Verifying Email Addresses and Sending Domains

To send survey emails from an address other than your account email, you verify that address and, ideally, the domain it belongs to. Both steps confirm that you control them and have the right to send email from them.

• Email address verification lets you send from that address, but recipients see it as sent via SmartSurvey.
• Domain verification lets you send directly from addresses at your domain, so emails show as coming from you. It needs changes to your domain's DNS records, so you may need help from your IT team.

If you verify an email address but not its domain, emails are "mangled": they're sent from smartsurveyuser.com, with your address shown as part of the name. This lets them pass the recipient's checks, which isn't possible when you control an address but not its domain.

Verifying an Email Address

Once an address is verified, you can choose it as the from address for email invitations, email triggers, save and continue emails and scheduled exports. This is useful when you want replies to go to someone other than the account owner, or when you want to use a no-reply address.

We recommend using a real address that people can reply to. If someone gets an invitation in error, or wants to check something, they can then get in touch.

If you do use a no-reply address, set up an auto-reply such as "This mailbox is not monitored. For X, please contact Y." Many people reply to emails even when they're asked not to.

How to verify an email address

1. Click the Account circle in the top right of the page, then click My Account.
2. Under Advanced, click Email Sender Settings.
3. Enter the address under Add Email. If you're the account owner and want everyone on your account to be able to use it, tick Verify this email for all sub-accounts. Otherwise only you can use it.
4. Click Add Email. The address appears in the list as pending, and we send it an email with a verification link.
5. Click the link in that email. If you're not signed in to SmartSurvey on that device, you'll be asked to sign in first.
6. The address now shows as verified and can be used as a sender.

If the address is at a sending domain you verified yourself, and that domain allows any address, it's verified straight away and no email is sent.

Sharing a verified address with sub-accounts is also how they can send from one address at a domain that requires verified addresses (see Requiring Verified Sender Addresses below).

Verifying a Sending Domain

Why verify the domain?

With only the email address verified, some email clients show the sender like this:

"john@example.com via SmartSurvey <member@smartsurveyuser.com>"

With the domain verified as well, it shows like this:

"John Smith <john@example.com>"

Choosing a sending domain

You'll probably want a domain that matches one of your existing company domains, but there are two things to consider first.

You need access to the domain's DNS settings. If some of your domains are harder to change than others, perhaps because another IT team looks after them, you might prefer to set up a new domain or sub-domain just for your SmartSurvey emails, or choose one you can change easily.

Your survey link and your sending domain can't use the same host name. A custom domain for your survey link uses a CNAME record, and DNS doesn't allow a CNAME alongside any other record at the same name, such as the records email needs. For example:

• info@surveys.example.com with https://surveys.example.com/mysurvey is not possible
• surveys@example.com with https://surveys.example.com/mysurvey is possible

A common approach is one custom sub-domain for your surveys, such as surveys.example.com, and email addresses at your main domain for each survey, such as mysurvey1@example.com and mysurvey2@example.com. If you can't easily add mailboxes at your main domain, you can use a different sub-domain for email, such as mysurvey@feedback.example.com.

Setting it up

If you're not sure about any of these steps, ask your IT team or whoever looks after your website or domain. They'll be able to do what's needed.

1. In My Account, under Advanced, click Domain Sender Settings.
2. Under Add Domain, enter your domain. You can also:
   • enter a bounce domain, a sub-domain of your domain such as bounce.example.com, which helps your emails pass DMARC checks (see Sending Domain Bounce Addresses)
   • tick Verify this domain for all sub-accounts if other users on your account should send from it
   • if you see Require each sender address at this domain to be verified before it can send, leave it ticked so each person confirms their own address before sending, or untick it to allow any address at the domain (see Requiring Verified Sender Addresses below)
3. Click Add Domain. The domain appears in the list below, with the steps still to do in its Status column.
4. Confirm an address at the domain. Click Email Verification Required, enter an address at the domain that you can receive email at, and click Send Verification Request. Then click the link in that email while signed in to SmartSurvey. The status changes to Domain Email Verified. If the email hasn't arrived after an hour, check your junk folder, then click Resend.
5. Add the DKIM record. Click DKIM Settings Required. The page shows a TXT record to add to your domain's DNS. Once it's added, click Verify DKIM. The status changes to DKIM Valid.
6. If you entered a bounce domain, add its records. Click Bounce Domain Pending. The page shows an MX record and a TXT record to add. Once they're added, click Verify Bounce Domain.
7. When every step is done, the domain shows a green tick and is ready to use.

You don't need to add an SPF record for the domain itself. If you use a bounce domain, the TXT record in step 6 is its SPF record.

DNS changes take time. It can take from a few minutes to 24 hours for a change to reach everywhere, so a Verify step can fail even when the record is right. If it does, check the values and try again in a few hours. Keep the record's TTL short at first, so a mistake isn't cached for long. Once it's verified, you can raise the TTL to, say, an hour.

DKIM records are longer than 255 characters, the most a single DNS text string can hold. Most DNS providers split long records automatically, which is fine. If yours shows an error instead, paste the value into the DNS Record Splitter and add the parts it gives you to one TXT record, each in quotes. In AWS, put the quoted parts in the same box separated by a space, not a new line. If that doesn't work, contact your DNS provider.

DMARC

DMARC lets you tell receiving email systems what to do with email from your domain that fails checks such as DKIM. Without a policy, they tend to let unsigned email through, because they can't tell whether it should have been signed. The options are:

• none: take no action, which is useful with a monitoring service while you check that everything that sends as your domain is set up correctly
• quarantine: put the email in the junk folder, a popular and safe choice
• reject: refuse the email and return an error to the sender

We don't check DMARC yet, but we plan to require it, because a missing DMARC policy affects delivery to some recipients. This only applies to sending domains: emails sent without one come from SmartSurvey's own domains and already pass DMARC. For more detail, see DMARC.

Which addresses can send once the domain is verified

This depends on the Senders column in the domain list:

• Any address: every email address at the domain can be used straight away, by you and by any sub-account you share the domain with, without verifying each one.
• Verified addresses only: each address must be added and confirmed in Email Sender Settings before it can be used, even though the domain is verified. It shows as pending until the link in the confirmation email is clicked. The address you used to confirm the domain is added for you.

If you don't see a Senders column, your domains allow any address.

Requiring Verified Sender Addresses

If you share a sending domain with sub-accounts, you can require each person to verify their own address before they send from it. This stops anyone sending as a colleague.

The Senders column in Domain Sender Settings shows whether each domain allows Any address or Verified addresses only. The account owner can switch a domain they own with Require verified addresses or Allow any address. Sub-accounts can't change it.

When a domain requires verified addresses:

• Choosing or saving a from address at that domain needs an address that has been verified. This covers email invitations, email triggers, save and continue emails and scheduled exports. Otherwise you'll see "The sender email address (…) has not been verified."
• Emails that are already set up keep sending from the domain as before, including scheduled invitations, existing email triggers, save and continue emails and scheduled exports. You only need a verified address when you next edit and save them.
• People who collaborate on a survey can keep using the survey owner's verified address.
• To let sub-accounts use one shared address, verify it in Email Sender Settings and tick Verify this email for all sub-accounts.

If you don't see the Require verified addresses button and would like a domain to require verified addresses, contact Support.