SPF, DKIM, DMARC, set up for you

What each record does, in plain English

Together they answer the question every inbox asks before it trusts an email from someone new: is this really who it says it is?

• SPF is a list of the servers allowed to send email for your domain. Ours is strict: mail from anywhere else fails.
• DKIM is a signature on every email, made with a key unique to your domain. If anyone changes the email on the way, the signature no longer matches.
• DMARC tells providers what to do with mail that fails those checks. Ours asks them to put it in quarantine, and to send back reports on what they saw.

Why Gmail and Outlook care

Gmail and Outlook both ask anyone sending at volume to have all three in place. Without them, cold outreach goes to junk or is refused outright, however good the email is.

When an email arrives, the receiving server looks up the sending domain, checks the server that sent it is on the SPF list, checks the DKIM signature against the key in your records, and then checks that DMARC agrees both of those match the address the reader sees in the From line. When all three agree, the email has passed the first test, and the rest is down to how people respond to it.

Authentication gets you through the door, and then the rest of the work has to count: the warmup, the daily ceiling per mailbox, and an unsubscribe link in every cold email.

What we set up

When you claim a domain, these go in automatically:

• An SPF record with a hard fail for any server that is not ours.
• A DKIM signing key generated for your domain alone.
• A DMARC policy of quarantine, with aggregate reports.
• Mail exchange records, so replies from stores arrive in your inbox.
• A return path that matches your domain, so the checks line up.

How long it takes

Records usually take effect within a day or two, and DNS can take up to 72 hours to reach everywhere. Your domain shows as Configuring while that happens, then Waiting for its 24-hour hold, then Active.

If anything fails, the domain card says so and we fix it. You do not need to find a registrar login or paste anything anywhere.

How you can tell it is working

Your domain card in LaunchPal shows the status: Configuring while the records spread, Waiting during the 24-hour hold, then Active. Active means every record checked out and the domain can send.

If you want to see it for yourself, send a test to your own Gmail and open the message details. You will see the email passed SPF, DKIM and DMARC for your sending domain. If a store ever tells you an email went to junk, let us know: the records are one of the first things we check, along with what the email said.

Your main domain is untouched

All of this lives on the sending domain we bought for you. We do not change anything on your own domain, and your everyday email carries on as it is.

It is still worth checking that your own domain has these records, because invoices and order confirmations to your stockists need them too. That is a job for whoever looks after your website or email.

With the records in place, the rest is about who you write to and what you say. Our guide to getting your product into stores covers that side.