Sending from your own email domain
By default, your Delighted surveys will send from an “@delighted.com” email address. While Delighted surveys maintain exceptional levels of deliverability, you may want to send from your company’s domain to extend your branding all the way to the From address itself.
The ability to send surveys from your own domain is a premium feature, available only on certain plans. For full information, check out our Pricing page.
In this section
- CNAME records
- Generating the records
- Adding the records
- Verifying your DNS
- Deactivating and deleting records
- FAQs: DNS
CNAME records
Domain verification is a critical step to ensure we’re able to correctly authenticate and sign the surveys with your email address. CNAME records help facilitate this process, and need to be added to your DNS settings to help provide verification that:
- The domain is not spoofed
- The domain is valid
- There is no misuse of the domain name
Think of these records like a guest badge when visiting an office. The badge says, “I don’t work here, but I have permission to be here,” just like the record says, “This email is coming from Delighted, but we have permission to send it from your domain.”
Generating the records
Generating the records you’ll need is quick and easy, done from within your Delighted account!
Admin users are the only ones who can set up custom sending domains. Other user types (Standard and Limited) will not see the option in their accounts.
To generate the records:
- Click Account and choose “Sending domain”
- Type in the domain you want to send from and choose “Begin setup”
- That’s it! Your records will be generated and available to copy on the next page
You can specify subdomains if you do not want to use an entire domain. For example, rather than sending from mycompany.com, you may want to send from surveys.mycompany.com. Adding a subdomain will not give you the ability to send with the entire domain—that is, setting up surveys.mycompany.com will not allow you to also use mycompany.com.
Adding the records
Each DNS provider will vary in terms of where the records are added, as well as the required structure for the values added. However, regardless of your DNS provider, there are some best practices and keywords that will be applicable across all platforms.
- Type: The type of record you’re adding, such as CNAME, TXT, MX, SRV, etc. For the purposes of Delighted’s DNS process, you only need to use CNAME
- Name: The host domain (like ._domainkey.testdomain.com)
- Value: The subdomain to which the above domain is pointed (like ...dkim.amazonses.com)
- TTL: The time-to-live (TTL). This value can be set for each DNS record. TTL values impact how long it takes, after a change to your DNS settings, before the DNS change is propagated and able to be recognized
Make sure to add all three records to your domain.
If you’re running into trouble adding these records, we recommend pulling in your engineering team or any team member that regularly manages your DNS settings. You can also reach out to our team—we’re happy to provide you with any resources needed to ease the process!
Verifying the records
Once these records have been added to your DNS settings, head back to your Delighted account and access the Sending domain page. From there, you’ll walk through the final steps of configuring your custom domain settings, including:
1. Verifying the records have been added
On the Sending domain page (Account > Sending domain), click “Check status” to check whether your records have been added and propagated correctly. While waiting for verification, you’ll see a yellow status light, and a message saying “Your domain is pending verification.”
Once your domain has been verified, you’ll receive an email and see a green status light on the Sending domains page. (You may have to click “Check status” once more to see that light change).
From that email (or in your browser), head back to the Sending domain page (Account > Sending domain).
Click “Check status” and confirm that the status light turns green. The button at the bottom of the page will also change to say “Activate.” Click that when you’re ready to finish setting up your domain!
2. Setting your From address
After your domain has been activated, head over to the Email customization page (you can get there by clicking the link on the Sending domain page).
Under the Email customization header, you can type in the email you want to send from, using that newly set up domain! This email will also be used as the reply-to email address.
You’ll see an error message if you use the wrong email domain at this step, so double-check on the Sending domain page if you run into any trouble.
3. Sending a test email
Once your From address is set, we recommend sending yourself a test email via the Customize appearance page under “Email Customization” > “Send a test email.”
And you’re all set!
Deactivating and deleting records
It's easy to remove the DNS records if you decide you’d rather send from an @delighted.com email address again, or if you’d like to set up a different custom domain. Simply head to Account > Sending domain and choose either “Deactivate” or “Delete,” as desired. Either option will revert your from email address back to an @delighted.com address.
FAQs: DNS
In this section
- What do I do if my DNS provider doesn’t accept underscores?
- Can I send from multiple different domains across each of my projects?
- I added the records to my DNS settings. How long will this process take?
- Why am I getting a "Domain has already been taken" error?
What do I do if my DNS provider doesn't accept underscores?
With some DNS providers, you might not be able to include '_' characters in TXT record names. In those cases, you can omit '_amazonses.' from the TXT record name, making the DNS record name 'yourdomain.com'.
Can I send from multiple different domains across each of my projects?
Not currently.
Delighted supports setting up one custom sending domain to use across all of your projects.
I added the records to my DNS settings. How long will this process take?
DNS records will include what is called a TTL (Time To Live), which is specified within your DNS settings. This value determines how long it will take before a DNS change goes into effect. TTL values are often specified in the same area where you add the CNAME values, but may also be located within your DNS account settings.
Why am I getting a "Domain has already been taken" error?
Delighted’s custom DNS feature only allows a specific custom domain to be set up for one account.
If another team in your organization has a separate Delighted license and has already set up custom DNS with your domain, you won’t be able to finish setup. Feel free to reach out if you need help consolidating licenses in this case!