Domain authentication or Send From authentication shows email providers that Smart Newsletter has your permission to send emails on your behalf.
To give Smart Newsletter permission, you point DNS (Domain Name System) entries from your DNS provider Smart Newsletter.
This means your recipients will no longer see the “via Smart Newsletter” message on your emails.
This has a huge impact on your reputation as a sender and your email deliverability, which we care about very much at Smart Newsletter.
Email service providers distrust messages that do not have domain authentication set up because they can not be sure that the message comes from you. Explicitly stating this increases your reputation with email service providers ensuring they do not filter you out of inboxes and shows your recipients that this comes from you so they do not mark you as spam.
DNS refers to the domain name that you want to send emails from—for example, animalsthatread.com.
The CNAME record creates an alias for subdomain.yourdomain.com and points to Smart Newsletter. The CNAME is needed for our click-and-open tracking features in order for those statistics to be routed back to your Smart Newsletter account. This will also be what your messages are signed by, so your recipients will be able to see what you have chosen for your CNAME. You set up the CNAME files that Smart Newsletter provides with your DNS host.
To set up domain authentication, you must submit the DNS records provided by Smart Newsletter to your DNS or hosting provider. First, figure out who your hosting provider is and if you have access. If you don’t have access to your DNS or hosting provider, you should figure out who in your company has this access before you begin to set up. Please note that Smart Newsletter cannot authenticate gmail.com outlook.com or yahoo.com.
To Set Up Domain Authentication:
1. Type in the desired domain
- Your domain needs to match the domain of your from address on the emails you are sending out. For example, if you are sending an email from hello@animalsthatread.com, then enter your domain as animalsthatread.com
2. Next, you need to add all the CNAME records that appear on the screen after you hit authenticate. You will need to add these records to your DNS host. This process will vary depending on your DNS host.
- It can take up to 48 hours for records to be verified after you upload them into your DNS host.
Verifying Your DNS:
3. Once you add your CNAME records to your DNS host, return to the Domain Authentication page and click verify.
Any time that you send an email with a FROM address whose domain matches the domain set in the domain authentication, Smart Newsletter applies that domain to your email. You only need to update your domain authentication if you want to update the domain you are emailing from.