Email / Domain Settings

in an initiative to enhance the security of user inboxes, gmail and yahoo! have implemented new criteria that senders must adhere to by february 2024 to ensure their emails are delivered reliably to subscribers please note aiq uses sendgrid for email communications email requirements requirements aiq already does for you custom spf setup we recommend using the cname(s) provided sendgrid manages the spf txt records on your behalf using sendgrid's automated security and provides the cname records that you need to add to your dns record to check the spf txt record that sendgrid manages for your account, you can use the command dig on the first cname in the domain authentication section of your sender verification dkim setup requirements you may need to take action on authenticating your domain (if not done already) please follow the steps below, authenticating your domain creating dmarc records this would be done by you within your domain hosting site (i e godaddy, cloudflare, google domains, etc ) creating ptr records this would be done by you within your domain hosting site (i e godaddy, cloudflare, google domains, etc ) 1\ key terminology bimi stands for brand indicators for message identification it's a standard that allows the use of brand controlled logos within supported email clients to identify authenticated emails cname stands for canonical name it's a type of dns record that maps an alias name to a true or canonical domain name the cname record creates an alias for subdomain yourdomain com dkim stands for domainkeys identified mail it's an email authentication method that allows the receiver to check that an email claimed to have come from a specific domain was indeed authorized by the owner of that domain dmarc stands for domain based message authentication, reporting, and conformance it's an email authentication, policy, and reporting protocol it builds on spf and dkim protocols to improve and monitor the protection of the domain from fraudulent email dns stands for domain name system this is a naming system for domains on the internet when we refer to your dns, we are talking about your domain name that you want to send emails from, or that you want to link images from when we talk about your dns provider, we are talking about the service that hosts your domain name for example, godaddy, rackspace, or cloudflare ptr stands for dns pointer record it is used in reverse dns lookups to map an ip address back to its associated domain name it's mainly used for network troubleshooting and email spam filtering to verify the legitimacy of an ip address spf stands for sender policy framework this is an email authentication method designed to detect forging sender addresses during the delivery of the email 2\ required domain settings before sending your first email campaign, you will need to authenticate your domain and set the sender settings domain authentication shows aiq that you do, in fact, own the domain name that you want to send from to give aiq permission to send using this domain, you point dns entries from your dns provider (like godaddy, rackspace, or cloudflare) to aiq set up a dmarc policy for your sending domain fortunately, tools such as valimail and similar ones are available to assist in creating dmarc records and aiding senders in achieving enforcement we believe that if you're investing the effort to establish the required records for compliance, then advancing to secure your sending domain against misuse should be a straightforward task it's important to remember that bimi and various other inbox features necessitate domain owners to implement dmarc at an enforcement level ensure that sending domains or ips have valid forward and reverse dns records, also referred to as ptr records 3\ authenticating your domain 1\) in aiq, select email settings 2\) select the add domain button 3\) fill in the domain that you want to send from and add advanced settings as needed make sure that you only enter the name of your root domain and click save domain do not include do not include www or http //www in this field your domain needs to match the domain of your from address on the emails you are sending out for example, if i am sending an email from example\@aiq com , i would set my domain authentication domain to be aiq com if you're using a domain that's already been setup with aiq on a different account, you'll need to use a custom dkim selector open "advanced options" and enter your 3 letters or numbers into "custom dkim" for example, you could use "org", or "001" 4\) the page will reload with 3 cnames 5\) next, you need to add all of the cname records on this screen to your dns host this process varies depending on your dns host for go daddy instructions click here for namecheap instructions click here for rackspace instructions click here for cloudflare instructions click here for wix instructions click here 6\) once you add the cname records to your dns host, return to the email settings page and click refresh (it can take up to 48 hours for the records to be verified after you upload them into your dns host, so you will likely have to return later to verify ) tip if you click refresh and only half of your cname records verify, this usually means that you need to wait a bit longer it's also possible that you entered one of your records incorrectly 4\ sender settings 1\) sender name input your brand/company name 2\) from email input the email address you want your email campaigns to be from usually, this is some sort of shared email address, i e friends\@aiq com, marketing\@aiq com the domain in the sender's from header must be aligned with either the spf domain or the dkim domain this means that the email needs to exist, so if someone replies to it, it should go to an inbox 3\ reply to name when a customer replies to one of your emails, what name do want to be used as the recipient i e support team, aiq 4\) reply to email when a customer replies to one of your emails, input what email address you would like the responses to go to 5\) input your address, city, state, zip and country this information is required on the footer of all email campaigns 6\) click save sender 5\ recommended actions keep spam rates reported in google postmaster tools below 0 1% maintaining low levels of spam complaints is vital to increase the likelihood of your emails reaching the inbox if you haven't done so yet, consider setting up google postmaster now to monitor your complaint rates additionally, you can use our deliverability insights to track your performance and view all essential statistics in one convenient location additional resources we use sendgrid, and they ensure that all emails sent through them use format messages according to the internet message format standard (rfc 5322) new sending requirements for gmail & yahoo! gmail and yahoo’s new sender requirements a closer look new gmail protections for a safer, less spammy inbox yahoo sender requirements and recommendations how to meet google and yahoo's email sender requirements in 2024 validation tools https //mxtoolbox com/ https //mxtoolbox com/