With a verified domain, you can send emails using the selected domain and make your emails DMARC compliant. This ensures better deliverability, meaning more recipients will see your emails. Each of the links in your emails will also use the selected domain for tracking purposes. When you create an unknown web page in Agillic, recipients can access these pages by using any of your verified domains.
It's important to note that adding a verified domain in Agillic requires access to the subdomain(s) records. Therefore, it's advisable to get relevant IT personnel to help you with this process.
Setting up a verified domain in Agillic is a multi-step process. In this article, you'll find information about:
Setting Up a Verified Domain
How to Select your Domain(s)
The first step is to select the domains you wish to set up. We highly recommend selecting a subdomain under any existing domain you may have. We also recommend using a new subdomain which isn't currently in use for anything. Part of setting up a verified domain in Agillic requires all web and email traffic to point to Agillic. For this reason, you shouldn't use any active subdomains as this will shut down any current email or website system you may have enabled. You should also avoid having subdomains that contain the word "agillic" and or "test".
For example, if your main domain is cafeconnect.com, valid subdomains could be:
web.cafeconnect.com
dialogue.cafeconnect.com
marketing.cafeconnect.com
contact.cafeconnect.com
In special cases, it's possible to use a domain you also use for other purposes. For example, this could be the main domain or a domain used to send other communications not sent from Agillic. However, validating and using this type of domain isn't recommended as the reputation of the domain will be shared across multiple systems.
Agillic doesn't recommend selecting a campaign domain either, that is, using a standalone domain created with the sole purpose of being used for Agillic communications such as agillicnews.com.
From a reputation point of view, it detaches your general mail reputation from your campaign domain, meaning that all email service providers, such as Gmail, have to get to know your domain from scratch.
It also makes it easier for spammers and the like to abuse your customers as it will be easy for spammers to buy similar domains such as agilliccommunications.com to spoof your customers with.
Please contact Agillic Support before setting up a domain that isn't a subdomain of your main domain. This type of configuration will require a different setup than the steps described below.
How to Set up Your Domain(s)
Log into Staging or Production.
Open the Settings module.
Under System Settings, open the Domains subsection.
Fill your subdomain in both the From: domain name field and the Link domain name field.
Click the plus icon next to the entry.
Repeat steps 3 and 4 for each subdomain you want to set up.
You've now added your domains and should see a red 'Failed' label next to the entry. This indicates that the domain name is not yet verified.
If you want to track several subdomains on the same webpage/portal page, we highly recommended to use the same 'Line Domain Name'. You can read more about tracking on more than one subdomain on the same webpage/portal page here.
How to Verify your Domain(s)
Once the domain is set up, you'll need to make some DNS changes for the domain to point correctly to Agillic.
Click the i icon for your domain entry and a pop-up will appear.
Note the DNS records, which have a red cross next to them. These are the DNS records you need to set up (CNAME, DKIM and TXT records).
If there are no DNS records shown, you may already have DNS records for the selected domain. In this case, you should check if the subdomain is being used. If there's an old DNS record for the subdomain, you'll need to remove the old DNS records before you can see the records to be set from Agillic.
Please note that existing DNS records will prevent the CNAME record validation in Agillic. If you have configured the CNAME record correctly, but still see it failing validation in the Agillic UI, the additional DNS records need to be removed for the CNAME record validation to succeed.
Once you have set up these DNS records in your domain management system and are waiting for the caching period to pass, you should see a green checkmark next to these records. The verification label for the domain name will still show Failed since the SSL certificate still needs to be set up.
A domain name where the domain still needs to have the three listed DNS records set
How to Apply the SSL Certificate
Agillic requires an SSL Certificate for the selected subdomain before the verification label will show Verified. Contact Agillic Support and provide the certificate and private key for the subdomain. You must send both the certificate and private key in PEM format (X.509). Once delivered and the certificate is set up, Agillic Support will contact you and the domain will be verified.
Alternatively, it's also possible to use Agillic's Let's Encrypt feature, where we can generate an SSL Certificate for you. This is a free service. If this is something you're interested in, simply contact Agillic Support.
Verify Current Emails
It's important to note that if you enable the 'Enable domain name validation' checkbox when you don't have any verified domains, all emails will fail during send-out.
Before you enable the Enable domain name validation checkbox, make sure current emails use one of the valid domain names. For example, if Cafe Connect has set up marketing.cafeconnect.com as a verified subdomain, all emails must be sent from a @marketing.cafeconnect.com address. If you set up an email to send from a @cafeconnect.com address, sending the email will fail once you check the domain name validation checkbox.
Enable Domain Name Validation
Once you've corrected all current emails so they use one of your verified subdomains, you can enable the Enable domain name validation checkbox.
How to Use a Verified Domain in an Email
Create an email.
