How to Authenticate Your Domain in SiteGround Email Marketing
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Authenticating your domain is required for sending email campaigns, as the domain name for which you have activated our email marketing will be used in the From field of the emails. By authenticating your domain with SiteGround Email Marketing, you acknowledge that emails sent by our servers are solicited and legitimate. This way, your recipients are reassured that the marketing emails are trustworthy and come from you.
How Domain Authentication Works and Why It Is Important
By authenticating it, your domain will be used in the From address of your marketing campaigns. This brings credibility to your campaigns as recipients can tell that the emails come from a genuine business.
Domain authentication is achieved through DNS verification with records in your domain’s DNS zone. SiteGround Email Marketing uses a DKIM record to verify that its servers are legitimate senders of emails signed by your domain.
When you send marketing emails, the recipients’ email servers check the email headers for these records, and they compare them with your DNS records. If the email signatures match your DNS records, the recipients’ spam filters verify the emails and let them pass through.
However, if no match is found, the emails are marked as suspicious and bounce back.
Thus, authenticating your domain with SiteGround Email Marketing is paramount since it ensures the successful delivery of your email campaigns and prevents blacklisting.
How to Authenticate Your Domain
Before you are able to send emails from SiteGround Email Marketing, you must authenticate your domain. That’s why when you open the Email Marketing application for the first time, you will see a notification “Domain authentication required.”
From the drop-down menu Domain, select the domain which you’ll use to send marketing campaigns.
Once you make your choice, click the Proceed button.
The following pop-up window warns you that the process is irreversible. To start the authentication, press Proceed.
Whether you use SiteGround nameservers or external ones, the follow-up authentication steps are different.
Authenticating a Domain Using SiteGround Nameservers
If your domain uses SiteGround nameservers, you just have to give the authentication some time. We will create the DNS records in your DNS zone and confirm the authentication. While the authentication is ongoing, you will see the warning “Domain authentication in progress.”
You don’t need to do anything else. Just give it a few hours for the authentication to finish. Usually, it takes up to 1 hour, but it’s possible for the process to take up to 24 hours.
Authenticating a Domain Using External Nameservers
If your domain is using external nameservers, SiteGround Email Marketing will display a warning message “Domain authentication required” and list the required DNS DKIM TXT record for the service. You’ll have to add the record in your external DNS zone.
Use the Copy button to copy the Name and Value of the DKIM TXT record and create a TXT record with these parameters in your DNS zone.
After you create the record, SiteGround Email Marketing will detect the record and complete the authentication.
Completing the Domain Authentication
While the authentication is in progress, you can prepare your contact list, create campaign drafts and groups, and edit your sender details. Once the domain is authenticated, you will receive a notification on your administrative email for your SiteGround account.
You can also monitor the Sender Details section in the SiteGround Email Marketing application. When the authentication is completed, you’ll see the message “Your sender domain is authenticated successfully!”
That’s it! Now SiteGround Email Marketing is activated for this particular domain, so it is used to send all your campaigns. Learn how to get started on creating campaigns in our guide on how to create a new campaign.