Verifying sender domain is an important step in the SparkInfluence onboarding process, and our customer success team will work with you to make sure this is completed before you begin sending outbound communications.
Overall, the reason we need to verify the domain is that the process optimizes email deliverability, and reduces the chance that your emails will be flagged as spam by email service providers/not delivered to your recipients.
In basic terms, the domain verification process ensures that your recipients’ email service providers will regard the email as “signed”, meaning that it is verified as having been sent by you/on your behalf, and is safe to deliver to inboxes and open.
“Unsigned” email will largely be treated as spam and rejected/blocked by email service providers, because there is no verification that you are the true sender of the message (it could be someone else entirely, appearing to send from your email address for malicious purposes).
The domain verification process is as follows (with an example below):
- Decide on the domain(s) for your outbound communications. You’ll be asked to provide the email address(es) that you’d like associated with your outbound communications.
- Add records within the domain host’s Domain Name System (DNS) that will digitally “sign” your emails. These records are unique to every client, and will provided to you by the SparkInfluence customer success team. Work with your IT team or vendor to add the needed records.
- The Spark team will confirm that these records are in place, and verify your email domain.
- You are free to begin sending outbound communications!
For example, if your desired sender identity is johnsmith@yourorganization.com, you or the appropriate person would login to the site where yourorganization.com is hosted (i.e. GoDaddy, SiteGround, Bluehost, HostGator, etc.) and add the individual records to the DNS.
Overall, the process can be done very quickly, in as little as just a few minutes from start to finish.
For some clients, this is handled in-house and your IT team should be able to accomplish this; for others, you may use a third-party vendor. Those with access to your GoDaddy (or other) site/account will be able to add the needed records.
Please note: Each web host’s site will look slightly different. If you are unsure of how to add the records sent to you by the Spark team, please contact your specific web/domain host’s support team.
If you do not own/have access to or are unwilling to complete the process to verify the domain from which you plan to send outbound emails through SparkInfluence, we will be unable to officially verify your domain. You WILL still be able to email your stakeholders through the system, but you are acknowledging that you understand there may be significant deliverability issues because your emails are “unsigned”.
For any questions on the email verification process, please email support@sparkinfluence.net.