Dedicated Email Sending Domains Overview & Setup

What is a Dedicated Sending Domain?

A dedicated sending domain allows you to send emails using your own branded domain name instead of the CRM's shared infrastructure. This gives you greater control over your email deliverability, helps protect your brand's reputation by building a positive sending history, and presents a more professional and trustworthy appearance to your recipients.

Note: This feature is available for CRM Email users only.

Before You Begin: Warming Up a New Domain

If you are using a brand-new domain, it is crucial to gradually increase the volume of emails you send over a period of time. This process, known as "warming up" the domain, helps establish a positive reputation with email service providers and prevents your initial emails from being flagged as spam.

Alternative: Using a Third-Party SMTP

If you prefer to use an external email delivery service, you can connect it to your CRM instead. For instructions, please refer to the article on Setting Up SMTP Providers.

Configuring a Dedicated Sending Domain

You can configure multiple dedicated sending domains and assign them for different purposes, such as one-to-one communication, automated workflow emails, marketing campaigns, and payment or invoice notifications.

Step 1: Access Email Services

Navigate to Settings and select Email Services. Then, click on the Dedicated Domain and IP tab.

Step 2: Add Your Domain

Click the Add Domain button to begin the setup process. You will be prompted to enter the subdomain you wish to use for sending emails.

What is a Subdomain? A subdomain is a prefix to your main domain name. For instance, if your primary website is yourcompany.com, you could create a subdomain like mail.yourcompany.com or news.yourcompany.com. You can create and use different subdomains for various types of email communications.

Step 3: Verify DNS Records

After adding your subdomain, you must verify ownership by adding specific DNS records to your domain's configuration. The CRM may offer an auto-configuration option. If auto-configuration is not available for your domain host, you will need to add the records manually.

DNS changes can take up to 24 hours to propagate globally. If verification fails after this period, double-check that the records were entered correctly.

Important: The system does not support having multiple DKIM records for the same domain.

Manually Adding DNS Records

To add records manually, log into your domain hosting provider's dashboard (e.g., GoDaddy, Cloudflare, Namecheap) and create the DNS records using the values provided by the CRM. After adding the records, return to the CRM settings to verify them.

Step 4: Assign a Domain for Calendar Emails

You can designate a dedicated sending domain specifically for calendar-related emails, such as appointment confirmations and reminders, to ensure high deliverability for these time-sensitive messages.

1. Go to Settings → Email Service → SMTP Service.
2. Select Dedicated Domain and IP.
3. Under the Domain Configuration section, find the Calendar option and add up to five domains.
4. You can set percentage-based distribution to spread the email load across multiple calendar domains.

Note: Only domains created within a sub-account are available for selection here, and this feature is for CRM Email users only.

Monitoring with Google Postmaster Tools

Google Postmaster Tools is a free service that provides data about your domain's reputation and email delivery performance within Gmail.

1. Sign in to gmail.com/postmaster with a Google account.
2. Add your dedicated sending domain (e.g., mail.yourbrand.com).
3. Select the verification method and copy the provided TXT record.
4. Add this TXT record exactly as shown to your domain's DNS settings via your hosting provider and save the changes.
5. Return to Google Postmaster Tools to complete the verification. It may take some time for Google to detect the new record.
6. Once verified and after you have sent sufficient email volume from your CRM using the dedicated domain, you can monitor key metrics like Domain Reputation, Spam Rate, and Authentication results.

Understanding Shared Domain Email Refactoring

When you use a shared sending domain (either the CRM's default domain or an Agency Shared Domain), the system automatically modifies the technical "sender" address to align with the shared infrastructure, even though the "From" address your recipient sees remains unchanged.

This refactoring uses a "plus" addressing format behind the scenes. For example, an email from test@yourdomain.com might technically be sent from an address like test+yourdomain.com@shared-crm-domain.com.

This applies to all sub-accounts created after a specific date and will be rolled out to existing agencies over time. To prevent this refactoring and ensure your emails are sent exactly as configured, set up a dedicated sending domain.

Troubleshooting

Error: "Domain already pointing to email server!"

This error indicates that DNS records (such as MX or SPF records) for your domain are already configured for another email service. You must remove these existing records before you can connect the domain to the CRM. You can use a free online tool like MXToolbox SuperTool to check your domain's current DNS records.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I choose a sending domain name?

It is best practice to use a subdomain that is unique and not used for any other service. For example, if your main domain is yourbrand.com, a good sending domain would be something like mg.yourbrand.com.