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A sending domain lets Retainful send email as you — from hello@mystore.com instead of a shared address. Mailbox providers like Gmail and Yahoo now effectively require this authentication for bulk senders, and it’s the single biggest deliverability upgrade you can make.

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What the DNS records do

You don’t need to understand these deeply — but here’s what each record proves:

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Add and verify your domain

1

Add the domain

Go to Settings → Email → Domains and click Add domain. Enter the domain you send from — typically your store’s domain, like mystore.com.
2

Copy the DNS records

Retainful displays the exact records to create — each with a type (TXT or CNAME), a host/name, and a value. The records are split into sending and receiving sections; you need all of them.
3

Add them at your DNS provider

Log in to wherever your domain’s DNS lives — Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Namecheap, your registrar — and create each record. Copy-paste the values exactly; a single missing character fails verification.
4

Verify

Back in Retainful, click Verify for each record. Verification re-checks DNS, so you can retry as often as you like.
DNS changes can take minutes to a few hours to propagate worldwide. If verification fails right after you added the records, wait an hour and try again before changing anything.

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Common DNS pitfalls

Some DNS providers add .mystore.com to whatever you enter. If Retainful asks for host rtnf._domainkey.mystore.com, you may need to enter just rtnf._domainkey. If verification fails, check the record with a DNS lookup tool to see what actually got created.
CNAME records used for email must be DNS only (gray cloud), not proxied (orange cloud). Toggle the proxy off for those records.
A domain can only have one SPF record. Don’t add a second — merge Retainful’s include into your existing record (for example v=spf1 include:existing.com include:mailgun.org ~all).
Compare each record character by character — trailing spaces and smart quotes from copy-paste are the usual culprits. Make sure the records are on the exact domain you added (not www.).

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After verification

Add the addresses you’ll send from on that domain under Settings → Email → From Addresses — see Sender addresses. Then send yourself a test campaign and check it lands in the inbox, not spam.