Domain alignment: Aligning visible and technical sender domains

The prerequisite for optimising your deliverability on the basis of DMARC is so-called ‘domain alignment’.

With regard to deliverability, there are three relevant domains in Inxmail Professional:

1. The domain of the visible sender address (‘FROM address’)

2. The domain of the technical sender address (‘MAIL-FROM address’, often also referred to as ‘Return Path’ or ‘Bounce address’)

3. The domain of the mailing links.

   • URL for tracking links
   • URL for linking web pages

Domain alignment: Aligning visible and technical sender addresses

‘Domain alignment’ is when the first two domains are ‘aligned’:

1. Visible sender address (‘FROM address’)

2. The domain of the technical sender address (‘MAIL-FROM address’, often also referred to as ‘Return Path’ or ‘Bounce address’)

That is, the visible and technical sender addresses must refer to the same subdomain.
Domain alignment is a basic requirement for working with DMARC and is therefore absolutely necessary for the optimal delivery of your emails.

Explanation: Visible sender address (‘FROM address’)

The domain of the visible sender address can be found to the right of the @ character in the email address in the sender field (‘FROM’).

As the recipient of an email, you can see the visible sender address in the default view in all email clients:

Explanation: Technical sender address (‘Bounce address’, ‘Return Path’, ‘MAIL-FROM address’)

The visible sender address is usually used as the reply address for your mailings. However, this reply address is only used if the mailing successfully reaches its recipient. It may not be possible to reach recipients. Undeliverable mailings are bounced. The receiving mail server then sends a message to a bounce address stored in the mailing stating that the mailing could not be delivered to the recipient. Whenever we speak about the technical sender address, we are referring to this bounce address. It is also known as the ‘Return Path’ or ‘MAIL-FROM address’. The technical sender address is included in each mailing. It is part of the full technical email header.

As the recipient of an email, you cannot see the technical sender address in the default view of your email program. You must deliberately show the full email header. The technical sender address specification in the email header is: ‘Return-Path:’, e.g.

Return-Path: bounce@example.de

Full domain alignment: Aligning mailing links

‘Full domain alignment’ is when all domains are ‘aligned’:

1. Visible sender address (‘FROM address’)

2. The domain of the technical sender address (‘MAIL-FROM address’, often also referred to as ‘Return Path’ or ‘Bounce address’)

3. The domain of the mailing links.

   • URL for tracking links
   • URL for linking web pages

Full domain alignment can only be implemented via a subdomain and cannot be applied to the main domain.

You can further improve the deliverability of your emails if you also align the mailing links in Inxmail Professional (= full domain alignment) in addition to implementing standard domain alignment.

The following screenshot shows the three addresses in the list settings of Inxmail Professional:

Interaction of list settings and settings in the Brand Identity Protection agent

When you use the Brand Identity Protection agent, the list settings and the settings in the Brand Identity Protection agent work together as follows:

• Visible sender address

  When the list is created, you set the visible sender address. You can also change the visible sender address of a list later on in the list settings. When you set the visible email address, the domain via which the mailing is sent is automatically determined. The settings, which you specified for this domain in the Brand Identity Protection agent, apply.

• Bounce address

  Never change the bounce address in the list settings: Inxmail ensures that the correct bounce address for your domain is automatically drawn.

• The domain of the tracking links:

  • URL for tracking links
  • URL for linking web pages

  Once you have set up and validated your domain, Inxmail will start to set up full domain alignment for you (including alignment of mailing links). The subdomain for mailing links may take up to two to three working days to activate.

  If you have set up several subdomains in the Brand Identity Protection agent, you must enter mailing links in your Inxmail Professional list settings after activation, see: Aligning mailing links.