Set Up Your Domain Records (Stops Email Going to Spam or Junk) 🎬

If you don't add your domain name to our platform, or don't complete the configuration process, we will rewrite your "from address" to one of our own, which is authenticated. You can explore various scenarios here.

Video

In this video, we take a look at what Email Authentication means, why it will improve your email delivery - and (from 1m08s onwards) how to set it up.

How-to Guide

One of the great uncertainties in email marketing is whether your emails are being received by your contacts. You may find that your email ends up in the junk folder for some contacts. Some contact’s mail servers may even quarantine the emails so that it isn’t received at all.

There are plenty of factors involved when it comes to deliverability - and we have some general tips to stop your email being marked as spam as well as some on improving your open rates. However, you can give your emails the absolute best chance of reaching inboxes by setting up these domain records.

A Couple of Points To Note

The primary job of the domain records is to authenticate your emails. In a basic sense, sending authenticated emails means receiving mail servers will know our system has permission to send on behalf of your sending domain.

Sending authenticated email is significantly more trustworthy than sending unauthenticated. It is for this reason that we typically find that having these records setup will resolve most deliverability issues.

• Setting up your domain is highly recommended. We typically find that most deliverability issues are resolved once these records are set up.
• To set up your domain, you need to change some account settings with your DNS, this will probably mean reaching out to your IT team for assistance.
• If you're not sure what domains are, we'd recommend speaking to an IT person before requesting them to configure anything.
• Only domains your organisation owns / has access to, can be authenticated. Email addresses ending in domains like gmail.com, hotmail.com, bigpond.com (and so on) cannot be authenticated, as you don't own them ...hence, we recommend using a proper business email address for your communications to build trust with your users.
  Freemail Email Domain vs. Your Own Professional Email Domain.
• If your domain is used by others on our platform (common for large companies with multiple teams or divisions using our system), please be aware that if one account sets up & authenticates their domain, then everyone using that same domain will need to authenticate it in order to send from it. This is a security feature of our platform.

Add Your Domain

1. Open the Account area (⚙️ icon, at top right).
2. Select Domains from the sidebar, then click Add Domain.
3. Add your domain then click Next. If you are unsure what your domain is, it’s everything after the “@” in the email address you intend to send from. For example, if I’m going to send from david@company.com.au, the domain would be company.com.au.
   
   
4. Once you’ve set the domain, you will need to choose a hostname. The default value for this is ‘comms’ but you are free to change this to whatever you would like it to be. This value here will be seen by almost no one, so don’t worry too much about it. Once you have decided on the hostname, click Save.
   
5. You will now see 4 records on the screen; Hostname, Domain Keys, Domain Validation, and DMARC Record. Click Send Instructions and put in the email address of the person that will be adding these records to your domain. If you are not sure who that is, send it to yourself so you can forward it on when you find out. 

6. Once you or your IT provider add these records to your domain it can take some time to register. Generally though with DNS, it can take up to 48 hours for completion.

   Is your DNS with GoDaddy? If so, the records you'll need to enter into their system are slightly different to everyone else. For GoDaddy, only the section before your regular domain name needs to be entered. In other words, if (for example) your Hostname is 'comms.company.com.au', then only add 'comms' into GoDaddy's system. If (for example) your Domain Keys is 'v6dk1.domainkey.company.com.au', then only add 'v6dk1.domainkey' into GoDaddy's system. And finally, if (for example) your Domain Validation is 'v6-74548.company.com.au', then only add 'v6-74548' into the GoDaddy system.

7. The system will automatically check to see if the records are validated, but if you’d like to force that check you can click … to the right of your domain and select Test and Check. If all is well your domain will now say Configured and you will be able to send from this domain.
   

Understanding the Different Record Types

Hostname

This record will act as your return path - which means that you will have DMARC alignment.

If you have the Pro-Marketer package, a corporate account, or an agency account, you will also have the option to use this record as your product access. In addition to it being your access to the system, it will replace the tracking links domain with this record.

Advanced Domain Settings

Domain Keys

In a really basic way, the domain keys is a way that mail servers can verify that an email hasn’t been tampered with between being sent and received.

Domain Validation

The domain validation record is a record that we use to validate that you have permission to send from the domain you are setting up. This record is unique to each individual account. It’s one of the ways that we help protect your domain from unauthorised use.

DMARC Record (Optional, but highly encouraged)

This policy lets a receiving mailbox provider know how email sent from your domain should be authenticated and whether it should be delivered to the spam folder or rejected if it fails that authentication.

How To Scan the DNS To See if It's Been Setup Correctly

In this guide, we'll show you how to scan the DNS to see if your domain name was configured correctly. This is handy if you've been advised by your IT / domain provider that it has been setup, but it's still coming back as 'Not configured' in our platform.

