Advanced email setup

This topic describes how to use your domain name in click-through URLs and email addresses.

Email marketing

By default, the click-through URLs and reply-to addresses in your emails include the name of the EmailLabs server. For example, your reply-to address might resemble reply-12345@elabs5.com and users who mouse over your email hyperlinks would see URLs that might begin with http://elabs5.com/.

Most customers prefer to hide the EmailLabs server name and brand their emails with their own URLs and reply-to addresses. Here’s how.

Using a custom sub-domain in your URLs and Reply-to Address

Domain Masking allows you to mask the presence of elabs5 in both your click-through URLs and the domain of your standard reply handler. You end up with a reply address that resembles reply-12345@yoursubdomain.com and URLs that begin with http://yoursubdomain.com/.

1. Ask your system administrator, IT department or Web hosting provider to add a new sub-domain of your choice (such as enews.yoursite.com or clicks.yoursite.com) with the following settings:

CName – www.elabs5.com

2. Inform our support team of the sub-domain that you have chosen. Allow 48 hours for these settings to take effect across the Internet.

3. To use your sub-domain in conjunction with our email reply handler, inform our support team of the sub-domain you have chosen. Your reply to address will be similar to reply-12345@enews.yoursite.com.

4. To apply your custom click-through sub-domain address to your mailing lists, follow these steps:

1. Log in to your Aurea Campaign Manager account athttp://www.lyrishq.com, and enter your user name and password.
2. In the side navigation bar, click Email Marketing > Launch EmailLabs. The classic EmailLabs interface appears in a separate tab or browser window depending on your browser settings.
3. In the classic EmailLabs interface, select the mailing list that you want to apply the custom click-through address to.
4. In the side navigation bar under Mailing List Home, click List Settings.
5. Scroll down the page until you reach the Custom Clickthru URLUniform Resource Locator. An Internet address, as well as a standard method of naming files on the Web. A URL begins with a protocol name (such as http), followed by a colon and two forward slashes(//). Next comes the name of the internet server that the file is stored on, followed by directories that hold the file, separated by forward slashes(/). The filename comes last, as shown in the following example: http://www.mycompany.com/whatsnew.htm section. In the Customized Clickthru URL box, select Use Customized Clickthru URL and type the sub-domain URL you have chosen, such as http://enews.yoursite.com/.

6. When you are finished, click the SAVE button at the bottom of the page.

Creating a custom reply address

The Super Custom Reply Handler allows you to mask both the address part (reply-XXXX) and the domain part (elabs5.com) of your email address within the default reply handler, resulting in a natural reply-to address like feedback@yoursite.com.

1. Create an email account on your domain to use for the specific mailing list (for example, address@yourdomain.com). This address may not be used for any other purpose except for acting as the reply handler. In addition, the reply-to domain may NOT be the same as any custom sub-domains you created using Domain Masking.
2. BOUNCE all the email that arrives at your address@yourdomain.com to autoreply_client@elabs5.com.
3. Notify our support team to let us know what address you are using and what list it pertains to, so we can set it up on our side.

Authenticating your emails

If you choose to use your own domain in the from address (via the Super Custom Reply Handler), then we recommend that you create an SPF/SenderID record or edit your existing one, so that it includes our IP addresses that you will be sending from. The SPF/SenderID record is an authentication protocol that lets ISPs know you really are who you say you are, and it is an increasingly integral tool in the fight against spam and e-mail fraud.

Your SPF/SenderID record is placed in your DNS text zone and will look similar to:

v=spf1 include:elabs5.com a mx –all

For further assistance in setting up an SPF/SenderID record, please contact your systems administrator, IT department or Web hosting provider. For more detailed information about SPF authentication, you can visit the DMA’s Email Authentication Help Center at:

http://www.the-dma.org/emailauthentication/