Setting an SPF record

What is an SPF Record?

ActiveDEMAND uses SendGrid to send all marketing emails on behalf of your domain name. SPF (Sender Framework Policy) records effectively act as a sign of 'permission' for us to send emails on your behalf. This can help bypass things like firewalls that might otherwise see these emails as being spoofed by someone else.

Google and Yahoo have announced new sender requirements they plan to start enforcing in February of 2024. While already best practice, setting up your sending domain will be a requirement for all bulk senders to land in Gmail and Yahoo inboxes. Google considers those who send 5000 or more emails to Google accounts per day to be "bulk senders." All traffic from a sender counts towards that 5000 email threshold.
Learn more about Gmail and Yahoo’s revised sender requirements.

Setting an SPF Record

These days it's essential that you do this as it will be an added level of assurance your marketing emails will actually be delivered.

To add an SPF record you will actually be adding a TXT record in your DNS settings for your email sending domain. Since you are already in your DNS settings when adding the CNAME records, you should as well add the SPF record.

Please note that you can only have one SPF record. So if you already have an existing SPF record, you will need to combine it with the new one.

If you don't have an SPF record, you should add the following as a TXT record in your DNS settings for your email domain:

Name: YourDomainName.com
Content: v=spf1 mx a include:_spf.activedemand.com ~all




If you already have an spf record, add 'include:_spf.activedemand.com' to it so it appears similar to the screenshot below:

If you use Outlook 365, please ensure your SPF includes: spf.protection.outlook.com. If you use Google Workspace, then include: _spf.google.com (The underscore is important)



If you need any help setting your SPF, please contact us.

Updated on: 22/01/2024