1. In our platform, open the Account area (⚙️ icon, at top right).
2. Select the Domains tab.
3. Hover over the domain, then click View Details to the right. The 'Domain Settings' dialog will open and you should see three little panels, on this screen - 'Hostname', 'Domain Keys (DKIM)', 'Domain Validation' and 'DMARC Record'. Leave this dialog open, as you'll need to refer to it numerous times during this guide.
4. In another browser window or tab, visit at DNS lookup tool such as DNS Checker.
5. In the URL field, paste in your full domain name that you see in the first ('Hostname') panel. An example is shown below (though, use the information you see in yours - don't copy it from this example, as it will be different!);
   
6. In the DNS tool, change the record type dropdown to be 'CNAME' and click Lookup DNS.
7. In the results, you should see a CNAME record containing the values you see in our platform, from the 'Hostname' panel of the 'Domain Settings' dialog.
8. Let's move onto the second panel. Once more in the DNS Checker tool, paste the full domain name that you see in the second ('Domain Keys (DKIM)') panel. An example is shown below (though, use the information you see in yours - don't copy it from this example, as it will be different!);
   
9. In the DNS tool, ensure the record type dropdown is still set to 'CNAME' and click Lookup DNS.
10. In the results, you should see a CNAME record containing the values you see in our platform, from the 'Domain Keys (DKIM)' panel of the 'Domain Settings' dialog.
11. Let's move onto the third panel. Once more in the DNS Checker tool, paste the full domain name that you see in the third ('Domain Validation') panel. An example is shown below (though, use the information you see in yours - don't copy it from this example, as it will be different!);
    
12. Let's move onto the fourth and final panel. Once more in the DNS Checker tool, paste the full domain name that you see in the fourth ('DMARC Record') panel, and paste in the value v=DMARC1; p=none;
    
    
13. In the DNS tool, ensure the record type dropdown is now set to 'TXT' and click Lookup DNS.
14. In the results, you should see a TXT record containing the values you see in our platform, from the 'DMARC Record' panel of the 'Domain Settings' dialog.
15. If the first three of these checks were successful & the data matched, then you should be able to successfully verify your domain in our platform. The fourth check is currently optional, but is highly encouraged, as recently, Yahoo!, Google, and Microsoft announced that they will tighten requirements on inbound email to their users. One of these requirements is that all email sent to their users must come from a domain that is authenticated and has a published DMARC policy. Having this check in place willing improve deliverability rates.

Domain Is Configured, but Still Getting a 'Please Configure Your Domain' Message

You've configured your domain, it's showing as 'green' - but you're still receiving a 'Please Configure Your Domain' message? Often, this is due to the 'from' address on your email being different to that of your domain.

For example, you may have configured domain xyz-donut-company.com.au but you're trying to send from an email address ending in @abcdonutsandcakes.com.au. This would cause the aforementioned error to appear.

To fix this, adjust the 'from' address of your email to be that of an email address ending in the domain that has been configured.

Change the Message Details of an Email

What About SPF Records?

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) should be resolved once the domain is configured.

What Happens if I Don’t Configure Our Domain Name?

Scenario 1: I Have Added Our Domain Name & It’s Configured Correctly

Excellent work! Your emails will now have the best possible chance to reach their destination (of course, email content and the reputation of your domain will, as always, also play a part).

Scenario 2: I Haven’t Added Our Sender Domain Name Yet

Please follow the how-to guide at the top of this article to add and configure your organisation's domain name in our platform. If you don't, we will automatically rewrite your "from address" to one that is authenticated, by changing the sender domain at the time of sending (see example below).

Scenario 3: I Have Added Our Domain Name, but Didn’t Finish Configuring It

You will need to follow step 6 in the how-to guide at the top of this article and finish the configuration process by using the Test and Check function. If you don't do this, we will automatically rewrite your "from address" to one that is authenticated, by changing the sender domain at the time of sending (see example below).

Scenario 4: I Can’t Add or Configure Our Domain Name - Because We Don’t Own It

If you send from a domain that cannot be authenticated (such as an @bigpond.com, @gmail.com, @hotmail.com - or any other email address of this style, where you don't send from a company domain name that your organisation owns), then we will automatically rewrite your "from address" to one that is authenticated, by changing the sender domain at the time of sending (see example below).

What Will the “From Address” Rewrite Look Like?

Here are some examples:

• If you are sending from a domain name that your organisation doesn't own (such as xyzdounts@gmail.com), then we will modify your "from address" to xyzdonuts=gmail.com@au.v6send.net (or @us.v6send.net if you are on our US instance).
• If you are sending from a domain name that your organisation does own (such as info@xyzdonuts.com.au) - but it hasn't been setup in our platform or hasn't been configured correctly, then we will modify your "from address" to info=xyzdonuts.com.au@au.v6send.net (or @us.v6send.net if you are on our US instance).

But don't worry - your subscribers will still see your original name in the "from" field, so nothing will appear to change for them unless they view the email headers in more detail.