Free Email or Domain Authentication

Domain Whitelabel – a.k.a. domain authentication – lets email providers know that we are representing you when we send out emails. To provide us with permission, you will need to point a DNS entry to PostoHub from a DNS provider (such as Rackspace, Cloudfare, or GoDaddy). Once you do, recipients won’t see any “via PostoHub.io” wording on emails.

While this is only a minor change from the recipient’s point of view, such a modification has a big effect on your overall reputation as an email sender, as well as your message’s deliverability rate. Service providers do not trust emails that haven’t authenticated their domains. Without authentication, the validity of your email is called into question. By stating explicitly that the email is coming from you, you’ll increase recognition with service providers. Consequentially, they will be less inclined to filter out your messages. Your deliverability will increase as a result. You will be showing recipients that the message came from you directly, so they will be less inclined to label your message as spam.

There are a couple of things to be mindful of before this process begins.

Free-use email providers (such as AOL and Yahoo) can still be used. However, because of existing DMARC policies, you will not be able to add them to a verified domain list. You are encouraged to verify email domains that you own, as well as ones that your organization does. Buy a domain if you do not have one yet.

Subdomains with a “From” address will need to be separately verified.

• For authentication to be set up, you will need to edit or create domain records via your DNS (Domain Name Service) provider. If you’re not aware of the DNS provider’s particulars, contact your hosting provider.
• Some hosting providers do not allow underscores to be used in their domain records, and this is important to know when it comes to email authentication. We suggest switching over to one of the compatible services found in this guide if you are interested in setting up customized authentication.
• This guide contains example URLs only. Therefore, you should replace the domain “example.com” directly with a domain you plan on authenticating.

There are a number of benefits that come with authenticating a domain you own:

• It eliminates default authentication details that appear beside the “From” name field in some email clients.
• Domain authentication also helps campaigns go straight to a subscriber’s inbox, as opposed to a junk or spam folder.

Domain Authentication Customization

If an email domain of your own is used, we suggest setting up an SPF and DKIM authentication of your own. They can display information about your domain in the email header. This helps improve delivery rates while making your campaigns come across as more professional.

You will be required to make several changes to the DNS records to achieve this. Asking a domain registrar or website manager for assistance may be necessary.

If the steps above have been followed, but you have yet to receive a domain verification message, the troubleshooting tips below may prove useful:

• Be patient – based on the busyness of your ISP and Internet traffic, it may take several hours for an email to be delivered. This is inclined to happen during peak delivery times and holidays.
• Try sending the message to another address – have the verification email resent to another address that shares the domain. The domain will be verified if we are able to confirm that the domain is managed by you (via the provided address).
• Use your newest message – if you tried to have your domain verified multiple times, then you may get more than one copy of the email we send out. Ensure that the newest email we send is used for domain verification. If you don’t, verification will be unsuccessful.

Free Email Issues

The biggest limitation that comes with email addresses from free service providers is your lack of domain ownership. This prevents you from controlling the delivery policies of that domain. 

Services providers for free email addresses enforce policies that are intended to stop email scams. However, they can also cause delivery problems for real marketers.

To get a better sense of the delivery and domain issues that free email services are plagued by, you need to know what Domain Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) does.

DMARC validates incoming emails. It checks to see if a domain from the email address’ “From” field corresponds with the domain that a message is being sent from. If there are discrepancies between the two domains, the email will fail the DMARC validation.

Think about buying a domain (and/or utilizing a domain that you own already) to bypass problems with certain DMARC policies.

Buy a domain that can be used for both your marketing and business emails. That domain can be used with your website and landing pages, too. This will enhance your entire digital presence for audiences, and might improve the email campaign’s deliverability as well.