Ionos 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 Ionos.

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 Ionos account.
2. Go to the Domain and SSL section.
3. Click on the gear icon under Actions and select DNS
4. To create a new record, click the button to Add record. 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.

Setup the DKIM record

1. Select CNAME Record record under 'Type'.
2. In the 'Host' field, enter mp1._domainkey
3. In the 'Target' field, enterdkim.ourmailsender.com
4. Click the Save.

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 record
3. Select TXT Record under 'Type'.
4. In the 'Host' field, enter @
5. In the 'Value' 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. Click Save.

Setup the DMARC record

1. Select TXT Record under 'Type'.
2. Enter _dmarc in the Host field
3. Add your DMARC record in the 'Target' field. 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. Click Save.

Setup your Tracking domain record

1. Select CNAME Record under 'Type'.
2. Enter mptrack.yourdomain.com in the Host field. Replace yourdomain.com with your own domain.
3. Add api.transpond.io in the Target field
4. Click Save.

Setup your CDN domain record

1. Select CNAME Record under 'Type'.
2. Enter mpcdn.yourdomain.com in the Host field. Replace yourdomain.com with your own domain.
3. Add cdn1.ourmailsender.com in the Target field
4. Click Save.

Record list for reference

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