Hi,
last week sent first newsletter and I got a feedback that I need to authenticate email. Perhaps that’s the reason why the newsletter went to spam folder. But now sure.
I have 2 question - how to do it? How to authenticate emial?
And the second question - how to change the name that the newsletter was send by bf01.eu1.hubspotstarter.net? Is it feasible at all?
Thanks for help!
Hi @IKucharska to start, you’ll want to connect your email sending domain via your Settings > Website > Domains & URLs.
They’ve recently updated the process so it will prompt you to configure your DKIM, SPF, and DMARC records which will take care of all of the new requirements coming February 1.
This will also remove the hubspotstarter.net from your emails and replace it with your custom brand domain.
This process requires access to your domain provider (like GoDaddy) so you can update the DNS records, if you have a web domain manager or IT person you’ll want to walk through it with them or have them make the updates in HubSpot directly.
Hi @Jnix284 ,
I’m trying to work out the same thing.
I followed your instructions above, but it seems there’s only options to connect the whole site.
There’s a separate ‘email sending domains’ appeared at the bottom but it’s got the padlock icon suggesting I need to upgrade from free plan to use it?
I’d love to know how to fix this and send using my standard email address, not the long, improvised hubspot one.
Thanks!
Hi @OliverW24 I apologize for any confusion, I can confirm that connecting an email sending domain requires Marketing Hub Starter+.
Based on the original post, the user had Starter and was able to configure the settings.
This is where you would configure your brand emai and what you see in a free account:
Whereas this is a Marketing Starter it is unlocked:
Ok nice, thanks for confirming @Jnix284 .
I just tried connecting my site to Hubspot in order to do this before upgrading to Starter, but the DNS stuff just overrode and killed the connection to my actual website.
How can I connect my email without disabling my website? At the moment it seems completely unusable.
You’re welcome @OliverW24,
So if your website is hosted elsewhere, the only way you can access the email sending domain (which won’t impact your live website) is to START the domain connection, using an unused subdomain (like “info” instead of “www”) is always safest, but once it gets to the CNAME record step, click “Finish Later” at the bottom.
A root domain and corresponding subdomain (“www”) if you’re live website uses one, can only be connected to one CMS at a time. As long as you connect a unique subdomain, you can fully connect it to HubSpot without any issue (whether you decide to use it or not).
This will pull up access to the email sending domain settings without having to fully connect your brand domain.
This is an example from my test account, where the domain isn’t fully connected, but I can now access the settings:
@Jnix284 I think I get you!
So you just go through the motions to get the option to connect email (with paid plan) but never actually finish the process and paste in the CNAME, DNS stuff? Then you can just activate the email option alone without having to finish that stuff?
One question - when you say unused subdomain, do you mean en exisiting but not linked one, or just a totally made up one? literaly anything@domain.com?
Thanks for this - really helpful!
@OliverW24 yep, you’ve got it - just go through the motions to access the email settings, because once you have a paid plan the email settings will allow you to configure DKIM and DMARC (SPF if you want, but not necssary since it’s still a HubSpot sending domain) without having to have the full domain connected above.
Unused meaning one that you aren’t using anywhere else, so if your website is www.mycompany.com and your ads go to info.mycompany.com you wouldn’t want to use either of those to avoid any future pitfalls if someone takes over and connects them, which is why I usually go the totally made up route 
Great, thanks @Jnix284 .
I’m almost there. Currently trying to sort the DNS stuff but it’s not being accepted.
Can you see what the issue is?
@OliverW24 it looks like your host already includes .domain for your host, so you need to remove that from what you copied from HubSpot so it isn’t duplicated.
@Jnix284 - just tried this.
I removed the ._domainkey from the end of the Host Name input box. Is that what you meant?
It didn’t work unfortunately, same error message!
My website is also now down.
What else can I try?
@OliverW24 sorry about that, I had to jump on a call and only had a few minutes.
I’m not sure why your website is down, since your CNAME records for squarespace are properly configured.
Could you remove the CNAME records for HubSpot for now to see if that resolves the website issue? I am pretty booked today, but if you’re not in a rush to get the email sending domain configured we can find a time to jump on a zoom later this week and walk through it together if that works for you?
Hey @Jnix284, no worries at all!
The website actually went live again without me doing anything - no idea what the problem was but it passed.
I spoke briefly to Hubspot too and they seemed to think it was actually an issue with the DNS provider and that ‘the CNAME is not propagating via dig web interface’. So waiting to hear back on that…
But if you can help then yes definitely, I’d be very happy to try and figure it out over a zoom call if you have the time!
Hi @OliverW24 I’m glad the website is back up, DNS propogation can be a finicky thing…
Let me know once you hear back from the DNS provider, if you’re still having issues I’d be happy to jump on a zoom.
Hey @Jnix284 !
So I have the answer - you need to delete the final ‘.’ in the results box for that particular dns provider. It now works fine!
But…I have another issue. When I go to send mail it bizarrely only lists a few of my contacts under the ‘full list of contacts’ in the recipient dropdown.
Any idea how to fix that?
Thanks again!
@OliverW24 that was an easy fix!
For the full list of contacts, you’ll only see a subset of your contacts from the email dropdown - the intention is that if you wanted to email an individual contact, you would know them by name and search for them which would return the result you need.
Typically marketing emails are sent to lists, which eliminates the need to show every contact in the dropdown directly.
Thanks @Jnix284 - yes, surprisingly simple but one I’d never have guessed.
Ok good to know about contacts. All my imported ones are basically studio contacts I want to email at once - is there any way to show and select all of them? Or do I need to put them all in a list to do that and if so how do I do that? I couldn’t figure out how to group contacts in any way.
You’re welcome @OliverW24, yes, you’ll want to add them to a list.
The list can either be active or static. More on creating lists
If it’s static, you can select all of the contacts to add and they’ll always be on the list (no one new added unless you add them):
When you import contacts, you can also choose to create a static list.
If it’s active, you can use filter criteria based on specific contact properties that determine whether they should be included.
Awesome, thanks @Jnix284 .
I’ve now fixed everything and sent my first email to all the people I wanted to - exciting times indeed!
This thread was super helpful! I’m not sure which of your replies to mark as the correct one as technically there are about 3 answers to different problems?
You’re welcome @OliverW24, I’m so happy to hear everything is fixed!
Maybe the reply that answers the original question? That would likely help others searching for similar questions the most, but it’s also possible to mark multiple replies as solutions, totally up to you what you think is most helpful
