Email and SMS setup

Before you can send campaigns or automated messages, the app needs a place to send them from — for email, a default sending address that works from day one and your own verified domain once you add it; for text messages, a phone number with the right approvals. This is where you set both up, on the Email and SMS tabs in Settings.

Steps

Set up email sending

You can send email from day one, using the default sending address every workspace gets. For the best results, add your own domain: you verify it once by publishing a few DNS records, which proves to inboxes that mail really came from you.

Sending before you verify a domain

Every workspace gets a default sending address on our sending domain — for example yourname@acme.email.tnkgstrms.com — that works without any DNS setup. Recipients see your business name (from your Business DNA) as the sender, and replies to emails the assistant sends for you go to your own inbox. While your default address is being prepared, Settings → Email says "Email sending is being set up"; it's ready to use shortly after.

The default address is meant to get you started, so it has two limits:

Deliverability. The default domain has no sending reputation of its own, so more of these emails can land in spam than emails from your own domain.
Size. A send to more than 1,000 recipients from the default address is refused, with a message saying so. To send to a larger audience, verify your own domain and send from an address on it. If you've already verified your domain but pick the default address for a send that big, you'll be asked to switch the from-address to one on your own domain.

Adding your own domain is strongly recommended. Once it's verified it takes over automatically: the assistant suggests your own domain first, and automated emails (notifications, confirmations, journey fallbacks) come from it. Journeys that were sending from the default noreply@ address move to your own domain too; an address you chose yourself on the default domain stays as you chose it. The default address stays available as a fallback, and it can't be removed. On Settings → Email it's labelled Default while it's the only verified domain, and Fallback once your own domain has taken over — your own domain then shows the Primary label.

To add your own domain:

Go to Settings → Email.
Under "Verified domains," enter the domain your business sends from — for example acme.com. A subdomain like mail.acme.com works too, and keeps marketing mail separate from your everyday email. You can't use a Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo address here: verification needs a domain whose DNS you control.
You'll get a short list of DNS records. Add each one exactly as shown with your DNS provider (the company you bought the domain from). There are three CNAME records, which handle signing and delivery, plus a recommended DMARC record — Gmail and Yahoo require DMARC from anyone sending in volume. If your domain already has a DMARC record, keep the one you have.
DNS changes usually appear within minutes but can take up to 48 hours. Once they're live, click Verify now. Each record shows its own status, so if verification doesn't pass you can see exactly which record needs attention.
Once the domain shows Verified, any address at that domain can send.
If you verify more than one domain, one is your primary domain — shown with a "Primary" label. This only controls where automated emails with no specific sender (notifications, confirmation emails, journey steps that don't name a from-address) appear to come from, as noreply@ your primary domain. It doesn't restrict anything: any verified domain can still be used as a from-address for a campaign or automation. Your first verified domain becomes primary automatically; to change it later, open the ⋯ menu next to a verified domain and choose Make primary.
Optional: set up email link branding so the tracked links inside your emails show your own domain (like links.yourdomain.com) instead of a generic one. This adds a small amount of trust and polish for recipients. Add the domain, publish the DNS record it gives you, then verify.
Optional: set up subscription lists so contacts can opt in or out of specific types of email (like a newsletter versus product updates) rather than all-or-nothing. Each list can also require a confirmation click before someone's fully subscribed — see Double opt-in.

Which address a send uses

Every email needs a from-address — on one of your verified domains, or your default sending address if you haven't verified one yet. The assistant always confirms it before creating a draft, never picking one silently.

If you haven't verified a domain of your own yet, the assistant suggests your default address (your name at your workspace's default sending domain) and tells you that's what it is.
If your own email address sits on a verified domain, the assistant offers to send from it, and asks whether you'd rather use a different address on that domain instead.
If your own address is on a different domain (a common setup — your inbox might be you@yourcompany.com while you send campaigns from a dedicated domain like yourcompany.io), the assistant suggests the closest match: your own name at the front of one of your verified domains, e.g. you@yourcompany.io, rather than a generic noreply@ address. You can accept that suggestion or name any other address on a verified domain.

What name recipients see

Recipients see two things in the "from" line: a sender name and the address. Acme Marketing <news@acme.com> is a sender name plus an address; without a sender name, recipients just see news@acme.com.

The assistant asks for the sender name every time it creates a send, right after the from-address. It offers:

a name you've sent as before,
your own name,
your brand name,
a name you type, or
just the address on its own.

That last one is a real choice rather than a default — if you want a bare address, say so and the send goes out without a name.

There's deliberately no workspace-wide default. The same workspace often sends a newsletter and a receipt under different names, and a saved default is how the wrong one ends up on the next send. To change the name on an existing draft, just ask — "send this as Acme Insights".