Expand the Email settings accordions.
Select one of your verified domains from the Sender email drop-down.
Fill out the first part of the from email address in the Sender email field. For example marketing. The information from steps 3 and 4 will combine to make up the full from address.
For example, service@cafeconnect.net.
Transactional email domains
Transactional emails are, in short, any emails that result from a transaction. They are emails sent when a user or customer takes some action and contain information that's relevant to that action. This could be an order receipt, shipping confirmation, or password reset.
Please note that to use a domain for sending Transactional Emails, it must not have previously been used to send emails.
You can learn how to set up a domain for Transactional Emails here.
SMS domain
If you send an SMS from Agillic that contains a link, you might have experienced that the link changes to your Agillic solution name. If you want your subdomain to be shown instead, you should create a subdomain specifically to send your SMSs, such as sms.cafeconnect.com. The subdomain should be verified and registered in Agillic. So, we recommend that you follow the guide above on how to add a verified domain to Agillic.
When the subdomain is added and verified in Agillic, you need to contact the Product Specialists in Agillic Support to get it registered on your Agillic Solution. Please note that the SMS subdomain will only be registered in the Production environment and you will need to restart your Production environment to get the SMS subdomain fully implemented.
Warming up new domains
While having "warm" IP addresses provided by Agillic is a great asset, it is only half the battle. Modern email service providers—especially Google and Microsoft Outlook—rely heavily on Domain Reputation alongside IP reputation.
A brand-new sender domain has zero historical reputation (often referred to as a "cold domain"). Attempting to drop a massive volume of emails from a fresh domain will almost certainly trigger aggressive anti-spam algorithms, resulting in severe throttling, temporary deferrals, or outright blocks, regardless of how warm our IPs are.
Why warm IPs will not save a cold domain
Email authentication and spam filtering have evolved significantly. Historically, reputation was primarily bound to the server's IP address. Today, providers use sophisticated machine-learning filters that score the sender's domain heavily to mitigate malicious activity.
- The spammer blueprint: Sending millions of emails suddenly from a newly registered domain is the exact behavioral fingerprint of a malicious phishing or spam campaign.
- Lack of historical data: Because Google and Outlook have no data on how users historically interact with your new domain, their systems default to treating sudden high-volume traffic with extreme suspicion to protect their users' inboxes.
Strict Technical Guidelines You Must Follow
Both Google and Outlook have explicit, strictly enforced guidelines for high-volume senders. Google formally defines a bulk sender as anyone sending more than 5,000 emails per day to personal Gmail accounts. To prevent your emails from vanishing into the spam folder, your setup must meet these critical criteria:
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Flawless email authentication: You cannot just have DNS records; they must align perfectly. Major mail servers rely on these core protocols to verify the sending domain's legitimacy and block abusive or unauthorized traffic:
- SPF & DKIM: You must configure both Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). This is handled with the standard domain setup in Agillic.
- DMARC: You must publish a Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) record for your sending domain.
- Alignment: The domain in your visible From: header must visually match (or be a subdomain of) the domain authenticated by SPF or DKIM.
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Spam rate threshold:
- The 0.1% to 0.3% rule: Google requires bulk senders to keep spam complaint rates (reported via Google Postmaster Tools) strictly below 0.1%, and they must never touch or exceed 0.3%. If your new domain hits 0.3% spam complaints early on, your domain reputation will drop instantly, and recovery is a long, painful road.
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User experience requirements
- One-Click Unsubscribe: For marketing or subscription emails, you must include a standard List-Unsubscribe header that allows recipients to opt-out with a single click. You must also honor these requests within two days.
How to Handle This Safely: A Ramp-Up Strategy
To successfully deliver many emails without destroying your new domain's reputation, you must execute a Domain Warming strategy alongside your warm IPs:
- Age the domain first: If possible, ensure the domain has been registered for at least 30 days before initiating any high-volume sends. Aged domains are naturally viewed with slightly less suspicion than domains registered yesterday.
- Start small and scale gradually: Do not start sending massive amounts of emails in week one. Start by sending a few hundred emails per day to your most engaged, historical recipients (those most likely to open and least likely to mark your mail as spam). Double the volume every few days if your deliverability metrics look flawless.
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Monitor reputation portals daily:
- Enroll your domain in Google Postmaster Tools to monitor your specific Domain Reputation and Spam Rate.
- Enroll your IPs and domain in Microsoft's Smart Network Data Services (SNDS) and Junk Email Reporting Program (JRP).
- Segment transactional vs. marketing mail: If these your emails contain a mix of critical transactional notifications (receipts, account details) and marketing blasts, split them onto different subdomains (e.g., member.cafeconnect.net for transactional and info.cafeconnect.net for marketing). This protects your critical mail if your marketing sub-domain hits a delivery speed bump.