When you create a custom from address (CFA), there are some words to avoid, and some we'd recommend using.

Words we would suggest steering away from to avoid triggering spam filters are:

Words that are often used that work well are:

Here are some full CFA examples that can work well:

Your CFA can’t contain accented characters. The subdomain must only consist of a combination of the letters a-z, the numbers 0-9 and the hyphen sign (-).

Firstly, you need to check with your IT department and/or domain provider whether your subdomain can be pointed to us. This is because some domain providers don't allow subdomains to be pointed to different name servers to those of the parent domain.

If allowed, then you need to create specific NS records that point to us.

It's possible to have a variety of different custom from addresses to send from, as well as multiple sending domains.

To purchase a new sending domain:

On the Address purchasing page you can:

Domain names can be purchased within Dotdigital which end with:

Once we have your details, we charge your account and start setting up the new address.

You must verify your domain within 15 days of having purchased it, otherwise the domain will get suspended.

An email containing a verification link is sent to the email address you registered the domain with, so it's important to make sure this email address is entered correctly.

You can tell if a domain has been suspended by looking at the NS records. If suspended, they read:

Let's say, for example, you already have the sending address news@email.company123.com.

This means purchasing a new alias, such as updates, enables you to send from updates@email.company123.com.

This charges your account.

It can take up to 30 minutes to set up the new alias. This setup time ensures all of our servers are ready to receive replies and responses to your campaigns.

After this time, you can use the alias as one of your custom from addresses.

All domains purchased through Dotdigital, including those that have been purchased with us in the past, are secured with SSL, ensuring security best practice. Increasingly, non-SSL websites are going to get red-flagged by browsers. Instead, people are expecting to see the secure padlock icon when visiting a page. All email links, unsubscribe pages, landing pages, surveys, signup forms and preference centres under your branded domain benefit from this security.

You may be required to reverify your domain if you change the registrant details. If so, you receive an email sent from either ICANN or Nominet to the email address listed under Registered owner details for the domain. It's not always the case that reverification is required but it's best to keep a lookout for this email, otherwise your domain could become suspended.

If you've purchased a brand new domain for sending, then we recommend waiting for at least 30 days before you start sending. This is because mailbox providers treat brand new from domains as a bad reputation indicator and this can adversely affect deliverability.

Whether you've purchased a completely new domain or you're using a subdomain, you need to ramp up. This means gradually increasing the volume you send through your new CFA over time, targeting engaged recipients to build a good sender reputation with mailbox providers. We can work with you to create and execute a comprehensive ramp up strategy that gives the best chances of success; you can contact your Customer Success representative or our Support team to discuss this.

You can find your custom from addresses in two places:

Replies are handled directly by Dotdigital and can be viewed in the 'Replies' report in email reporting.

Replies can also be handled and forwarded at either:

As well as the Friendly from name, the forwarding address can also be a personalised, dynamic value taken from a contact data field. It means that replies from contacts can be forwarded to an address you set on a per contact basis.

For example, let's say you have three account managers that look after all of your customers, and these customers are all contacts stored with us. You can create a contact data field called something like ACCOUNTMANAGEREMAIL, and make sure each contact has the email address of their account manager stored inside it.

When creating your campaign, you'd enter @ACCOUNTMANAGEREMAIL@ in the Forwarding address field.

If a contact replies, you get their response not only stored in email campaign reporting, but it is also sent directly to the relevant account manager. You can enter a default value for this data field to set a fallback email address for any contact who doesn’t have a specified account manager, or where the field is empty for any reason.

It is possible to transfer a CFA to a new registrar. How this works depends on the type of domain the CFA uses.

It could be the case that you're transferring the domain so that you own it, but you still wish to use it in your account with us.

If so, you need to be aware of the following: