Marketing Cloud Next Email Authenticated Domains Setup and DNS Tips

Domain Provisioning & Selection

Do I need to purchase a separate SKU or package to have a unique email sending domain for Marketing Cloud Next?

• No, there is no separate SKU/package for Marketing Cloud Next email domains. 
• You can create multiple domains for Marketing Cloud Next using these instructions.

What domain should I use for email sending in Marketing Cloud Next?

• When selecting a domain for email sending with Marketing Cloud Next, Salesforce recommends selecting a unique subdomain (e.g. mktg.example.com) that is not used with any other email sending platform (including Marketing Cloud Engagement or Marketing Cloud Account Engagement). 
  • Sharing email domains across platforms can result in conflicting DNS records and potential cross-contamination of email reputation across platforms. 

What domain should I use for email sending in Marketing Cloud Next if I already use Marketing Cloud Engagement and have an SAP domain?

• If you use a delegated domain in Marketing Cloud Engagement (for example company.com), you must select a different domain (for example marketing-company.com) for Marketing Cloud Next. Currently there is no mechanism to share a domain that is delegated to Marketing Cloud Engagement with Marketing Cloud Next. 
• If you self-host your domain for Marketing Cloud Engagement, you should set up a unique subdomain for Marketing Cloud Next. Both Marketing Cloud Engagement and Marketing Cloud Next DNS setup require different values for the same DNS records and these would conflict if you used the same domain.

Domain Setup

How do I create/activate a domain for Marketing Cloud Next email sending?

• In order to Activate your domain for email sending, there are 8 CNAME records that need to be added. To obtain the values, use these instructions.
  • All 8 CNAME records are required and must have the values specified by Marketing Cloud. 
  • If you have existing CNAME records for other systems, you may need to consider using a unique subdomain for email sending on Marketing Cloud Next.
• For the "_dmarc" TXT record, please work with your IT team to determine if it is appropriate to add this.
  • The DMARC DNS entry is not unique to Marketing Cloud and it's possible your organization already has this in place or wants to have different settings within the entry.
  • The DMARC entry is not required by Marketing Cloud to activate the domain, however major inbox service providers require bulk senders to have a DMARC entry. 
• The value under the Name column would go under Host/Domain/Name/Alias within your DNS. The value under the "Value" column would go under Points to/Value within your DNS. Repeat this for all 8 CNAME records. Don't forget to include your subdomain if you are adding these records for a subdomain.
  • For example, if your subdomain is mktg.example.com and the Name column value is s1-e360-000000000000000._domainkey
  • Then your CNAME record should contain the mktg portion of the subdomain s1-e360-000000000000000._domainkey.mktg.example.com
• The target Values for each of the CNAME records will not be resolvable until your domain is activated. You do not need to set up anything additional beyond setting the target Values as specified in the setup table. Once your domain is activated, the system will ensure those Values resolve. 

I am still getting error messages when trying to activate my domain for Marketing Cloud next email sending

Error message: Verify the [X] record with your DNS provider, then try again.

• You can validate the correct DNS entries using third party tools like Google Toolbox or MxToolbox. If you received the "Your Authenticated Domain Activation Failed" email, you can find out from the email which DNS records failed to validate and look them up using one of the above tools.
  • As a sample, see the below records you can look if you are trying to activate the domain mktg.example.com as your Authenticated Domain. If no value returns when using the above tools or the value doesn't match the Value column in Authenticated Domains setup, then work with your IT team to modify the DNS records. 
  • As in the above example, if you were trying to activate the subdomain mktg.example.com, including the .mktg in the name of the CNAME record is critical.