Bluecore creates really powerful and personalized emails, but we do not physically send them. For that, we used SendGrid, and we follow their whitelabeling policies.
When SendGrid delivers an email, the email displays “sent on behalf of” or “via sendgrid.me”, and any click-tracking links point to a SendGrid domain rather than the client’s domain. To create a more consistent and professional appearance for your emails, Bluecore requires our clients to whitelabel a subdomain.
CREATE A NEW SUBDOMAIN
To whitelabel, new Domain Name System (DNS) records and a new subdomain (e.g., xyz.example.com) must be created in your domain registrar and point to SendGrid. These DNS records comply with popular email standards, and give SendGrid permission to send emails on your behalf by authenticating your outbound mail with your domain. Your whitelabel subdomain must be different from the subdomain currently being used by your promotional emails– we recommend something like ”x.example.com”. All of the major internet service providers (ISP) are moving toward a domain-based reputation instead of an IP-based reputation, so this is a necessary step to ensure good deliverability.
SUBDOMAIN REQUIREMENTS
There are a few important things to note when selecting a subdomain:
Ensure the domain had a good sending record on its own– the reputation of the domain will affect the subdomain.
The subdomain we whitelabel cannot match what is currently being used for your promotional sends.
It is best for the subdomain to match the “from” address used in our email sends.
UPDATE DNS SETTINGS
After the subdomain is selected, we will send you the DNS settings that need to be updated through your domain host. Bluecore will then validate these records within SendGrid. Whitelabeling adds an SPF (Sender Policy Framework) record to your domain and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) entries, which will mask SendGrid’s delivery and tracking as your own domain and the “sent on behalf of” and “via” messages will be hidden.
MAINTENANCE
Once the domain whitelabel is validated, SendGrid will take over control of the DKIM and SPF settings, so they do not need to be updated for every change made. This option will change the DNS records that you point at SendGrid for your domain, allowing the responsibility of updating the records to pass through to SendGrid.
Setting up two custom DKIM keys allows SendGrid to rotate these two keys periodically without requiring the customer to make additional changes or updates to their DNS. Rotating DKIM means that we will rotate between the two DKIMs. SendGrid will also generate a custom SPF that includes only the IPs the customer is sending from (as opposed to almost all of sendgrid.net). SendGrid will generate these records but the customer must enter the CNAME records into their DNS host.
For more information, see SendGrid’s Whitelabel Domains.