In today’s day and age (i.e. the age of spam), mail deliverability is a critical issue. Having an SPF record (Sender Policy Framework) will allow your domain to publically specify which designated servers may send an email on its behalf. When you have a valid SPF record, will increase the likelihood of your emails reaching your valued subscribers.
If you’re new to this topic, we do recommend familiarizing yourself with what an SPF record is and what benefits it can have for your organization.
Emails will still work without an SPF record. However, there will be occasions where email deliverability may be affected if you do not have an SPF record created. It’s recommended that all Advanced Billing merchants have an SPF record in place in order to help ensure email deliverability.
Advanced Billing Site Settings
Advanced Billing sets the “From” field in the e-mail to the address you specify in your site settings. However, because the e-mail comes from our servers, the chargify.com DKIM & SPF will be used. For the vast majority of our customers, this means the message is considered authentic and will not be blocked by spam filters.
Updating Your Mail Server Settings
In order to assist you in getting your mail delivered, here are the current mail servers in use by Advanced Billing:
mailer.chargify.comOne way to use this information to increase your chance for successful deliveries is to create an SPF record such as the following:
v=spf1 a mx include:mailer.chargify.com [other mechanisms you add to describe sending hosts] ~allNote: as we strive to stay on the edge of deliverability best practices, we may change our sending hosts from time to time. Please watch this page for changes.
Mailgun Custom Email Domain
In a site under Tools > Email Insights > Setup Info, a user with the "Admin" permissions can use the Custom Email Domain feature to allow emails to be sent from a different domain. Before getting started, we would again highly recommend that this process be done by an IT representative. Any misconfiguration can result in email failure.
First, Advanced Billing will need the domain that this will be sending from. This can be a new one, or one that has been previously connected.
Next, TXT and CNAME DNS Records will need to be used in the following to make the connection. The main elements being used will be the domainkey, @, and email and these will differ based on whether a root domain or a subdomain is used.
Root Domain Example:
| Name | Record Type | Example Value |
| smtp._domainkey | TXT | k=rsa; p=MIGfXXXXXXXXXXXXX |
| @ | TXT | v=spf1 include:mydomain.org ~all |
| CNAME | mydomain.org |
Subdomain Example:
| Name | Record Type | Example Value |
| smtp._domainkey | TXT | k=rsa; p=MIGfXXXXXXXXXXXXX |
| @ | TXT | v=spf1 include:mydomain.org ~all |
| CNAME | email.mydomain.org |
Once you've added the appropriate DNS records for verification, click the button "Check DNS Records Now" to have Mailgun check them. This process can take 24-48 hours. If the check comes back "unverified" then check the values and DNS records for verification.
Once a "verified" status has been obtained, the next step would be to test emails to make sure they are delivered and working correctly.
Mailgun's MX Records (Optional)
Providing you do not currently have MX records on the Custom Email Subdomain, then Mailgun's MX records below may also be added should you wish. Adding MX records helps prevent "Sender Domain Verification" bounce errors that the email recipient's server may return if your domain lacks MX records.
The two MX records for Mailgun that will need to be added to your subdomain are:
| Value | Priority |
| mxa.mailgun.org (http://mxa.mailgun.org/) | 10 |
| mxb.mailgun.org (http://mxb.mailgun.org/) | 10 |
Additional Tools
-
Google provides an excellent article on how to add an SPF record to your mail server.
-
You can check to see if your SPF record is public - using a tool like the SPF Query Tool.
-
Another great tool is: http://www.mail-tester.com/