Authenticating your business domain is an essential step in email marketing and will ensure a retailer’s email host recognizes the email campaigns you send. This is only required if you send emails through Faire using your own business domain.
Step-by-Step Guide
Please take a moment to watch our instructional video on completing your authentication.
Additional steps and links to your specific domain's help center can be found here.
Am I using my business email domain?
By checking your account settings, you can confirm whether you are sending through the Faire domain or your business domain.
If the email mentioned in the connected account setting is sales+yourcompanyname@brand.faire.com, you are sending your campaigns through the Faire domain. If you send your email campaigns through the Faire domain, authentication has already been completed by Faire and no action is needed by you.
If the email mentioned in the connected account setting is @(your business domain) or an email you recognize and have access to, you are sending from your business email domain and must authenticate (Read on!)
To learn more about the difference between adding your business domain and using the Faire domain please check out our guide to Sending campaigns from your business email address.
Why do I need to authenticate my business email domain?
Major email providers have enhanced email security requirements to ensure emails sent to users are safe and legitimate. Read Google’s and Yahoo’s articles for the full details on their respective updates.
Brands who send email campaigns from their business domain are now required to implement stronger email authentication, leveraging industry standards such as SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
By setting up this authentication with your email domain host (Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix GoDaddy, Bluehost, etc), you ensure a retailer’s email host (Google, Yahoo, Outlook, etc) recognizes the email campaigns you send through Faire. Faire campaigns that are verified in this way are more likely to land in the retailer’s primary inbox rather than a spam or promotions folder.
To learn more, we highly recommend checking out this article from the experts at our email delivery service, Postmark: DKIM: What is it and why is it important when sending emails?
Explanation of terms used in email authentication:
- DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is an email security standard that helps detect whether messages are altered in transit between sending and receiving mail servers. DKIM allows email hosts (ex: Gmail, Outlook) to verify that Faire, via our email delivery service Postmark, has your permission to email on your behalf. This is an important signal that email providers look for when assessing the quality and relative risk of a given email.
- SPF (Sender Policy Framework) records, which allow a sender to specify the list of IPs which are allowed to send mail for that domain.
- A DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) policy allows a sender to indicate that their messages are protected by DKIM and/or SPF, and tells a receiver what to do if neither of those authentication methods passes.
- DNS Records (Domain Name Systems) translate human readable domain names, such as example.com, to machine readable IP addresses. DKIM, DMARC, and Return Path are all types of DNS records that are used to authenticate the validity of emails sent through email delivery services, such as Postmark.
How can I set up authentication for my email records?
1. We recommend that you access your domain records before you begin the authentication process. You’ll need to log into your domain provider or web host's website in a separate browser tab or window and have both browser windows (Faire + domain host) opened.
How do I identify my domain registrar?
A domain registrar is an internet company that manages your domain name, such as example.com. Domain registrars use Domain Name System (DNS) records to connect your domain name with email, websites, and other web services.
You’ll need to have access to your domain and be able to log in so that you can enter specific values in your account.
If you do not know the name of your domain you can check your billing records. Your domain registrar is typically who you bought your domain name from.
If you can’t find your billing records, you can search for your domain registrar online. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is a non-profit organization that collects domain information. Use the ICANN Lookup tool to find your domain registrar.
Guides to domains for DNS Records:
You will be adding DNS records within your domain host account. Not sure where to paste these values in your domain host account? Check out these guides from the most common domain registrars:
GoDaddy - How to Add DKIM Record in GoDaddy: GoDaddy DKIM Setup Guide
Bluehost - What is a DKIM record?
Cloudflare - How to Add DKIM Record in CloudFlare: CloudFlare DKIM Setup Guide
Namecheap - How to Add DKIM Record in Namecheap: Namecheap DKIM Setup Guide
Wix - Adding a DKIM (TXT) Record
WooCommerce - Setting up SPF and DKIM with WooCommerce
Shopify - Add CNAME records to your third-party domain to connect to the Shopify SPF and DKIM records
Google (Owned by Squarespace)- Adding custom DNS records to your Squarespace-managed domain
2. Log into your Faire account and follow these steps to complete your domain authentication:
a. On your account setting page navigate to Connected Accounts and click Authenticate Domain.
b. A pop-up Domain authentication window will appear showing your unique DNS Records; DMARC, DKIM, and Return Path, Make sure you have a second browser opened to your domain registrar. Learn more about how to identify your domain registrar.
c. Copy the Type, Hostname and Values individually from Faire and add them into the corresponding section of your domain.
d. Repeat the process for the remaining sets of values. If you have a pre-existing DMARC record you do not need to modify it or create a new one for Faire. However, if you have DKIM or Return Path values, you are still required to add the values from Faire, as they are specific to emails sent from Postmark on Faire.
e. Once you’ve added all three records to your domain account, click Authenticate at the bottom of the pop-up window in Faire.
3. After clicking Authenticate, it may take up to 48 hours for the configuration to be completed correctly in our system. Check back after 48 hours to confirm all paths have been successfully authenticated.
You'll be able to see when authentication is complete on your connected accounts.
My authentication failed, now what?
If your authentication fails, we recommend you double-check the information pasted on your domain. To review your configuration and find out which record was unsuccessful, click on Review Configuration.
Please note that you need to add DKIM and Return Paths values for each email service provider you use. This means that if you use another provider outside of Faire to send email campaigns you will be adding multiple DKIM and Return Path records on your domain registrar.
After determining which record(s) were unsuccessful, follow these steps to help troubleshoot your failed authentication:
1. You’ll need to log into your domain provider or web host's website in a separate browser tab or window and have both browser windows (Faire + domain host) opened.
2. Compare the Type, Hostname and Values for each record shown in the Faire Domain authentication pop-up to ensure they match the fields in the registrar.
a. If the Type, Hostname and Values on your domain registrar don't match the values shown in Faire, you need to add additional records and values from Faire to your domain registrar.
b. After saving the changes and confirming that the fields shown on Faire match the fields in your domain registrar settings, click Authenticate on Faire. After clicking Authenticate, it may take up to 48 hours for the configuration to be completed correctly in our system.
3. If the Type, Hostname and Values you entered on your domain registrar match the Type, Hostname and Values Faire has provided please check your TTL (Time To Live). Your TTL setting will be located with your hostname value's enter points.
Below is an example of the TTL setting from GoDaddy, other domains may be slightly different.
Based on your TTL settings the changes may not have been live on your domain before our authentication, which would result in a failed authentication. If you previously set a longer TTL and your authentication failed try clicking the authentication button again.
4. Finally, you can check a third-party tool like MXToolbox to confirm what the DNS registrars are reporting as your DKIM record. To use this tool, go to the SuperTool tab, select DKIM Lookup in the dropdown menu, and input the DKIM values you copied from Faire plus your domain name (for example, if the copied value is 122433.domainKey you need to search 122433.domainkey.yourwebsite.com) and then click DKIM Lookup.
a. If the status returns as failed, it indicates that either the record was not set up correctly or hasn't propagated to the DNS registrar. To resolve this, please ensure that the values you entered on your domain match those on Faire and also check your TTL.
Please contact our support team if you continue to experience issues with your domain authentication.
What if I don’t authenticate my email records?
If you added your domain before April 1st, 2024 but haven't authenticated, your campaigns will still go out from your domain, but the number of unsent emails may increase. If you added your domain after April 1, 2024, and haven't authenticated, your campaigns will be sent through the Faire domain.