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Improve Email Deliverability and Prevent Spoofing with SPF

Last updated
April 2021 Email Server Migration

Starting on April 10, 2021, Neon CRM began migrating outgoing email traffic from Neon CRM to new email servers, as part of the improvements we’re making to email campaigns. If your organization uses an SPF record in your domain settings to authenticate emails from Neon CRM, you will need to add the address for Neon CRM’s new email servers to your SPF record. See the instructions in this guide for more information.

If your SPF already contains IP addresses for Neon CRM’s existing email servers, we recommend leaving these addresses as-is during the transition as not all customers will be migrating simultaneously.

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Improve email deliverability and prevent spoofing with SPF

Configuring DKIM for Emails sent using Neon CRM

Improve email deliverability and prevent spoofing with SPF

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an email authentication method used to indicate to your recipients’ email service provider that Neon CRM is authorized to send emails from your organization’s domain. In combination with security policies set by your recipients’ service providers, SPF protects against email spoofing where an unauthorized email is sent with your organization’s domain as the sender. However, strict SPF policies on recipients’ servers can also result in bounced emails when sending email campaigns from Neon CRM if your organization has not configured an SPF record for your domain.

How do I know if SPF is causing bounced emails?

To get more details about why an email has bounced, you can run an Email Report on any declined emails to see any messages that are returned from the recipient’s email service provider about the bounced email. Learn more about Getting the Right Report Results here.

Generally speaking, if all of the declined emails have some form of a 550 error, then more than likely the issue resides with your email domain configuration. This information is located in the Email Error Note column of the Email Report. 

Below is a sample 550 error message:

This is the mail system at host 123456-www1.z2systems.com. I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below. For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster. If you do so, please include this problem report. You can delete your own text from the attached returned message. The mail system : host aspmx.l.google.com[00.000.000.00] said: 550-5.1.1 The email account that you tried to reach does not exist. Please try 550-5.1.1 double-checking the recipient's email address for typos or 550-5.1.1 unnecessary spaces. Learn more at 550 5.1.1 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6596m100si24924925oik.31 - gsmtp (in reply to RCPT TO command)

What is an SPF record?

This type of bounce error can be prevented by adding an SPF record to your domain. An SPF record is an entry in your organization’s Domain Name System (DNS) configuration that lists an email server host, such as Neon CRM, as an authorized sender of emails from your organization’s domain.

How do I check if my domain already has an SPF record? – Run your email domain (i.e. the name after the “@” in your email sender name: my-organization.com ) through MXToolbox’s SPF record check.

The results will show either that your domain has a valid SPF record, similar to:

v=spf1 include:_spf.neonemails.com ~all

…or that your domain does not have an SPF record:

No SPF Record found

If your domain SPF record does not include _spf.neonemails.com or if your domain has no SPF record at all, ask the administrator of your organization’s email domain to complete the steps below to configure your domain’s SPF record.

How do I add Neon CRM to my SPF record?

A domain can only have a single SPF record entry, but records can list multiple authorized hosts. Check if your domain has an existing SPF record:

  1. Run your email domain (i.e. the name after the “@” in your email sender name: my-organization.com ) through MXToolbox’s SPF record check.
  2. If your domain has an existing SPF record, go to Editing an existing SPF record
  3. If your domain has no SPF record, go to Adding an SPF record

Editing an existing SPF record

  1. Go to the DNS settings for your organization’s email domain
  2. Locate the TXT record for SPF. The content of these records should begin with v=spf1 and should resemble the record below:
v=spf1 ip4:192.168.0.1/16 include:_spf.google.com ~all
  1. SPF records allow you to include many email hosts. To add Neon CRM as an authorized host, add include:_spf.neonemails.com after the opening v=spf1 block. The resulting record should resemble:
v=spf1 include:_spf.neonemails.com ip4:192.168.0.1/16 include:_spf.google.com ~all
  1. Save your SPF record.

Adding an SPF record

  1. Go to the DNS settings for your organization’s email domain
  2. Create a new TXT record and include the content below for the record:
v=spf1 include:_spf.neonemails.com ~all
  1. Save your SPF record.

The steps above may vary for different domain and DNS management providers. We recommend consulting the documentation for your provider for additional guidance.

For alternative instructions and additional information on SPF records, see Ensure mail delivery & prevent spoofing (SPF) for Google Workspace domains.

 

Configuring DKIM for Emails sent using Neon CRM

DomainKeys Identification Mail (DKIM) is an email authentication method used to prevent spoofing of outgoing messages sent from your organization’s domain.

How to set up DKIM for Neon CRM emails

  1. Go to the DNS settings for your organization’s email domain.
  2. Create a new CNAME record with the following information:
    • Name: neonone._domainkey
    • Value: dkim.neonemails.com
    • TTL: 3600
Once you have added the above record, contact our Customer Support team and we will turn on DKIM for your Neon CRM instance.