Mailmodo SPF and DKIM setup

What you are setting up

Mailmodo is an email marketing platform built around interactive AMP email, and by default it sends from its own infrastructure. You authenticate a sender domain by publishing the records Mailmodo generates for it; in its own words, the “platform generates unique records for each sender domain.” There are three: a TXT record for DKIM, a CNAME record for bounce handling, and a TXT record for DMARC. Notice what is missing: there is no SPF include. The bounce CNAME hands a hostname on your domain to Mailmodo, so the Return-Path on every campaign is on your domain and SPF aligns with your From address without you editing your SPF record at all. Verification is per domain, not per address: once a domain is verified, “all future emails from the same domain will be automatically authorized.”

Publish SPF and DKIM

In Mailmodo, go to Settings; the Sender Domains section opens. Click + Add sender, enter the sender email address you want campaigns to come from, and click Continue. Mailmodo then asks you to complete a short AMP form, its application for Google and Yahoo AMP approval. That is a separate matter from DNS, but the DNS dialog only appears after it, so fill it in. The dialog lists the records for the domain (the part after the @), each with a Type, a Host, and a Data value. Mailmodo does not publish the hostnames or values in its help center because they are unique to your domain, so copy them from the dialog. The shape is:

Type:  TXT     (DKIM)
Host:  (the _domainkey host Mailmodo shows)
Value: (the key Mailmodo shows)

Type:  CNAME   (bounce handling, the Return-Path)
Host:  (the bounce host Mailmodo shows)
Value: (the target Mailmodo shows)

Type:  TXT     (DMARC)
Host:  _dmarc
Value: v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc@yourdomain.com

Mailmodo's DNS guide says to set the TTL for every record to 1 hour and to “complete all the entries exactly as they are in the Mailmodo dialog box.” Do not add an SPF include for Mailmodo. It does not document one, none of the three records asks for it, and a guessed include: only spends one of your ten SPF lookups. Your existing SPF record, if you have one, stays as it is. Once the records are in, return to Mailmodo and click Refresh and Verify. The status changes to Verified when the records resolve; Mailmodo says this “may take up to 24-48 hours, depending on your domain registrar,” though it is usually far quicker. Mailmodo does not document a plan requirement for sender domains.

Add DMARC

Mailmodo includes a DMARC TXT in the dialog. If your domain has no _dmarc record yet, publish that one, making sure it carries a reporting address. If you already have a DMARC record, keep it; a domain gets exactly one, and the second is ignored or treated as an error. Either way it is a standard record, nothing Mailmodo-specific:

Type:  TXT
Host:  _dmarc
Value: v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc@yourdomain.com

Build it with our DMARC builder and progress past p=none once your reports are clean.

The Mailmodo gotcha

The host is the host, not the host plus your domain. The single most common reason Refresh and Verify stays unverified is a DNS provider that appends your domain to whatever you type in the Host field. Mailmodo shows the host it expects; if your registrar adds .yourdomain.com itself, enter only the part in front of it, or the record lands at something.yourdomain.com.yourdomain.com and never resolves. Check the published name with a DNS lookup before you click verify again, and give the change the hour the TTL implies.

Bring your own sending, lose these records. Mailmodo can also send through your own SMTP provider (it names AWS, Pepipost, and SendGrid) or through your own Amazon SES account. On either path the Mailmodo-generated records do not apply; you authenticate the domain at that provider instead, and Mailmodo warns that with a custom SMTP integration you will not receive bounce data for your campaigns. If your DMARC reports show Mailmodo campaigns arriving from Amazon rather than from Mailmodo, that is why, and our Amazon SES guide is the one to follow.

Confirm it worked

• Check Sender Domains. After Refresh and Verify the domain should read Verified. If it does not, re-read each host against the dialog, character by character, and confirm the domain suffix is not doubled.
• Send a test and read the headers. Send a test campaign to yourself, open it, and confirm the DKIM signature shows d=yourdomain.com, the Return-Path is on a subdomain of your domain, and the result is dmarc=pass. Our header analyzer reads it back plainly.
• Watch the reports. Mailmodo should appear as an aligned, passing source on both SPF and DKIM in your DMARC aggregate reports, labeled as a known sender in trustyourinbox.