The sender name is separate from the address, and it never changes who can send: the address still has to be on a domain you've verified. If you give the assistant something like Acme <news@acme.com> as the name, it will ask again for the name on its own.

Which list a send uses

Every email goes out under exactly one subscription list — that's what the unsubscribe link in the footer acts on, and contacts who opted out of that list are excluded from the send.

One list: you're never asked. Sends use your default list automatically.
More than one list: when you ask the assistant to compose an email, it asks which list the send belongs to before creating the draft.

The list assigned to a send is shown in the Subscription list row of the email's preview, alongside its audience. When it appears in grey italics, no list was explicitly chosen and the send will use your current default.

To move an existing draft to a different list, just ask — for example "move this email to the Product Announcements list."

Contacts who unsubscribed from the list a send uses are left out of that send — whether you picked the recipients yourself or sent to a segment. The email's stats show them as skipped rather than sent, so a send that reached nobody reads as "0 sent · 1 skipped (unsubscribed)" instead of looking like it went out.

The same applies to contacts who unsubscribed from all email, or who are marked do-not-contact.

What the unsubscribe link does

Every email you send — marketing and transactional alike — carries an Unsubscribe or manage preferences link in its footer. (The one exception is the double opt-in "please confirm your subscription" email itself.) It opens a page where the recipient picks what to stop — that list, or all of your email — and saves. Opening the link on its own changes nothing.

That's deliberate. Many company mail systems, Microsoft 365 in particular, open every link in a new email to check it for threats, seconds after it arrives and before anyone reads it. A link that unsubscribed the moment it was opened would unsubscribe people who never clicked it.

Which page opens depends on your account:

Usually: your sending provider's subscription preferences page.
When double opt-in is on for any of your lists: your own preference centre — see Double opt-in.

The unsubscribe button some mailboxes show next to the sender's name is separate from the footer link and doesn't open this page.

Templates made before this link was introduced may still say just Unsubscribe; that link opens the same page.

Set up SMS sending

Go to Settings → Integrations → SMS. The Twilio (managed by us) card is the account the app provides. If texting hasn't been set up for your account yet, click Set up; otherwise click Manage to open its settings.
Under Numbers, search for and purchase a US phone number to send from. A US number can be local or toll-free. Local numbers can't be purchased until their carrier registration is approved (see the next step). Toll-free numbers work the other way around — you can purchase one right away and verify it afterward (see Verifying a toll-free number below); carriers block texts from an unverified toll-free number, so verify promptly. The numbers the app provides are US numbers only — it doesn't sell Canadian, UK or other international numbers. To text from another country, or to keep numbers you already own, connect your own provider account instead — see SMS provider options. Your plan also sets how many numbers you can hold: the Numbers tab shows your count against that limit (e.g. "3 of 5"), and once you reach it the purchase button is disabled until you release a number or your admin raises the quota. If your plan includes no phone-number quota, you won't be able to buy a number until your admin adds one.
Under Registrations, submit the carrier registration your number type requires. For US local numbers this is required before you can purchase the number; for every type it's also what lets carriers deliver your texts. The Registrations tab is a guided hub: a Business details card at the top shows whether your business name and address are on file — every registration's first step collects it inline if it isn't yet, in two quick sub-steps: Identity (name and address) and Registration (business type, industry, registration number and authority, and an authorized representative). Fill the registration sub-step once and every carrier form pre-fills from it. Pick your Industry from the list — US toll-free and 10DLC registration require it, and the carriers reject a business profile without a valid one. A local US number needs a Brand registration followed by a Campaign registration, submitted here before you can buy the number. The Brand form's tax ID works for a business registered in any country — pick your country from the Tax ID country list (it holds the full country set, not just the US and Canada) and enter your business's tax or registration number; we translate it to the identifier the carriers expect (an EIN for the US, a CBN for Canada, an RN for Israel, and so on — a country the carriers don't list separately is registered as Other). If your business details already include your registration number and representative, those fields come pre-filled. Sole proprietors without a tax ID can't complete Brand registration in-app yet (carriers verify them through a separate text-message passcode flow) — contact support to register one. Registrations here cover US numbers only. An international registration you already hold stays visible on this tab, read-only; new ones aren't offered. Toll-free is different: there's no form to submit here before buying — a note on the Registrations tab points you to the Numbers tab, where verification happens per number after purchase (see below). Each registration form can be revisited anytime to check status or resubmit. Registrations go through a review and show as draft, submitted, approved, or rejected — a number can't go live until its matching registration is approved. Editing an already-approved US 10DLC registration warns you first, since it may require carrier re-verification.
Once your number is active and its compliance bundle is approved, use Send a test message on the Overview tab to confirm everything works before sending to real contacts.

