How Do I Configure a Custom Sender Domain for Newsletters?
Add SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records to your domain DNS so newsletters, order, booking, and event emails send from your own domain and land in the inbox.
Configuring a custom sender domain means the newsletters, order, booking, event, gift-card, and sign-in (magic link) emails VeloCMS sends for your site arrive from [email protected] instead of a VeloCMS system address. It's the single biggest thing you can do to improve deliverability.
Why does it matter which domain I send from?
Email providers like Gmail and Outlook check whether the sending server is authorized to send mail for the domain in the From address. When you send from a generic system address, the alignment is fine — but the sender name looks generic to readers. When you send from your own domain without proper DNS records, providers see a mismatch and route to spam. Get the DNS right and your own brand name shows up in inboxes with full trust signals.
Where do I start in VeloCMS?
Go to Admin → Settings → Email and find the Sender Domain section. Enter the domain you want to send from (usually the same domain as your custom blog URL, for example yourdomain.com). VeloCMS generates the exact DNS records you need — an SPF TXT record, a DKIM CNAME record, and an optional DMARC TXT record. Copy them all.
How do I add these records to my DNS?
Log in to wherever your domain's DNS is managed — usually your registrar (GoDaddy, Namecheap, Google Domains) or Cloudflare if you've moved nameservers there. Find the DNS management section and add each record. The SPF record goes as a TXT record on your root domain (@). The DKIM record goes as a CNAME on a subdomain that looks like resend._domainkey.yourdomain.com. The DMARC record is a TXT record on _dmarc.yourdomain.com. DNS changes usually propagate within a few minutes on Cloudflare and up to 48 hours on some registrars.
If your domain already has an SPF record, don't add a second one — email providers only honor one SPF record per domain. Instead, edit the existing record to include Resend's sending servers alongside your existing ones.
How do I verify the records are set up correctly?
Back in Admin → Settings → Email → Sender Domain, click Refresh Status (or Retry Verification if it failed). VeloCMS checks the records and shows the domain's status: Pending DNS, Verified, or Failed. If it shows Failed, double-check all three records for typos in the value — trailing dots or extra spaces are the most common culprits. Once the status reads Verified, your domain is live: from then on, newsletters, order, booking, event, gift-card, and sign-in emails are sent from it.
What is DMARC and do I really need it?
DMARC is a policy record that tells receiving servers what to do with emails that fail SPF or DKIM — either quarantine them or reject them. Starting in 2024, Gmail and Yahoo require senders above a certain volume to have a DMARC policy. Even at low volume, a basic DMARC policy at p=none (monitor only) costs nothing and signals to providers that you take email security seriously. VeloCMS generates a sensible starter DMARC policy — go with it.