Email Functionality
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      3. Email Functionality

      The Importance of Connecting Your Email Domain to 360MatchPro

      This article explains that, when you connect your domain to 360MatchPro so that the matching gift emails are sent from your organization's email, donors are more likely to open and engage with the communication.

      Work with your IT team to add the new records

       

      Email filters have gotten smarter and stricter over the years, and may review your Domain Name Server (DNS) records to verify the From address sending the email. You can give Double the Donation's 360MatchPro platform permission to send emails on your behalf by adding a few new records to your DNS. We highly recommend adding CNAME and DMARC TXT records, particularly in light of 2024 improved spam protection measures implemented by Google and Yahoo.

      Work with your IT team to add the new records

       

      Your IT team or web developer will need to add 3 new records to your DNS and check for the existence of another (and add it if you don't already have it). This is a very simple process, but it's possible that they might not have done this before if you've never sent a marketing email through an Email Service Provider.

       
       

      View this article to walk through how this can be completed in just a few minutes. To make the process as streamlined as possible, we recommend adding a member of your IT team as a user in 360MatchPro.

      Here's a sample email you can copy and share with your IT team:
      We are now sending matching gift emails through 360MatchPro, a matching gift marketing automation platform by Double the Donation. To give Double the Donation authorization to send emails on our behalf, we need to add 3 new CNAME records to our DNS zone files for our domain, then ensure we have a DMARC TXT file and add one if we don't. The values for these records are all provided in the 360MatchPro platform.  This article walks through the process.

      Why is this important?

       

      When you create your account, we default to sending emails from a Double the Donation email address. Below are the benefits to your organization of validating your domain (setting up the DNS records):
      1. Allows 360MatchPro to send automated emails (via Sendgrid) using the email address of your choice 
      2. Directs all donor replies to you instead of to Double the Donation
      3. Improves email deliverability, open & and click rates 
      Here are the risks of not setting up DNS correctly: 
      1. Some donors will see the emails as coming from matchinggifts@doublethedonation.com instead of your organization
      2. Advanced filters may block the messages or send them to Spam, so some donors may never see your matching gift emails
      3. Donor replies to the emails will go to Double the Donation and must be forwarded manually to your organization until the domain is validated
      4. Negative impact on deliverability, open and click rates

      For the reasons above, we highly recommend validating your domain by setting up the DNS records if at all possible. We'll never use your domain for anything other than sending the emails that you directly authorize through your settings and usage in 360MatchPro.

       

      360MatchPro Email Deliverability: Spam Metrics

       

      We understand that organizations may be concerned about emails from 360MatchPro being marked as spam. The great news is that completing the DNS setup and sending the matching gift emails from your organization's email domain greatly reduces the likelihood of the emails being sent to spam. 

       

      Emails sent by 360MatchPro are in line with the suggested spam metrics set by most major email providers. For example, email sender guidelines provided by Google advise capping spam metrics at 0.30% and, ideally, under 0.10%.

       

      We analyzed the last 35,000,000 matching gift emails sent from our platform and, every single month, not only did our clients fall below 0.30%, but they also consistently fell under Google's ideal target of 0.10%. Our metrics fell in the 0.06% to 0.09% range, with an average of 0.08% of emails getting marked as spam. 

       

      We are making additional updates to further reduce the percentage of emails marked as spam, and our initial estimates show us bringing the spam rate down to .04%, which is 86% below Google's threshold and 60% below Google's suggested target.

       

      Takeaway: Matching gift emails should help your organization's overall deliverability. 

      FAQs:

      Q: Will additional records (ex: SPF/DKIM) need to be added to our domain? 
      A: To set up 360MatchPro, only the CNAME and DMARC records provided within your account are needed to configure email sending. No additional steps are necessary for email authentication.