Hello FGF Community,

We’re writing to you regarding some of the big email changes coming to our industry in February 2024. The goal of this post is to simplify the process and explain what exactly you have to do to stay in compliance. If you’d like a more detailed tech explanation of these changes, we’ve included some resources at the bottom of this post.

The Rule of the 3D’s is what we’re calling it!

• Rule #1 Domains – Dedicated sending domain
• Rule #2 DNS – Adjusting your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records
• Rule #3 Disengage – The ability for your followers to disengage and easily unsubscribe

Here’s a description of what you need to do to make sure you’re following each D rule.

 

Domain

You need to have a dedicated sending domain for sending bulk emails. If you are an FG Funnels customer, this means you need a dedicated sending domain set up through your SMTP service. A dedicated sending domain will be a subdomain of your root domain and will look something like replies.yourdomain.com, mg.yourdomain.com, or hello.yourdomain.com.

To help with the set up of your email authentication records (in the next section – DNS), you will want your dedicated sending domain to use a subdomain of the domain you send emails from. So if you are sending emails from [email protected], you will want your sending domain to be a subdomain of specificdomain.com (ex. mg.specificdomain.com).

• If you are using LC Mail (where you just reload your wallet balance and pay per email): Go to Settings > Email Services and click on the button in the top right corner of the box in the middle of the screen labeled “Dedicated Domain And IP”. Follow the prompts to set up your dedicated sending domain.
• If you are using FGF Mail: Please read the information and then fill out the form at https://fgfmail.com/dedicateddomain. Once your domain is connected, your dedicated sending domain will be fgm.yourdomain.com.
• If you are using Mailgun: Mailgun requires the set up and use of a dedicated sending domain, so you should already be set. If you have set up Mailgun with your primary root domain, we advise switching over to a dedicated subdomain.

 

DNS

You need to have properly configured SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. DMARC alignment is now required to keep your emails landing in the inbox.

What is DMARC alignment? The DMARC record is a secondary form of authentication that checks your SPF record and DKIM records and then acts based on whether or not the message you are sending is in alignment with what has been set up in those records. In order to achieve DMARC alignment, you will want to first have a dedicated sending subdomain set up (as discussed above), and then be sure that the domain in the email address you are sending from is in alignment (using the same root domain), and have SPF/DKIM records set up for the DMARC record to check in order to confirm alignment. Setting up those 3 records – SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is covered below.

SPF Records

You need to have an SPF record configured on your root domain (ex. yourdomain.com), as well as any sending subdomains (ex. replies.yourdomain.com). You only want 1 SPF record per root domain, and 1 per subdomain.

The SPF record on your dedicated sending domain will need to include the service you are sending through (covered below), and the SPF record on your root domain will need to be set up to include your regular email inbox service.

It is important that the last piece of your SPF records, the ~all mechanism, is set to use a tilde (~) instead of a dash (-) in front of the word all: ~all

After setting up your SPF record, we recommend verifying it is set up correctly using a free third-party service like EasyDMARC’s SPF Lookup, or DMARCLY’s SPF Record Checker.

• If you are using LC Mail: Your dedicated sending subdomain’s SPF record will need to contain an include tag for the LC Mail service (ex. include=mailgun.org), and have the mechanism ~all at the end. 
• If you are using FGF Mail: Your dedicated sending subdomain’s SPF record will need to contain an include tag for the FGF Mail service (ex. include=mailgun.org), and have the mechanism ~all at the end.
• If you are using Mailgun: Your dedicated sending subdomain’s SPF record will need to contain an include tag for mailgun (ex. include=mailgun.org), and have the mechanism ~all at the end.

Example of an SPF record set up on a domain in Cloudflare, this one is set up to allow Google Workspace, HelpScout, Mailgun, and Chargedesk to send emails on behalf of our domain:

DKIM Records

You need to have a DKIM record configured on your root domain (this will be provided by your email inbox service – Google Workspace, Microsoft Outlook, etc – reach out to them if you don’t have one on your root domain), as well as any sending subdomains. You can have as many DKIM records as your DNS manager allows. You will get a unique key from each sending service, usually during the set up of those services. If you don’t have a DKIM set up for a service, reach out to them to ask that they generate one and provide you with the public key for your DNS records.

• If you are using LC Mail: During the set up of your dedicated sending domain, you should have been provided a DKIM record as one of the DNS records required to complete the process.
• If you are using FGF Mail: During the set up of your dedicated sending domain, our system automatically generates and adds a DKIM record for your dedicated sending subdomain.
• If you are using Mailgun: During the set up of your dedicated sending domain, Mailgun will have created a DKIM record in the list of DNS records you needed to set up.

 

DMARC Record

Important: Don’t set up a DMARC record until you have properly set up SPF and DKIM – DMARC relies on these records to work properly. You only need 1 DMARC record, set up on your root domain. By default, this will apply to all subdomains unless you publish a DMARC record for a specific subdomain. It’s important to set up your DMARC record so the policy tag is set to the value of none (p=none).

• If you are using LC Mail, FGF Mail, or Mailgun: You will want your DMARC record value to be: v=DMARC1; p=none;

Example of a DMARC record, set up in Cloudflare:

 

Disengage

You need to make sure that anyone who signs up to your list can always, easily unsubscribe. It is important that all emails you send contain a very clearly labeled “Unsubscribe” link in the body of the email.

• If you are using LC Mail: We recommend having an unsubscribe link automatically added to all of your emails by going to Settings > Business Profile > General box (towards bottom right of the page) > click to check the box next to “Make Email compliant by adding an Unsubscribe link in your email.” You can also click the field below, where it says “Customize” to customize the sentence that the unsubscribe link is placed in. If you do not want to enable this setting, you will need to follow the steps outlined in the video How To Set Up Your Unsubscribe Link from our Messaging Wizard to use the system’s built-in unsubscribe custom value to include an unsubscribe link in all outgoing emails.

• If you are using FGF Mail: Follow the steps outlined in the video How To Set Up Your Unsubscribe Link from our Messaging Wizard to use the system’s built-in unsubscribe custom value to include an unsubscribe link in all outgoing emails.
• If you are using Mailgun: Follow the steps outlined in the video How To Set Up Your Unsubscribe Link from our Messaging Wizard to use the system’s built-in unsubscribe custom value to include an unsubscribe link in all outgoing emails.

 

More Resources:

If you would like to dive a bit deeper, here are some resources to help:

• Check out our lesson in FG Funnels University called Email Authentication Records For Deliverability
• Be sure to read up on best practices for sending email – we especially want to make sure you always use a smart list that is set up with clean list filters, and always send bulk emails in drip mode

 

As always, send messages that are clear, well written, and non-spammy. Only write to people who have expressly opted in for your emails. Maintain a spam complaint rate of (0.3%) or less, and you should be good!