FAQ – Brand Identity Protection

Here you will find frequently asked questions about the Brand Identity Protection agent.

The Brand Identity Protection agent helps you improve the deliverability of your mailings. With the right settings in the Brand Identity Protection agent, you create the technical conditions to ensure that your e-mails actually reach the recipient and are not classified as spam.

The agent is calledBrand Identity Protection because deliverability is all about protecting your brand identity. If the reputation of your domain is adversely influenced, you run the risk of being downgraded as a sender by email service providers, which affects the core of your company and your brand.

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

For technical and performance reasons, you can use a maximum of 50 domains per XPRO client (as a sending domain or as a redirect URL). Contact us if the maximum number is not sufficient for you.

The only way to have all the options to optimise the deliverability of your mailings is when you set up a subdomain.

We recommend setting up a subdomain that you only use for sending emails using Inxmail Professional. In this manner you avoid inadvertently affecting your main domain and your emails for daily business correspondence.

You need to store the subdomain that you have specified in the Brand Identity Protection agent in the list settings. Only then can the settings in the Brand Identity Protection agent take effect.

Each domain host has different configuration options. Please have your IT department take care of the configuration or even consider asking your domain host for assistance.

If your previous domain is a subdomain and you use this subdomain exclusively for sending in Inxmail Professional, you can authenticate and continue to use your existing subdomain in the Brand Identity Protection agent.

If not, you need to create a new subdomain. Only if you separate your subdomain for Inxmail Professional from your main domain and your emails for daily business correspondence can you be sure that you will not inadvertently impact your reputation negatively.

We strongly advise you to not use your main domain for sending emails using Inxmail Professional. Loss of reputation that occurs due to sending newsletters affects the core of your company and brand.

From a technical standpoint, it is possible to send emails using your main domain in combination with scenario 3.

However, we do not recommend implementing scenario 3. There is a high risk of setup errors and loss of reputation involved with scenario 3. The loss of reputation is particularly serious if it affects your main domain and your emails for daily business correspondence.

  • You would intuitively think that a recipient would trust a main domain more than a subdomain.

  • However, it is exactly the opposite from a technical standpoint: It is much more complicated and error-prone to authenticate your mailings with DMARC when you send emails via your main domain, which you use outside of Inxmail Professional for other purposes. You run the risk of a loss of reputation if setup errors occur.

    Which is why we recommend creating a subdomain that you only use for Inxmail Professional. You can conveniently and securely authenticate this subdomain when implementing scenario 1 or scenario 2.

    If you implement scenario 3, it means that you are using a main domain to send your emails in Inxmail Professional. Or using a subdomain that you use outside of Inxmail Professional for other purposes.

    It means that you use the same domain for different sources to send emails, such as:

    • Newsletters

    • Transaction emails like order and invoice confirmations

    • Your emails for daily business correspondence

    You can run into major problems with your reputation by mixing these things. For example, if a loss of reputation arises from sending your newsletters, this loss of reputation will also affect your emails for daily business correspondence.

    On the other hand, if you differentiate the email types from each other, each domain builds its own reputation and the different sources to send emails do not affect one another.

    There are many systems that send emails using your company name within the company. These include job portals, social media services and acquisition channels. These channels often exist in your company without the knowledge of your IT department. It is also referred to as shadow IT. Not all of these services sign your emails using DKIM, or even adhere to the other technical standards regarding deliverability.

    If you want to implement scenario 3, you need to set the DMARC policy of your main domain to ‘reject’, or at the very least to ‘quarantine’. To do so, you need to ensure that all systems sending emails using your company name adhere to your deliverability standards. This generally means that

    • you need to generate and evaluate complex XML reports in which you use the IP address to determine all programs and services that send emails using your company name.

    • You need to communicate with third-party service providers and require them to sign your emails using DKIM and adhere to your deliverability standards.

    This process is very involving and can take years depending on your IT infrastructure.

    Conclusion: The easiest and most secure way of protecting your domain is to set up your own subdomain that you only use for Inxmail Professional. Implement either scenario 1 or scenario 2 to do so.

The DNS entries in the Brand Identity Protection agent enable you to send your emails via the Inxmail servers and still authenticate and sign your emails via your subdomain.

You can find more information on the DNS entries that you need to store with your domain host:

Each domain host has different options for storing DNS entries. Please have your IT department take care of the adjustment or even consider asking your domain host for assistance.

The major differences between the different scenarios for setting up the Brand Identity Protection agent are described here.

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.

To scenario 1

Scenario 2 differs from scenario 1 in the type of DNS entries. You use CNAME and TXT entries here. In practical terms this means that in the long run, you are responsible for maintaining and, if necessary, updating your DNS entries (= no domain delegation).

There is no difference between scenario 1 and 2 with regard to the impact on your deliverability. You are in a good position with regard to your deliverability with both scenarios.

To scenario 2

Please only use scenario 3 as an absolute exception. We do not recommend it. If you set up things incorrectly, you risk damaging your reputation and this will affect the domain you use.

To scenario 3

If you implement scenario 3, it means that you are using a main domain to send your emails in Inxmail Professional. Or using a subdomain that you use outside of Inxmail Professional for other purposes.

It means that you use the same domain for different sources to send emails, such as:

  • Newsletters

  • Transaction emails like order and invoice confirmations

  • Your emails for daily business correspondence

You can run into major problems with your reputation by mixing these things. For example, if a loss of reputation arises from sending your newsletters, this loss of reputation will also affect your emails for daily business correspondence.

On the other hand, if you differentiate the email types from each other, each domain builds its own reputation and the different sources to send emails do not affect one another.

There are many systems that send emails using your company name within the company. These include job portals, social media services and acquisition channels. These channels often exist in your company without the knowledge of your IT department. It is also referred to as shadow IT. Not all of these services sign your emails using DKIM, or even adhere to the other technical standards regarding deliverability.

If you want to implement scenario 3, you need to set the DMARC policy of your main domain to ‘reject’, or at the very least to ‘quarantine’. To do so, you need to ensure that all systems sending emails using your company name adhere to your deliverability standards. This generally means that

  • you need to generate and evaluate complex XML reports in which you use the IP address to determine all programs and services that send emails using your company name.

  • You need to communicate with third-party service providers and require them to sign your emails using DKIM and adhere to your deliverability standards.

This process is very involving and can take years depending on your IT infrastructure.

Conclusion: The easiest and most secure way of protecting your domain is to set up your own subdomain that you only use for Inxmail Professional. Implement either scenario 1 or scenario 2 to do so.

By using the Brand Identity Protection agent, 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 Professional.

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 the Inbox & bounces agent in Inxmail Professional.

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.

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.

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.

  • 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.

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 list settings do not need to be real ones. The addresses can be fictitious, because they will be sent to the forwarding address address anyway.

Replies to your mailings will arrive in the inbox of your forwarding address. That means that the replies to your mailings will no longer appear in the Inbox & bounces agent in Inxmail Professional.

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

Yes. You can change the forwarding address during operation.

In the Brand Identity Protection agent, 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 if you do not want all emails to be sent to this forwarding address.