As discussed in the article Troubleshooting e-mails not being sent/arriving, when sending emails from LeadDesk, we do not directly authenticate the send email you use, beyond checking it is a validly formatted email address. Instead, we rely on modern email authentication standards to handle this: SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
Though LeadDesk will always send out the mail, for it to land in your customer's inbox, we recommend that you talk with the admin for your email domain and configure as many of these settings as possible.
This article discusses how to manage these to get the best from email sending from LeadDesk. Please consult with your domain hosts or DNS experts on implementing these settings.
SPF Records
The Send Policy Framework (SPF) set rules for who can send messages on your behalf. If you are using SPF, LeadDesk will need to be added to the list of valid senders.
Sending on your own behalf
If you are using LeadDesk to send messages on your own behalf, you can add LeadDesk to your SPF record.
The SPF record should include:
< include:_spf.leaddesk.com >For example:
"v=spf1 include:_spf.leaddesk.com ~all"When including this into the record, it should be noted that RFC7208 4.6.4 limits the maximum amount of DNS queries for an SPF to 10. Our SPF generates 5 DNS requests, meaning that if you have other items in your SPF record, it is possible that the maximum number of 10 will be exceeded.
While the default option is preferred, if you do require less DNS look-ups, we do offer _spf5.leaddesk.com
Sending on behalf of a third party
If you are sending messages on behalf of a third party, for example one of your sponsors, it is the SPF record for the Sender address that must include LeadDesk, assuming they use SPF.
If you would like to investigate beforehand, you could use an online SPF checker, such as MXToolbox. You can use such tools to review the SPF record for a particular email address, and provide feedback. However, only the third party would be able to add LeadDesk to their SPF record.
DKIM
Using DKIM adds a digital signature to messages which can be used to verify that the email was sent by the person that it claims to be. For LeadDesk to be able send an email with the appropriate digital signature you should contact LeadDesk support.
- Send a message to support, requesting DKIM configuration, and specifying the domain name.
- Our developer will set this up for the email domain name.
- Support will confirm this back to you once ready, relaying CNAME DNS configurations. Your domain host will need to implement these from their side.
- After this is done, confirm this back to support. Our developer will verify that the DNS configuration is correct and finalise it.
Setting this up will result in your e-mails not having the "send via sendgrid.net" in the header of the e-mail.
DMARC
DMARC is the rules set that brings SPF and DKIM together. It determines what to do if an email does or does not match the DKIM signature or the SPF record, or both. As such it is handled on the mail domain outside of LeadDesk, and it is up to the domain owner how mails which fail to meet the authentication are treated. This might mean the message is quarantined or rejected, for example.
As DMARC is essentially determining what to do with suspicious mails that fails either SPF or DKIM, the best advice we can give is to make sure that SPF and DKIM and enabled and working correctly. If they are, DMARC should treat the mail as valid and let it through.