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Settings → Domains is where you manage and verify the domains you send email from. Setting this up is required before you can use the Marketing module.

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Why domain verification matters

Email providers use authentication protocols to confirm that a sender is legitimate. In short: verified domains reach inboxes, unverified ones risk being flagged as spam.

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Verify your domain

  1. Go to Settings → Domains.
  2. Click Add Domain.
  3. Enter your domain name.
Use a subdomain (for example mail.yourcompany.com or marketing.yourcompany.com) instead of your root domain. This protects your main domain’s reputation and isolates marketing email deliverability. Create the subdomain upfront via your domain registrar or DNS provider.
  1. Spott generates three DNS records with your own values: a TXT record (SPF), a DKIM record, and a CNAME record. Copy those values and paste them into your domain registrar’s DNS settings, or send them to the partner who manages your domain.
A domain's DNS records in Spott, waiting to be verified
  1. Wait for the records to go live. DNS changes are not instant; they can take anywhere from a few minutes up to 24 hours to propagate. If you click Verify DNS Records too soon, it may fail simply because the records have not spread yet, not because anything is wrong. You can confirm they are live with a free lookup tool such as DNS Checker: enter the host you added, choose the matching record type, and check that the value returned matches what Spott gave you.
  2. Back in Spott, click Verify DNS Records.
  3. Register email addresses under the domain. Only email addresses configured here can be used as senders for marketing campaigns. Note that they are shared across your workspace.
If you plan to send high volumes through the Marketing module, do not register your personal mailbox as the sender; this could damage its reputation. Use a dedicated address instead, such as news@marketing.yourcompany.com.
We also recommend publishing a DMARC record for the domain. Major inbox providers like Gmail and Yahoo now require it from high-volume senders, and it protects your domain from spoofing while improving deliverability.

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Troubleshooting: common DNS questions

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What do I put in the Host/Name field?

Most DNS providers automatically append your domain to whatever you type in the Name/Host field, because every record in that zone already belongs to your domain. So you only enter the part in front of your domain, not the full address:
  • For a record on email.yourcompany.com, enter just email
  • For a record on abc._domainkey.yourcompany.com, enter just abc._domainkey
  • For a record on your root domain (yourcompany.com), enter @; some providers want the field left blank instead
If you type the full email.yourcompany.com instead, many providers turn it into email.yourcompany.com.yourcompany.com, and the record will not verify.

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Will this affect our normal, day-to-day email?

Almost never. The records you are adding only govern the domain or subdomain you are verifying for marketing sending. Your everyday mailbox uses its own separate records and is not touched. The one exception is the SPF record; see below.

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We already have an SPF record. Can we add a second one?

No. A domain can only have one SPF record (one v=spf1… entry). If your domain already has SPF for your existing provider (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and so on), do not add a second one. Instead, merge the new value into the existing record, for example:
A duplicate SPF record is invalid and is the one change that can disrupt your live email.
Using a dedicated subdomain, as recommended above, avoids most of this: the marketing records sit on their own subdomain, cleanly separated from the records your main email depends on.

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Next step: protect your deliverability

A verified domain gets your email out the door; reaching inboxes consistently also depends on how you send. Before your first campaign, read the email deliverability best practices, especially if your sending domain is brand new and needs warming up.