Texting from outside the US

The numbers the app provides are US numbers only. To send from a number or sender name in another country — or to keep numbers you already own — connect your own provider account under Settings → Integrations → SMS. Twilio is the first option, and the carrier registrations for that account are handled in Twilio's own console rather than here. See SMS provider options for how to connect, register senders and set up replies.

If you bought a UK number before this changed, it stays in your Numbers list and its registration stays visible, read-only, on the Registrations tab. Renewing it, or registering new international numbers, is no longer offered here.

Verifying a toll-free number

Unlike a US local number, a US toll-free number is yours to purchase right away — there's no registration to submit first. Once you've bought one, find it in your list under Settings → Integrations → SMS → Manage → Numbers: its Compliance column shows Not verified and a Verify action next to it. Click Verify to open the Toll-Free Verification form — it's the same kind of guided form as the other registrations, with your business name pre-filled. Your business address and the number itself are attached automatically behind the scenes, so there's nothing to enter for those.

The first time you verify a toll-free number, we also register your business identity with the carriers behind the scenes (a one-time step built from your SMS Business Profile — business name, address, and authorized contact). If that registration is still being reviewed, the verification shows a business profile pending verification message rather than submitting; it's a one-time wait (typically a day or two) — check back and click Verify again once it clears, and the toll-free verification proceeds normally. (This same one-time business registration also backs US 10DLC Brand registration, so you only go through it once.)

Once submitted, the column updates to Submitted while the carrier reviews it (typically a few business days), then to Verified once approved — or Rejected if the carrier turns it down. A rejected number shows the carrier's rejection reasons right under its row, and what happens next depends on the carrier's edit window (about seven days from the rejection):

While the window is open you'll see an Edit & resubmit action and a note with how many days remain. It reopens the verification form with your previous answers filled in so you can correct just what was flagged; an optional "What did you change?" note travels with the resubmission, which goes straight back into carrier review.
Once the window closes the action becomes Delete & start over: it removes the rejected verification, the number returns to Not verified, and the normal Verify action lets you submit a fresh application.

Carriers treat an unverified toll-free number as unproven, so don't rely on one for real sending until it shows Verified.

Releasing a number

To let go of a number you no longer need, find it in your list under Settings → SMS → Numbers and choose Release. Releasing frees a slot against your plan's number limit — so if you'd reached the cap, you can buy a different number in its place. A released number is returned to the carrier and can't be reclaimed, so only release one you're sure you're finished with. If your account is closed, all of your numbers are released automatically.

Texts get left out too, for their own reasons — a contact who has already hit your send limit for the period, or one whose data you erased. Those recipients stay listed in the message's Audience, greyed out, with the reason on hover, so the audience you picked is still the audience you see. A text that reached nobody shows that one greyed-out recipient rather than claiming no audience was selected.

Alongside the audience you'll see a note like "3 · 1 skipped (send limit)". Texts and emails now count this the same way: the number is everyone the message was addressed to, and the note says how many of them were left out and why. That holds whether you picked the recipients yourself or sent to a segment — a segment send lists no individual people, so the note is the only place its skips appear.

Tips

Once your domain is verified, you can send from any address at that domain (like hello@acme.com or sales@acme.com) without verifying each one separately.
SMS compliance review can take time, especially for carrier registrations, so start that process before you need to send, not the day of a campaign.
Check the "Opt-out" area under SMS to see how contacts who text back STOP are handled.

FAQ

Q: My email domain shows "Pending DNS" — what do I do? A: Log in to wherever you manage your domain's DNS and add the records shown on the Email tab exactly as displayed, then click Verify now. Changes usually take effect within minutes but can take up to 48 hours to fully propagate.

Q: Can I send email before my domain is verified? A: Yes. Your workspace's default sending address works right away, with no DNS setup. It can't send to more than 1,000 recipients at once, and its emails are more likely to land in spam, so verify your own domain as soon as you can.

Q: Can I send texts without a compliance bundle? A: Not from the numbers the app provides. Carriers require an approved registration matching your number type before they'll deliver your messages, so submit compliance early. If you connect your own provider account instead, the registrations are done in that provider's console — see SMS provider options.

Q: Can I use my main company domain, or should I use a subdomain? A: Either works. A subdomain like mail.acme.com keeps marketing mail separate from your everyday email traffic, which some teams prefer — but verifying your root domain (acme.com) is just as valid.

Q: My domain shows a warning that it's "already registered with a different return path" — what does that mean? A: This means the domain was registered before with a different (or no) custom subdomain under the "Advanced" option, so the DNS records currently shown won't match what you'd publish for the subdomain you just asked for — they'll never verify. Delete the domain and add it again: deleting now also removes the old registration on our end, so the re-add generates fresh records for the subdomain you actually want.