Authenticating your domain lets SplashSend send your emails from your own address, such as hello@wrenfieldpottery.co.uk, signed so that email providers can check they come from you. The signature is called DKIM. Domain authentication is free on every plan.

Why it helps

  • Your emails come from your own address. Until then they come from noreply@send.splashsend.com, with replies going to you.
  • Email providers judge your emails on your own sending. On the shared address, emails from every SplashSend customer who uses it are judged together.

Before you start

Your sender email must be verified, and it has to be at the domain you're setting up. See Setting up your sender details. You'll also need to add records to your domain's DNS, or know who can. That's usually the company you bought the domain from, or Cloudflare if you use it.

Adding the records

  1. Go to Setup → Domain. The table lists the records for your domain, usually three, all of the type CNAME. If the table is empty, click Load DNS records.
  2. Below the table, find your DNS host. If SplashSend recognises it, the box says Where to add these and shows where to click. For Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Namecheap, Squarespace and Amazon Route 53 it also has a button to open your host. If SplashSend doesn't recognise it, pick your host from the list in that box.
  3. At your DNS host, add a new record for each row, with the type shown in the Type column. Use the copy buttons to copy the Host and the Value exactly.
  4. Come back to Setup → Domain. While the page is open it looks for your records every half minute, and you can click Check now at any time.
Copy each record into your DNS host. The box underneath shows where.
Copy each record into your DNS host. The box underneath shows where.

As each record is found, its Status changes from Pending to Verified. When your domain is ready, the page says Authenticated and sending as yourself, and your emails come from your own address from then on.

Your domain is ready, and your emails come from your own address.
Your domain is ready, and your emails come from your own address.

If someone else looks after your website

Click Email these to your web person above the table, type their email address and click Send. They get the records with plain instructions, and their replies come to you. When they tell you the records are in, open Setup → Domain and click Check now, because the domain is only checked while that page is open.

Send the records to whoever looks after your website. Their replies come to you.
Send the records to whoever looks after your website. Their replies come to you.

Letting SplashSend add the records

If your DNS is with Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Vercel, DigitalOcean, Porkbun, DNSimple, Hetzner or Gandi, a line below the help box asks Comfortable with API tokens? Click Show, follow the steps to create a token at your DNS host, paste it in and click Apply records. The token is used once to add the records and isn't stored. A record that's already there is left as it is. If something different is already in a record's place, it's left alone and the result says so, so you can check it before changing anything.

How long it takes

New records usually show up within minutes. Sometimes they take a few hours.

If it isn't working

  • Your domain appears twice in the Host. Some DNS hosts add your domain name to the end of the Host for you. With those, paste only the part before your domain name.
  • Your DNS is on Cloudflare. Set each record's proxy status to DNS only, the grey cloud.
  • The page says Re-verify your domain. Click Re-verify domain and add any new records it shows.
  • You're told the domain is connected to another account. A domain can only belong to one SplashSend account. If it's yours, choose Message us from the Account menu at the bottom of the sidebar.

After it's set up

Leave the records in place for as long as you send with SplashSend. If you change your sender email to an address at another domain, that domain needs setting up too.