Email - SPF & DKIM

Intro

Domain verification is a way for you to claim ownership over your email domain, when using third-party services to send and receive emails using your domain. The ownership verification allows you to ensure maximum deliverability over your emails, as well as prevent misuse of your email domain.

The main reason to set up domain verification is to have improved email deliverability. If you are experiencing a problem where outbound messages sent via email forwarding are not being received in your customers' main inbox, for example they are being sent to spam/trash, the first course of action would be to set up your SPF and DKIM.

SPF and DKIM are the main sources used for setting up domain verification for email forwarding integrations.

Gmail and Office 365 integration don't require the setup of SPF and DKIM. However, if “Enable sending emails with Gmail” is disabled or you experience any trouble with deliverability, you can use it for direct Gmail and Office 365 integrations as a fallback.

In order to provide more stability, Gorgias uses two third-party services for forwarding email integrations: Sendgrid and Mailgun. Each Gorgias account will be randomly assigned to one of them. The setup will slightly differ based on that, but the final outcome will be the same - improved deliverability of your sent emails.

The simplest way to know which one to do is to check in your Settings→ Email integration you are looking to verify → Outbound Verification / Domain Verification. You can see how both look like in the images below.

Sendgrid Mailgun

Sendgrid

To proceed with setting up SPF and DKIM with Sendgrid you will need to have admin access to both your Gorgias account and your domain registrar.

Steps

Go to Settings > Channels > Email integrations
Select the integration you wish to configure
Go to Outbound verification tab

If you are using and email address with email domain that you own, proceed with Domain Verification. This will verify all email integrations with the same domain.

If you are using a free email domain (e.g. gmail.com, outlook.com, freemail.com), proceed with Single Sender Verification. You can also use Single Sender Verification if you are getting an error when trying the Domain verification. In that case, you will have to verify each email address individually.

Sendgrid Domain Verification

Click Verify domain
If successful this will create a key, displaying the 3 values you need to add to your DNS records
Open your domain registrar and create a new entry.
Enter the details from step 2.
Type
TXT
Host
gorgias.gorgias.io (as seen above)
MX value mx.sendgrid.net.
TXT value
v=spf1 include:mailgun.org ~all (as seen above)

Here you can find the video of the process and some additional docs that might be helpful.

Once completed the screen will display a green verified status. Until the records are verified, you will not be able to use your email integration for replies from Gorgias.

When both of these options are added to your domain registrar, the domain verification is considered completed and you can start using your email integration.

Sendgrid Single Sender Verification

Click Verify single sender
Enter your company details. This will trigger a verification email to your address

Once complete the screen will display a green verified status. Until the records are verified, you will not be able to use your email integration for replies from Gorgias.

Mailgun

To proceed with setting up your SPF and DKIM you will need to have admin access to both your Gorgias account and your domain registrar.

Steps

Go to Settings > Channels > Email integrations
Select the integration you wish to configure
Go to Domain verification. If successful this will create a key, displaying the 2 values you need to add to your DNS records
Open your domain registrar and create a new entry
Enter the details from step 4. However, if you already have some other SPF entries in your domain registrar, please mind these instructions before proceeding to the next step.

Type
TXT
Host
gorgias.gorgias.io (as seen above)
TXT value
v=spf1 include:mailgun.org ~all (as seen above)

Here is an example of this from GoDaddy

Below you can find the video of the process and some additional docs that might be helpful.

The same thing applies to adding DKIM to your domain registrar. You would, again, select the type to be 'TXT', under Host you will enter 'mailo._domainkey.gorgias.gorgias.io', and under TXT Value you would enter the key from step 4.

Once both of these options are added to your domain registrar, you can proceed to wait for up to 72 hours for the domain verification to be completed. It is highly advised not to change anything if all the entries have been entered correctly and just wait for the 72-hour mark to pass. You will be able to use your email integration in Gorgias even before the values are verified, but the deliverability might be compromised, which is why we advise that this is done as soon as you create the email integration.

Adding values to a domain registrar

In the above example we used GoDaddy as the domain registrar, but rest assured that all other domain registrars are very similar, but the steps might slightly differ in the domain registrar that you are using.

Here are the instructions for several major ones:

If you're not using one of the listed below, it might be best to reach out to their support team.

Here, you will also find a video guide to help you go through the process yourself. As noted, the options in your domain registrar might appear different, but the values should be added in the same way.

More than one SPF value

Please follow the instructions below if you already have some other entries in your domain registrar. If not set properly, issues may occur on sending and delivery of your outbound emails.

If your account is hosted on Sendgrid (your tab in email integration is called Outbound Verification and you have a total of 3 values), then you can just copy the values from your helpdesk and paste them the same way in your domain registrar. For more instructions, please check out this section.

If your account is hosted on Mailgun (your tab in email integration is called Domain Verification and you have a total of 2 values), then you will need to merge your entries into one using the inline method. You can follow these instructions on how to merge records or reach out to your email provider and ask that your entries are all merged into one.

Here is an example:

Record that you already have:
v=spf1 include:shops.shopify.com include:outlook.com ~all
Record that is in your helpdesk:
v=spf1 include:mailgun.org ~all
How it should be added to your domain registrar:
v=spf1 include:mailgun.org include:shops.shopify.com include:outlook.com ~all

Any further questions or troubles concerning SPF or DKIM? Feel free to reach out to our Support Team anytime via our live chat or email at [email protected]. Happy to help!

Type	TXT
Host	gorgias.gorgias.io (as seen above)
MX value	mx.sendgrid.net.
TXT value	v=spf1 include:mailgun.org ~all (as seen above)

Type	TXT
Host	gorgias.gorgias.io (as seen above)
TXT value	v=spf1 include:mailgun.org ~all (as seen above)