Level 4: Verifying domain & DNS Records Setup

One of the key steps in our email tech setup is verifying your domain and setting up DNS records. These steps prove you actually own your domain and help ensure your emails don’t land in your leads’ spam folder. By adding trust signals like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, you’ll boost your email deliverability and keep things running smoothly.

4.1. Verify Domain ✅

First and foremost, we’re going to verify your domain so you can activate your workspace services. In this guide, we’re using Google Workspace, so go to the Admin panel. Find Domains and click on Verify domain. You’ll get to a screen asking you if you want to activate Gmail for your domain or add new users. Click “Activate” and keep this tab open - you’ll need it for later.

🔔 You can use any other workspace or hosting platform; it’s up to you. The good thing is that they’re all similar, so you can easily navigate and find the setup options you need.

4.2. DNS: MX Record Setup 📭

After the previous step, a new tab will open, where you’ll be able to Sign in to your domain host with a one-click sign-in to activate Gmail. 

🔔 By signing in, your MX records will be set automatically, but we can also do it manually, just to show you why it’s important or in case you don’t have a one-click sign-in.

First off, MX records (Mail Exchange records) are basically the instructions that tell email servers where to deliver your emails. When someone sends you an email, MX records make sure it lands in the right inbox by pointing the email to the correct mail server. Without properly set MX records, your emails might not get delivered at all, so it's super important to have them set up correctly for smooth outreach.

What’s super handy is the fact that Google will help you set up your DNS records easily with a thorough guide with a “Generic instructions” option, which covers any hosting that you choose, so you can easily navigate step-by-step. Here’s what you need to do:

🔔 For this example, we’re using GoDaddy and Google Workspace. 

1. Go to your domain host’s website in a new tab

2. Sign in to your domain host - Sign in using your domain host’s username and password.

3. Go to your MX Records - Typically under DNS Management, Mail Settings, or Advanced Settings. Then, select the option to add a new record. (The same process will be used to set all other records, which we’ll get to on Level 6)

🔔 For GoDaddy, go to Domains>Portfolio>DNS>DNS Records.

4. Add MX Records for Gmail -

1. From the dropdown list, select MX.
2. In the Name/Host/Alias field, enter @ or leave it blank
3. In the Server/Mail Server/Value/Answer/Destination field, add ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM
4. In the Priority field, enter 1.
5. In the Time to Live (TTL) field, enter 3600 or leave the default value.

🔔 Here’s how adding your MX record should look like in GoDaddy.

6. Click Save.
7. Follow these same steps to add the MX records shown in this table. Start from the top of the table and enter as many as you have room for.

MX SERVER ADDRESS	PRIORITY
ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM	5
ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM	5
ALT3.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM	10
ALT4.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM	10

Note: Each address is for a Google mail server. We provide several servers in case one becomes unavailable. Some hosts also require a trailing period at the end of the server name.

🔔 Do the same thing over again for those other records in the table above. You can add multiple records in bulk.

5. Get your verification code

🔔 Find yours in your Gmail guide

6. Add MX verification record - Add another MX record, just like you did above. Only this time:

1. In the Server/Mail Server/Value/Answer/Destination field, paste MX verification record (ends in mx-verification.google.com) you copied above.
2. In the Priority field, enter 15.

Congrats on manually adding all of these records. 🥳

If you did so, the last thing you need to do is click the Activate Gmail button. It can take a couple of minutes to verify the MX records, but after that, you’re good to go!

Official email provider setup guides

Use these guides to add the correct values to your records 👇

• Gmail MX Record Setup
• Outlook MX Record Setup

Done? Let’s move on to Adding new users to your workspace. 🤩 

⏮️ Previous                                                        Next - Level 5: Create New Users in the Workspace ⏩