In this article
- Introduction
- Before you start
- Step by step
- Frequently Asked Questions
It is important to follow the delivery tips and properly set up CNAME so that email services trust the email campaigns you are sending.
What is CNAME?
In addition to taking a close look at how people respond to your emails (this is called "engagement" and it's the most important factor to keep your deliverability up), ISPs such as Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook.com also run a couple identity checks to make sure you're a legitimate sender instead of someone just spoofing your name.
Whenever you add a link to your email, E-goi will turn it into a special trackable version so we can tell you which contacts clicked through. Those trackable links use our trusted domains, but you can go one step further by authenticating your sender and adding our CNAME record to your website's domain - which also gives you the nice bonus of displaying your domain in all email links instead of E-goi's, for added confidence among your audience.
Before you start
Requirements
Have access to your website domain's DNS manager (or have contact with the technical team that manages your domain) and make sure you have permissions to modify DNS records.
Step by step
Adding E-goi's CNAME to your domain
1) Access your E-goi account and navigate to the menu in the upper right corner.
2) In this menu, there are two ways to add and manage your CNAMEs in E-goi: going to Senders or Settings.
Using the Senders page
- Search for your domain to which you want to associate the CNAME and click on Add CNAME.
Using the Settings page
- Click on Domains and CNAME and then on Add.
3) A window will pop up. Enter the CNAME you'll be creating (E-goi will suggest a CNAME based on your domain, but you're free to type in anything else) and choose whether to go for our shared SSL certificate (the preferred option if you don't need full SSL control) or using your own SSL. Hit Generate config.
4) A window will come up with three options::
- Set it up for me: Choosing this will pop open a form so you can tell us some things about your domain. We'll then take it from there and add E-goi's CNAME (and also authenticate the domain if you haven't done so) using the info you provided. It's usually done in a couple hours.
- Send a techie the how-to: If you'd rather have your hosting company add our CNAME for you, just click here to send them our how-to.
- I'll do it myself: Are you familiar with hosting settings? Then you shouldn't have any trouble following our CNAME instructions. Start by selecting the company the domain is hosted at and E-goi will pull up the CNAME entry you should add to your domain's DNS. Once you've saved the changes to your DNS, don't close the E-goi window! Wait until the changes have been propagated (if you've set a short TTL, it shouldn't take more than an hour). When you're sure the changes have gone live, click the Verify button in E-goi's window. If E-goi confirms all is good, the CNAME should turn green. Otherwise, anything wrong in your settings will be displayed in red.
Using your own SSL certificate
E-goi's CNAME includes an industry-approved SSL certificate, but you can also use your own.
1) Log in to your E-goi account and click the upper-right corner menu.
2) Click Settings. On the next page, select Domains and CNAME.
3) Click the pencil icon to edit the CNAME you added.
4) A window will pop up. Choose Use my SSL.
5) Enter your SSL certificate details and your private SSL key.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I check if the changes in my DNS have propagated?
Use the same method we recommend to check propagation when authenticating your sender.
Is adding the E-goi CNAME enough to improve delivery?
Not always. Setting things up (authentication and adding our CNAME) definitely increases your email reputation and deliverability, but what happens next is even more important: how people react to your emails. Be sure to follow our full deliverability guide!
What should I do if the images in my emails appear broken?
Our CNAME was added to your domain, but it hasn't been set up properly. Please do make sure that the CNAME entry is configured exactly as we provide it.
What should I do if a "Connection not private" warning appears when contacts click on links in my email?
Your website domain has probably been set up to use HSTS.
HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security) is a new, really cool security policy which keeps sites protected from man-in-the-middle attacks. It basically ensures any browser visiting your site will do so using a secure HTTPS connection.
However, when you added E-goi's CNAME to your domain, (which both increases deliverability and displays your domain across all our trackable links in your email), HSTS thinks you're trying to bypass its security policy.
How to fix it
Ask your hosting staff to remove "includeSubDomains" from your domain's HSTS header. Right now, you probably have something like this:
Strict-Transport-Security
max-age=63072000; includeSubDomains; preload
Have it changed it to:
Strict-Transport-Security
max-age=63072000; preload
Keep in mind this will turn HSTS off on all your subdomains (if you've got any)! To re-enforce HSTS, just add it to each subdomain separately.
How do I set up a CNAME for transactional emails in E-goi?
To optimize your sending of transactional emails via E-goi ((order confirmation, cart recovery, etc.), you can create a specific CNAME for those emails.
What if I don't know how to insert the CNAME or have difficulties?
Don't worry, we can do it for you for free. Just message us using the Help widget in your account. We'll take it from there and also ensure your sender is authenticated.
I've got a Wix site with a DNSSEC subdomain but I can't add the CNAME to it.
That's due to a Wix limitation, as explained in the Wix help center (where you can also vote for a fix).
Until Wix roll out their fix, consider transferring your domain's NS (nameserver) records to a different hosting outside Wix. This will allow you add our CNAME to the subdomain and then connect it back to Wix via pointing method, as explained in this Wix pointing how-to.