Get Started with Custom Email Domain

Hey there! If you're subscribed to Growth, Plus, or Custom plan you have access to the custom domain feature. This allows you to use your own purchased domain for sending emails. In this article, we'll explore how you can improve the deliverability of your emails to prevent them from landing in spam folders. Keep reading to find out some practical tips and strategies to boost the impact of your email communications!

To make sure your emails are delivered efficiently and that you receive notifications promptly, Growave uses the email address noreply@socialshopwave.email by default. If you're subscribed to the Growth, Premium, or Custom plans, you have access to a special feature called Custom Email. This feature allows you to personalize the email address from which your messages are sent.

This custom email domain is purchased and managed on your end through third-party platforms.

To make your emails more reputable and avoid them being labeled as spam, it's important to set up specific DNS records. As a marketer, you're likely familiar with the acronyms SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, but understanding their true impact can revolutionize your email strategy.

• SPF guards against impersonation
• DKIM adds an unforgeable seal to your emails
• DMARC is the overarching security strategy

Now is the ideal moment to dive into these authentication protocols, ensuring your emails land in the inbox and do so securely.

Setting up "AWS SES Custom MAIL FROM Domain"

To protect your sender reputation and ensure inbox delivery, it's crucial to configure your AWS SES Custom MAIL FROM domain. This setting is essential, especially since major inbox providers like Gmail and Yahoo now require bulk senders to send from a verified custom domain (DKIM, SPF, DMARC), rather than a "free email" address.

Moreover, setting up this feature ensures that your emails display the sender as "Mail From {domain name}," instead of the default "Mail from Amazon SES."

For this configuration, you can reach out to us directly. The Growave team manually generates records and provides them to clients. Afterward, you'll need to add them to your domain yourself.

About SPF - Sender Policy Framework

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is an email authentication protocol enabling domain owners to specify authorized mail servers for sending emails from their domain. Brands utilizing various email services should publish SPF records in DNS to authorize sending resources. In our case, all platform emails are routed through Amazon SES. Therefore, it's imperative to add the resource - include:amazonses.com

For instance, if the SPF record was:

v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all

With AWS SES, it becomes:

v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com include:amazonses.com ~all

To verify SPF configuration, you can use tools like MXToolbox.

Moreover, SPF plays a crucial role in preventing email spoofing and phishing attacks by defining authorized mail servers for a domain. Including reputable email service providers like Amazon SES in SPF records is essential for optimal email deliverability and security.

However, SPF alone isn't comprehensive. For robust email protection, configuring DKIM and DMARC alongside SPF is recommended as part of your overall email authentication strategy.​

DMARC - Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance

DMARC is a protocol that empowers domain owners like yourself to enhance email security. It achieves this by enabling you to define policies regarding email authentication and specifying actions to be taken when authentication fails.

DMARC Policies:

• p=none (Monitoring Mode):

  In "none" mode, DMARC functions as an observer. It allows you to receive detailed reports on email authentication results without taking any action. This is akin to a diagnostic phase, where you can assess potential issues without impacting the delivery of emails.

• p=quarantine (Quarantine Mode):

  When DMARC is configured with a "quarantine" policy, emails that fail authentication may be redirected to a separate folder, often the recipient's spam or quarantine folder. This provides a middle ground between monitoring and strict rejection, allowing you to identify potential threats without outright blocking them.

• p=reject (Reject Mode):

  The "reject" policy is the most stringent. It instructs email receivers to reject messages that do not pass authentication outright. This level of enforcement ensures a higher degree of protection against unauthorized or malicious emails.

For our clients, the following record should be implemented:

"v=DMARC1; p=none; sp=reject; pct=100;"

To verify this record, you can use the Dig (DNS lookup) tool under the TXT section, specifying the subdomain as "_dmarc".

In summary, DMARC equips you with the tools to strengthen your email domain against phishing and fraudulent activities. The choice of policies and configurations allows you to balance monitoring, action, and strict enforcement based on your security preferences.

Please note that to have your domain successfully verified for sending emails, at least one of SPF, DKIM, or DMARC must be valid. Failure of validation in any of these records will not allow you to verify the domain, and you won't be able to select it for email sending.

DKIM record - Domain Keys Identified Mail

DKIM is a protocol that allows an organization to take responsibility for transmitting a message in a way that the mailbox providers can verify. This verification is made possible through cryptographic authentication. The primary advantage for email recipients is that it allows them to reliably identify a stream of legitimate emails, thereby allowing domain-based blacklists and whitelists to be more effective. This is also likely to make certain kinds of phishing attacks easier to detect.

DKIM lets an organization take responsibility for a message while it is in transit. The organization is a handler of the message, either as its originator or as an intermediary. Their reputation is the basis for evaluating whether to trust the message for delivery or not.

Blacklist Check

Even if you have configured DNS and DKIM, their email address or domain might still be flagged in Amazon's blacklist. If you happen to face such issues, the initial step involves conducting a blacklist check using tools like Newsletters spam test. By simply copying the email and sending a test message to the designated address, followed by clicking the 'Check score' button, you can ascertain any potential blacklisting.

It's important to thoroughly review any listings in blacklists. Additionally, we can offer recommendations on steps to facilitate delisting or addressing underlying issues causing the blacklisting.

Email Issues for BTinternet.com Users

Regarding the problem with sending emails to BTinternet.com addresses, many of our merchants in the UK use BT for their email, like btinternet.com, btopenworld, and talk21. Growave team been trying hard to make sure your emails are received by customers by setting up SPF and DMARC records and improving our domain settings.

But even with all our efforts, many emails sent to these addresses are getting marked as spam by British Telecom’s strict filters. This means that some messages you send might not be reaching your customers.

Currently, we are looking for all possible ways to send these emails. We’ve noticed that emails sent through apps like Klaviyo and Omnisend seem to have better luck reaching your customers.

If you have any questions regadings this article or may need help, please feel free to contact us at support@growave.io or by chat icon in the bottom-right corner.