Scenario 1 – Authentication and domain alignment (with domain delegation)

Scenario 1 means that you have the least maintenance effort in the long term. You store DNS entries once and delegate the domain to Inxmail. Inxmail carries out any adjustments and you do not need to do anything if there are any changes to the domain entries in the future.

Advantages: What does this scenario offer?

In this scenario you have the assurance that all email authentication technologies are included: SPF, DKIM and DMARC. This domain is therefore protected against external misuse by cybercriminals.
Prerequisite: The receiving mail server or spam filter interprets DMARC.
A matching sender and bounce domain (‘domain alignment’) is rated by many email service providers as a positive characteristic when classifying emails. This way, you can avoid unwanted spam classifications.
In addition to the sender and bounced domain ("Domain Alignment"), the mailing links also point to the same domain (= "Full Domain Alignment"). This means that you can design your newsletter campaigns to continuously have the same domain and achieve a consistent brand identity.
Authenticating your sender domain eliminates the need to display the Inxmail sender domain, as happens in the Outlook, Hotmail or Gmail email clients, for example.
Domain delegation makes it easier to maintain your domains. You only need to store so-called NS entries once with your domain host. Inxmail takes care of everything else for you, such as the maintenance of the DKIM keys.
You can control your BIMI logo directly via Inxmail Commerce without having to store a DNS entry with your domain host.

Disadvantage compared to scenario 3: What is not possible in this scenario:

You cannot use your main domain as the sending domain but have to create your own subdomain for sending in Inxmail Commerce.
You cannot use the subdomain used here outside of Inxmail Commerce for other purposes.

Switch to scenario 3 if any of these cases are relevant to you.

Step by step

Open the Brand Identity Protection feature in Settings.
Select the Optimal deliverability option and check the Delegate domain to Inxmail check box.
In the Your domain input field, enter the subdomain that you want to use as the sender and bounce domain in Inxmail Commerce.

Before you can use the subdomain in Inxmail Commerce, you need to set up the subdomain with your domain host (see Step 2: Set up the new subdomain with your domain host).
What is a subdomain?
An Internet address (or URL) consists of the following:

A URL can have a subdomain, but it does not necessarily need one.
- Main domain: example.com
- Subdomain: subdomain.example.com
How does the subdomain affect my mailing settings?

The subdomain that you define in the Brand Identity Protection feature will not become active until you define your subdomain in the mailing settings.
Specify an email address for forwarding replies. This can be a mailbox on your main domain, such as reply@example.com. All replies to your mailings will be sent to this forwarding address (after you have stored your subdomain in the mailing settings). You must set up a mailbox of the same name with your domain host or email service provider if the forwarding address does not yet exist.

The forwarding address cannot be on the subdomain you are in the process of authenticating.

Test your forwarding address: Verify that forwarding to your forwarding address actually works.

Get in touch with your Inxmail contact person or Care-Consulting@inxmail.de. The deliverability of the original e-mail is not affected by this.

Why do I need to store a forwarding address?

By using the Brand Identity Protection feature, you transfer the management of your subdomain to Inxmail. This means that you can (no longer) manage all email addresses that are on your authenticated subdomain with normal mailboxes outside of Inxmail Commerce.

The catch-all forwarding address you store here collects all replies to email addresses on your subdomain and sends them to the forwarding address. In this manner, the forwarding address acts as the default reply address for your mailings. Bounce messages will continue to be displayed in Inxmail Commerce under the sending information.

You can define exceptions if you do not want replies to certain email addresses on your subdomain to be delivered to the catch-all forwarding address.

What does it mean: The forwarding address cannot be on the subdomain you are in the process of authenticating?

You are trying to authenticate a subdomain, for example, subdomain.example.com. It means that the domain of the forwarding address cannot be on the subdomain subdomain.example.com that you are in the process of authenticating.

The forwarding address can be on your main domain, for example, reply@example.com. It can also be on a different subdomain, for example, reply@mail.example.
Why can’t the forwarding address be on the subdomain you are in the process of authenticating?
A loop would occur if the forwarding address is on the same subdomain as the subdomain you are in the process of authenticating because the forwarding address is a catch-all forwarding address.
Example
The authenticated subdomain is: subdomain.example.com.

All emails to email accounts within subdomain.example.com are sent to a central (‘catch-all’) forwarding address. Let’s assume that the catch-all forwarding address is: reply@example.com.

That means that all emails to mail@subdomain.example.com will be sent to the forwarding address reply@example.com.

If the forwarding address would be reply@subdomain.example instead of reply@example.com, it would cause the following to occur:

All emails to mail@subdomain.example.com are forwarded to reply@subdomain.example.

But since reply@subdomain.example.com is on subdomain.example.com, catch-all forwarding would apply and the email would be caught in a loop; it would continue to be forwarded from reply@subdomain.example.com to reply@subdomain.example.com and never arrive.
What does it mean? The forwarding address cannot be on the subdomain you are in the process of authenticating to prevent your emails to the forwarding address being forwarded again and again.
Does the forwarding address need to be an actual address?

Yes. There needs to be an actual email address connected to the forwarding address and there needs to be a real mailbox for your emails to arrive.

On the other hand, the mailboxes of the email addresses in the mailing settings do not need to be real ones. The addresses can be fictitious, because they will be sent to the forwarding address anyway.

Where will any replies to my mailings arrive?

Replies to your mailings will arrive in the inbox of your forwarding address.

Note: Get in touch with your Inxmail contact person or Care-Consulting@inxmail.de if you want the replies to your mailing to be displayed in the Inbox & bounces agent.

Can I change the forwarding address at a later date?

Yes. You can change the forwarding address during operation.

How can I store exceptions?

In the Brand Identity Protection feature, there is a catch-all forwarding, which means that all variations of *@news.sample-company.org will be sent to the forwarding address that you enter here.

You can store exceptions.
Click Authenticate domain.

You will be directed to the Domain authentication page.
Optional: Store your BIMI logo.
Store your DNS entries with your domain host.
Store the subdomain in the mailing settings in Inxmail Commerce and in the mail relay source systems. You need to adjust the mailing settings in all mailings if you want the settings from the Brand Identity Protection feature to be active for all mailings.

You have authenticated your domain in the Brand Identity Protection feature and enabled it for your mailings .