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DNS or Domain Name Servers are used to manage how specific services interact with your domain, like websites and emails.

At ACTIONERA we have a couple places that require the use of DNS in order to organize...

• Your Website(s) and Funnels
• Your ACTIONERA Companion Website
• Your Email Marketing Services

Basic Terminology

Root Domains refer to the name of the domain you purchased and it's initial suffix; but does not refer to it's prefix, if it has one. 

(eg. www.Example.com/Hello)

Sub-domains refers to a string of text that comes before your root domain; this string must exclude most basic symbols (eg. !@#$%^&*()_.,<>;:'"~`/|\?{}[]=+) as well as special unicode symbols such as ♥♦♣♠▲▼.

(eg. www.Example.com/Hello)

A slug is a string of text that follows a slash in a domain; this string must exclude most basic symbols (eg. !@#$%^&*()_.,<>;:'"~`/|\?{}[]=+). Strings includings these symbols will cause unintentional effects.

(eg. www.Example.com/Hello)

A string is any number of characters, numbers, or complex symbols in sequence; whether human readable or not.

(eg. Hello is a string, as is _p74gftasw7e654932htgf49bf)

Records are hosted by your domain registrar (eg. GoDaddy) that internet services use to know how to interact with your domain (ie. Email and Websites)

NOTE: Most records will update very quickly, but some records (like A records) may take up to 48 hours to fully propagate, with basic propagation taking ~4 hours for transitioning domains from one A record to another

The primary Records and their uses are

A Records - This is your primary record for the root domain and helps the "human" version of your website name to be understood by the computer; this record should in most cases be an IP address similar to 127.0.0.1 but will be different depending on how your website is being hosted.

You can only have one (1) website on the root domain, so if you have setup your website somewhere else (wordpress, squarespace, etc.) you CANNOT add additional A records without breaking your original website.

CNAME Records - CNAMEs or CANONICAL NAME records are used to create sub-domains to your root domain; these are often used by companies as a way to verify your ownership of a domain, as they will have you point a complex string at their domain verification url.

We also use them at ACTIONERA for your app companion-website, as we cannot setup your companion site on a root domain, so we set them up on sub-domains! (like app.domain.com)

MX Records - MX or MAIL EXCHANGE records are used whenever emails are sent to or from your domain; these are setup to connect to your email service like Gsuite and to let you send and receive emails through systems like GoHighLevel

TXT Records - Text records are used for adding verification or instructional text to your domain, often used in conjunction with MX records to enforce strict sender policies to prevent people from spoofing your email address

There are many other types of records, but for this documentation we are going to ignore their existence; if you need to use them for any reason, please contact your domain registrar for support.

Your Website(s) and Funnels

Websites and funnels setup with ACTIONERA for marketing purposes will be setup with 1 A record and if you're using "www." 1 CNAME record.

When you go to add your domains, you will be instructed on which record type, name, and value you will need to enter.

If you're double checking, your website and/or funnel domain records should look like

Your ACTIONERA Companion Website

Your ACTIONERA App has a companion website that is automatically updated at the same time that you make any updates to your app. The basic URL for this looks like: https://web.actionera.com/[your-slug]

To setup a custom domain, you will need to book a setup call with someone on our team, you can learn more here

If you're double checking, your companion website domain records should look like:

Your domain for your companion site can use the same root domain as any other website you own, so long as the CNAME / Sub-domain is unique.

NOTE: Hostnames and Values are only examples above, as every custom domain uses unqiue strings

NOTE: If you have the CNAME Record "_domainconnect" be sure to delete it, as this CNAME record conflicts with how your companion website can load

Your Email Marketing Services

NOTE: If you are sending email from your selected domain already, you must use an unused CNAME record to setup your email to prevent breaking your current email services

Email is the most complex set of records to prepare as if done incorrectly it will at best send all of your sent emails to spam, and at worst break all email services currently associated with the domain you want to use.

Custom emails are managed under Settings > Email Services > Dedicated Domain and IP of The Marketing Portal

The setup is very clearly defined during setup, but if you're double checking, your records should look like:

The above example uses 'm' as the sub-domain and would make any email sent look something like support@m.customdomain.com

NOTE: While the majority of records are universal for setting up email in The Marketing Portal, your Domainkey uses a unique string to validate your ownership and allowance to send using your domain.

To check if your email has been setup correctly, send yourself a test email from any campaign to a registered gmail email address.

Once received, look for it either in your inbox, promotion tab, or spam folder.

Open it, and navigate to the options menu to select "Open Original" from here you will be able to ignore everything else except for these three sections

If any of the three sections (SPF/DKIM/DMARC) show as fail, neutral, or not at all; your records are likely mismatched in your DNS and will need to be updated or verified.