Connecting your domain, step by step
The “Start the domain check” button gives you a few records. You add them at the company you bought your domain from, in the admin panel, under DNS zones. On most Romanian hosting that means cPanel, where the section is called Zone Editor.
It takes about a quarter of an hour, once.
Add all of them, not only the ones you see
The screen shows only the first two records by default. Below them is the button that shows the rest of the records, with their number written on it. Press it before anything else: if you only add what is visible at first glance, verification cannot pass, and the cause is hard to find afterwards.
Each record has its type above it in a box: TXT, MX or CNAME. That is the only thing that matters when you add it, because it tells you which record type to pick from the menu.
- Type TXT, named something like resend._domainkey.news: the signature that proves the message really comes from you
- Type MX, named something like send.news: where bounces and complaints come back to
- Type TXT, with that same send.news name: the list of servers allowed to send on your behalf
- Type CNAME, named something like rsend.news: part of that same list of servers, which ClevMail also files under SPF
- Type CNAME, named something like links.news: open and click tracking
The CNAME record is the newest of them and older accounts do not have it. Without it your campaigns go out normally, but your reports show zero opens and zero clicks forever. If your domain already has CAA records, one more may appear, also for tracking.
Copy each record with the button in ClevMail, never retyped by hand or from a screenshot. The signature is over 200 characters long, and a single wrong character invalidates it, without the error telling you where the problem is.
Four things that trip everybody up
The form opens on the wrong type. It defaults to type A, which asks for an IP address and rejects the low dash in the signature record name. If you get an error complaining about the record name or asking for a valid IP address, you opened the wrong form. Cancel the record and pick, from the Add Record menu, the type written above the code in ClevMail.
The MX record has two value fields, not one. The first is the priority, where you put 10, the second is the destination itself.
The names appear with your domain at the end and a dot after it, for example send.news.yourdomain.com. That is correct. The dot means the name is complete, so do not add anything after it.
Do not touch anything that already exists on your main domain. All the new records live on the subdomain. The zone usually also holds an older key from your hosting, starting with v=DKIM1. That one stays where it is, it belongs to another service and has nothing to do with ClevMail.
You already have an SPF record
SPF is the TXT record that starts with v=spf1 and lists the servers allowed to send for your domain. If you already use Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Proton or your host's email, your domain usually has one. It stays exactly as it is.
The SPF record ClevMail asks for lives on a different name, the one starting with send, not on your domain. Do not add anything to your existing SPF and do not create a second v=spf1 record on your domain: a name can hold only one SPF, and two records on the same name break both.
The one case where you merge: if the name starting with send already holds a v=spf1 record, put there by another service. Then you do not add a second record, you write one record with both sources, for example v=spf1 include:amazonses.com include:other-service ~all.
The same goes for MX: ClevMail's MX record also lives on the name starting with send, so your domain's MX, the one your email arrives through, is left alone.
Once you have saved them
The records appear instantly in your hosting panel, but the rest of the internet sees them a few minutes later. Do not press the check straight away. How long to wait, and what to do if the check does not pass, are in the next article.
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