How to set up DMARC on Mailerlite

First, add the domain

Mailerlite expects you to have access to an email address on the domain in order to prove your ownership over the domain.

1. Go to your Domains list under Account settings.
2. Most likely the domain is already there, assuming you signed up with an email address on that domain.
3. If not, click the "Add domain" button and enter an email address on that domain.
4. Go to your email client and click the link in the email Mailerlite sends you.

Authenticate

Authenticate your domain to improve deliverability.

1. Still on the Domains list under Account settings, click the "Authenticate" link for your domain.
2. This pops up a dialog showing you two DNS records you need to add for your domain; one for DKIM/DomainKeys and one for SPF/SenderID.

Set up DKIM

Mailerlite asks me to set up the following DNS record:

Please check TXT record for litesrv._domainkey.example.com:

Don't worry if this looks like technical mumbo jumbo to you, the actual values aren't that important.

1. Log in to my domain name provider, in this case Gandi.
2. Find my domain name in the user interface.
3. Go to the section where I can edit "DNS Records".
4. Click the "Add record" button and choose TXT as the record type.
5. In the Name field I enter the subdomain part of the record name. In this case that is litesrv._domainkey, which makes the whole record name look like liteserv._domainkey.example.com with the .example.com part being read-only.
6. In the Text value field I enter the "value" given to us by Mailerlite - use the "Copy" button in the popup dialog to make sure you get it right. It should look something like "litesrv._domainkey.mlsend.com"

``` 7. I can then click "Create" and the DNS record has been added.

Set up SPF

Mailerlite actually does something cool here. If you have an existing SPF record, Mailerlite has fetched it and merged the necessary changes into it. This means that even if you already have an SPF record all you have to do is make sure it looks like the value Mailerlite shows you:

1. Log in to my domain name provider, in this case Gandi.
2. Find my domain name in the user interface.
3. Go to the section where I can edit "DNS Records".
4. Find your existing SPF record. It's a TXT record with a value starting with "v=spf1".
5. Click the "Edit" link next to it.
6. In the Text value field I replace the current contents with the "value" given to us by Mailerlite - again, use the "Copy" button in the popup dialog to make sure you get it right.
7. I can then click "Update" and the DNS record has been updated.

With all that done on your DNS provider, it is time to head back to Mailerlite and click the "Check DNS records" button. Please note, it may take up to 24 hours for new DNS settings to become active worldwide, depending on the provider.

Add custom domain

This sets up the custom return path for you emails.

1. Click the "Add custom domain" next to your domain name.
2. Choose a subdomain. It can be anything that you don't use for something else, for example emails or ml something else. Enter that into the subdomain prefix field.

Create DNS records

Back to your DNS provider and repeat the above instructions to add the following DNS records:

1. Create an A record for ml.example.com with this value: 34.91.249.129 (or whatever Mailerlite shows you)
2. Create an MX record for ml.example.com with this value: mail.litesrv.io
3. Create a TXT record for ml.example.com with this value: v=spf1 a mx include:_spf.mlsend.com ?all

After adding the above DNS records, an On/Off toggle appears under "Domain alignment" for your domain. Switch that to on and click "Enable" in the following dialog.

By enabling these domains throughout, content and the mail header of your campaigns will be changed to ml.example.com. This will ensure that your DMARC records are fully aligned and will improve the deliverability of your campaigns.

Done!