As of February 1, 2024, many major email providers will have made DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) and Sender Policy Framework (SPF) authentications mandatory. The primary goal of these authentications is to protect senders and recipients from unwanted emails and reduce spam.

To continue sending emails from your Brandwatch Influence account after the change, you will need to configure your sender domain in Influence and set up a few new records in your domain’s domain name system (DNS) provider.

In this article, learn more about the change and how to configure your email domain in Influence.

What is DomainKeys Identified Mail?

DomainKeys Identified Mail is an email authentication method that helps the email recipient verify that an email was indeed sent and authorized by the sender domain, and that it wasn’t tampered with in transit.

What is Sender Policy Framework?

Sender Policy Framework is used to authenticate the sender of an email. It protects your domain from spoofing and helps your emails avoid getting delivered to the recipient’s spam folder.

What is a custom MAIL FROM domain?

When an email is sent, the MAIL FROM address indicates where the message originated. By setting up a custom MAIL FROM domain, you can use a subdomain of a domain that you own to have emails originating from your domain instead of Amazon Simple Email Service (SES). Custom MAIL FROM domains can be configured with Sender Policy Framework to tell email providers which servers are allowed to send emails from your custom MAIL FROM domain.

Configuring your email domain in Influence

1. Log into your Brandwatch Influence account and go to Settings > Company > Outbound Email.
2. Click Configuration Settings (available above the outbound email you’ve added to Influence).
3. Click Start DKIM configuration. The DKIM configuration status for this domain will now show as "Pending."
4. Copy the "Hostname" and "Value" from the first row listed on your DKIM configuration settings in Influence.
5. Open your domain’s DNS provider and create a new CNAME record. Then, paste in the relevant CNAME fields you copied from Influence.
6. Save and repeat steps 4-5 for the remaining CNAME values. You will need to create three new CNAME records in total for the DKIM configuration.
7. Next, click Start MAIL FROM configuration on the Configuration Settings tab in Influence. The Custom MAIL FROM configuration status for this domain will now show as "Pending."
8. Access your domain’s DNS provider and create a mail exchange (MX) record using the "Hostname" and "Value" found on the Configuration Settings tab in Influence.

   Note:

   The number "10" listed in the beginning of the MX value is the preference order for the mail server and may need to be entered into a separate value (priority) field when creating the MX record, depending on your DNS provider. If this is the case for you, input "10" in the priority field and then omit the preceding "10" from the value you copied from Influence and paste the remaining string into the MX value field in your DNS provider.

9. Create a new TXT record in Influence using the "Hostname" and "Value" found on the Configuration Settings tab.
10. Once Influence detects that you’ve created these DNS records correctly, your domain will display as "Configured" on the Outbound Settings page in Influence.

In the Configuration Settings tab, you will also see a section for "DMARC Policy" (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance). No action is required here, unless your domain sends over 5,000 emails per day, but it’s recommended to set up a DMARC record in your DNS provider and have the policy set to "None."