It is possible in your SmartSurvey account to verify that you "own" an email address but not the domain that it uses e.g. you can own luke@gmail.com but not gmail.com itself. You do this in the Email Sender Settings section of My Account.
Once you have verified an email address, you are able to select it in the "from" dropdowns found in the Address Book Invitations, Save-and-Continue, Email Triggers and Exporter Pages.
We have to "mangle" this email address when we use it as a "from" email to achieve something called "email alignment" which is used by email providers to decide whether a received email it trustworthy or not. Alignment should exist between the domain names found in the email:
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The domain of the "from" address
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The domain of the digital signature that we apply to the message
- The domain of the "return-path"/"sender" address, which is where errors are sent back to
If you DO have a verified domain, we can do the following:
- From = youremail@yourdomain.com
- Signature = yourdomain.com
- Return-path = smartsurveydomain.com
Although this isn't full alignment, it will work in most places (we are going to improve this soon!)
If you do NOT have a verified domain, only an email, it looks like this:
- From = "youremail@gmail.com via SmartSurvey" <member@smartsurveyuser.com>
- Signature = smartsurveyuser.com
- Return-path = uniqueid@smartsurveyuser.com
All 3 properties will align correctly and the recipient will see this in their email client:
From: youremail@gmail.com via SmartSurvey <member@smartsurveyuser.com>
At SmartSurvey, we have made many small changes to improve the deliverability of emails including how they are "mangled" for Email Senders. We have already seen changes massively improve deliverability of emails from our systems.
One of the recent changes is that you will no-longer be able to customise the "From name" when using a verified email. If you want to set this name, you will need to verify a domain and use that domain instead.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Why can't I customise the From Name any more?
Because this name is used to create the new way of mangling, you will not be able to set it yourself.
- How do I verify my domain?
Please see our help guide on how to verify email addresses and sender domains.