Overview

Verifying domain ownership is key to enable open and click tracking, spam mitigation, and domain protection (to ensure either you or the members you assign have exclusive access to your domain).

This step-by-step guide will walk you through how to add and verify a domain in Appstle Loyalty and Rewards. For this write-up, we will use Google Domain as the example website hosting provider. However, the steps outlined below are the same for other hosting providers as well!

Please note that if your domain is already hosted somewhere (like Google Domains), you’ll need to login to your provider to change DNS records.

If you've already added your domain, skip to step 2

To add your domain to Appstle Loyalty and Rewards, navigate to More > Custom Email Domain.

Login to your hosting provider and navigate to the DNS section. This area is called ‘DNS’ in Google Domain, but we’ve seen it being called ‘Networking’ in Digital Ocean and ‘Zone Editor’ in cPanel.

The first records that Appstle Loyalty and Rewards will ask you to add are TXT records(2). These are required to send and receive email with Appstle Loyalty and Rewards.

Note: The second one is of record type SPF. Though many DNS editors allow for the creation of an SPF record, it is recommended that the SPF record is entered as a TXT record.

TXT Record 1:

Hostname: krs._domainkey.loyalty

Value: k=rsa; p=MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQC2vzeqKL8o/i/n4gE8/Do0VQiNgwvtW0mzyJIH9kjexhI3aMHMxTvChqxUTmINeRTY/NDLYYeAILIrEJGSMzO/5o5Tyis/7y1z+Nj7RrYaHPVw/uL1G1Z5+mjV9BajQxdSGDOpCfuZa0rDMEkNGLwGmUNVZlbxPsvtWgEFWV9iLQIDAQAB

TXT Record 2:

Hostname: loyalty

Value: v=spf1 include:mailgun.org ~all

Note: If you are creating the SPF record, you will likely see a form with at least 2 fields. These can be "Host/Name" and "Value."

This is an example of what configuring these in your provider can look like. This is Google Domains.

Tips: Check to see if there are any other SPF records in your domain's DNS. There can only be one SPF record per domain, so if there is an existing record, just add include:mailgun.org to that record.

Lastly, you will need to add a CNAME record. The CNAME Record is what enables Open and Click tracking. This is highly recommended to reap the full benefit of Appstle Loyalty & Rewards and gain insights into your email performance.

Add the CNAME the same way you added other names. The hostname here is email.loyalty.yourdomain.com

Here are the instructions for the same if you are hosting your domain in Shopify:

It can take up to 24 hours for DNS changes to propagate across the internet. In our experience, it usually happens faster than that, but don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t happen immediately.

For more visual assistance, please refer to our tutorial video on custome email domains here.

If you are facing any trouble with this feature, or are looking for more features, please reach out to us at loyalty-support@appstle.com. Our 24x7x365 available experts will be happy to assist you further.