BrievaSending from your own domain: adding and verifying a sending domain
Step by step: choosing a subdomain, adding it in Brieva, publishing the six DNS records, what each record does, how long verification takes, and what to do when a record will not verify.
The short version
- By default your newsletter goes out from issues@brieva.news. A verified domain of your own puts your brand on the from address and keeps your sending reputation separate from everyone else's.
- Use a subdomain such as news.yourcompany.com rather than the bare domain. It cannot interfere with your everyday email.
- Brieva shows six DNS records to add: three DKIM CNAMEs, an MX and an SPF TXT for bounce handling, and an optional DMARC TXT.
- Verification is automatic once the records are visible; in a test with Route 53 it took about a minute. Slow DNS providers can take up to a few hours.
- Until the domain shows Verified, and if you ever remove it, the newsletter simply keeps sending from brieva.news. Nothing breaks.
Why a subdomain and not your main domain?
Adding a domain to Brieva means publishing DNS records that let Amazon SES sign and send mail for it. If you add yourcompany.com itself, those records sit next to the ones your normal email relies on, and the MAIL FROM record in particular can collide with an existing mail setup. A subdomain has none of that risk: news.yourcompany.com has no other mail, so every record Brieva asks for is new and harmless.
A subdomain also gives the newsletter its own reputation with inbox providers. A bad week for the newsletter cannot affect delivery of your invoices and quotes, and vice versa.
Adding the domain
Open Domains from the app header, type the subdomain (for example news.yourcompany.com) and click Add domain. Brieva registers it with the email provider and immediately shows the records to add. The domain appears under Your domains as Awaiting DNS.
Only one workspace can hold a given domain. If the domain is already set up in the email system outside Brieva, the add is refused rather than risk disturbing whatever is using it.
The six records and what they do
Three CNAME records whose names end in ._domainkey. These are DKIM: they let mail providers check that each message was really signed for your domain. All three must exist; providers rotate between them.
One MX record at mail.<your subdomain> pointing to feedback-smtp.us-east-1.amazonses.com with priority 10. This is the bounce address. When a reader's mailbox rejects a message, the rejection comes back here and Brieva records it, which is how bad addresses get suppressed automatically.
One TXT record at the same mail.<your subdomain> name with the value v=spf1 include:amazonses.com ~all. This is SPF for the bounce address, and it lets the from and return addresses line up, which DMARC checks.
One optional TXT record at _dmarc.<your subdomain> with v=DMARC1; p=none;. It tells providers what to do with mail that fails the checks above (nothing, for now) and asks them to report. You can tighten it to quarantine later once you have seen clean reports for a few weeks.
Entering the records at your DNS provider
Most providers want only the part of the name before your domain. Brieva shows both forms under each record: the full name, and the short form to type into a Name or Host field. Use whichever your provider expects; if a record will not verify, the most common cause is a doubled-up name like mail.news.yourcompany.com.yourcompany.com.
Leave TTL at the default. On Cloudflare set the three DKIM CNAMEs to DNS only (grey cloud); proxying breaks them. The Domains page has a tips list for Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Namecheap, Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, Route 53 and others.
Copy values with the Copy buttons rather than retyping. A single wrong character in a DKIM selector means that record never verifies.
How long does verification take?
The email provider checks DNS on its own schedule and marks each record as it finds it. With a fast provider you will see Verified within a few minutes; some registrars take an hour or two to publish changes. Click Re-check status on the Domains page at any time to refresh. There is nothing to submit; you are only asking Brieva to look again.
The domain becomes usable when the DKIM records verify. The MAIL FROM records can lag slightly; once all six show Verified you are done.
Sending from the domain
Verifying the domain does not change any newsletter by itself. Open the newsletter, then the Sending panel, choose the domain from the list and set the local part of the address (for example brief, so mail goes out as brief@news.yourcompany.com). Reply-to can stay as your own mailbox so replies reach a person.
The name readers see, such as "Harbour Brief", is set separately under Branding, From name.
If a record will not verify
Check the name first, then the value, then whether your provider is proxying the record. Look the record up from outside your provider (any public DNS lookup tool) to see what the world sees; if it is missing or different there, the provider has not published it. If it is correct there and still pending after an hour, click Re-check status once more; the provider's checker can lag behind DNS.
If you remove the domain from Brieva, delete the six records at your provider too, so nothing stale is left behind.
Ready to set it up?