CloudFlare Domain Authentication

Authenticating your domain is a trust mechanism, it tells the inboxes of your subscribers that Transpond is allowed to send as your domain and so they will let the emails through.

Authenticating your domain requires making some small changes to your DNS settings. Each DNS provider have slightly different options and this article will detail the specific steps and options you need if your domain is hosted with CloudFlare.

There are a total of five DNS records that are important to ensure you get the best deliverability when using Transpond:

• SPF
• DKIM
• DMARC
• Tracking domain
• CDN domain

To add and update your DNS records:

1. Login to your CloudFlare account.
2. Go to DNS > Records.
3. Select Add record to create a new one, or click Edit next to an existing record to update it.
   1. If you have an existing SPF record then make sure to edit it, and include just the include:spf.ourmailsender.com part of it in the Value/Target.
4. Choose a record type,

Setup the DKIM record

1. Select CNAME Record record from the 'Type' drop down.
2. In the 'Name' field, enter mp1._domainkey
3. In the 'Target' field, enterdkim.ourmailsender.com
4. Under 'Proxy Status', turn it off so it's set to DNS Only.
5. Click Save and you're done.

Setup the SPF record

1. First look to see if you have an existing SPF record or not. It will be a TXT record that starts with v=spf1 . If you do, click to edit the Value for the existing one and move on to step 5.
2. If you don't have an existing one, click to Add new record
3. Select TXT Record from the drop down
4. In the 'Name' field, enter @
5. In the 'Target' field,
   1. if creating as new SPF record, enter v=spf1 include:spf.ourmailsender.com ?all .
   2. If editing an existing SPF record, just add include:spf.ourmailsender.com at the end, before the part that says ?all .
6. Under 'Proxy Status', turn it off so it's set to DNS Only.
7. Click Save.

Setup the DMARC record

1. Select TXT Record from the drop down.
2. In the 'Name' field, enter _dmarc
3. In the 'Value' field, add your DMARC record. It normally starts with v=DMARC1; p=... . If you haven't yet generated a DMARC record then you can use one of the free tools online to set one up, such as DMARC Generator: https://dmarcgenerator.com
4. Under 'Proxy Status', turn it off so it's set to DNS Only.
5. Click Save.

Setup your Tracking domain record

1. Select CNAME Record from the drop down.
2. In the 'Name' field, enter mptrack.yourdomain.com . Replace yourdomain.com with your own domain.
3. In the 'Value field, type api.transpond.io
4. Under 'Proxy Status', turn it off so it's set to DNS Only.
5. Click Save.

Setup your CDN domain record

1. Select CNAME Record from the drop down.
2. In the 'Name' field, enter mpcdn.yourdomain.com . Replace yourdomain.com with your own domain.
3. In the 'Value' field, type cdn1.ourmailsender.com
4. Under 'Proxy Status', turn it off so it's set to DNS Only.
5. Click the green check mark to save the changes.

Record list for reference

Below is a list of the types of records you need to create or edit.