Act-On Configuration Overview

  • Updated

When you set up a new Act-On account, you have a short list of technical things to get right so your emails land in the inbox and your website tracking works. This page is the map: what has to happen, who has to do it, and which article covers each step.

Who does this: Marketing owns the outcome and kicks off the requests. IT (or your DNS/hosting provider) publishes the records. Act-On Support confirms setup at the end
Time needed: 15 minutes to read and plan; actual setup depends on how fast IT and DNS propagation respond (usually same day to 24 hours)
Why this matters: These settings decide whether your emails reach the inbox at all and whether your forms and landing pages load without browser warnings. Skip them and your recipients either don't see your messages or see warning screens - neither builds trust. Get them right once and you rarely touch them again.
Quick Reference (Advanced Users) - Click to Expand
Try it like this: Send this page to your IT contact today with a short note: "These are the DNS changes we need made for our new email platform - can we schedule a short call this week to walk through?" Response times, not your effort, are usually the bottleneck.
Common pitfall: Assuming this can wait until launch week. DNS changes can take up to 24 hours to propagate, and IT teams have queues. Start the requests in the first week of onboarding so setup finishes before your first send.

Email Setup

Three things give Act-On permission to send mail on your behalf and tell recipient mailboxes that the mail is legitimate.

Email From Setup (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)

This lets Act-On send "from" an address at your organisation - the name and email recipients actually see. Every domain you send from (company.com, ourbrand.net, and so on) needs SPF and DKIM published in DNS, plus a DMARC policy.

Start with Email From Setup. Background reading: What is SPF?, What is DKIM?, and What is DMARC?.

Envelope Domain Setup

Think of this as the envelope your message travels in. Recipient servers use it for routing and delivery checks. You'll publish SPF and MX records on a dedicated email-only subdomain (for example, mailer.company.com).

Follow Envelope From Domain Setup.

Yahoo / AOL Feedback Loop

Nothing for you to do. Act-On registers your account for Yahoo's Complaint Feedback Loop automatically. See Complaint Feedback Loop for Yahoo & AOL Emails.

Website Tracking Setup

These settings let you drive traffic to branded Act-On URLs and track how visitors behave on your site.

Custom Marketing Domain and SSL

Replaces the default Act-On URLs on your forms and landing pages with something like info.company.com, and secures the traffic over HTTPS so browsers don't flash warnings. See Custom Marketing Domain Setup.

Beacon Tracker

A small snippet on your site that feeds visitor data into Act-On's Website Prospector. See Beacon Tracker Setup.

Allow Traffic from Act-On's IPs and Domains

Ask your IT admin to check your firewall rules so Act-On can reach your systems and vice versa. Getting this right means you can:

  • Receive mail from your Act-On account, including test messages and system alerts.
  • Sync data with on-premise CRMs.
  • Receive exports from Data Studio if you're behind a firewall.
  • Use Act-On Anywhere for Outlook.

Full list of IPs and domains: Allow Network Traffic from Act-On IPs and Domains.

Validate when you're done

Once DNS has propagated, confirm each piece is live using Validating Your Technical Setup. This is a five-minute check that saves you from launching a campaign on top of a broken SPF record.

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