a real cold sales campaign and a spear-phishing attempt.

It’s not malice — it’s misalignment.
The goals of marketers (reach inboxes, avoid spam filters) often conflict with the goals of security teams (build user trust, avoid impersonation).

Until that gap closes, inboxes will remain confusing places — where “Bear” emailing you from getbear.com might be real, fake, or both at once.

Final Takeaway

Legitimate marketing infrastructure can look exactly like phishing.

The solution isn’t panic — it’s awareness.

Always verify before trusting, and remember that branding alone isn’t proof of authenticity anymore.