Email on your own domain

Updated October 21, 2026

An email channel on your own domain lets Pluspoint send campaigns, survey invitations, live-chat follow-ups and Inbox replies from an address such as hello@acme.com and, if you turn it on, receive your customers’ emails in Inbox. You prove the domain is yours by adding a few DNS records once. There is no mailbox password to enter, and nothing breaks when you change one later.

Before you start

You need to be the account Owner, or belong to a team with full settings access.

At least one Team with messaging access must exist — see Teams.

You need access to the DNS settings of your domain, at your registrar or DNS provider.

The address must be on a domain your business owns. Public mailbox providers such as gmail.com or outlook.com cannot be connected.

Where to find it

Settings (left sidebar, footer area) → Channels tab, or go to https://app.pluspoint.io/account-settings/channels.

Connect a domain

Select Add new channel, choose Email and select Continue.
Enter a Channel name. It is also shown as the sender name on every email.
Enter the Email address messages are sent from. It cannot be changed once the channel exists; create another channel for a second address.
If pm-bounces is already in use at your domain, turn on Use a custom Return-Path subdomain and enter another name.
Choose the Team and optionally link a location or brand. Turn on Receive emails in Inbox if your team will also answer customer emails in Pluspoint; you can change this later. Select Continue.
The DNS records table appears: one TXT record and one CNAME record. Add both at your DNS provider exactly as shown, using the copy buttons for the name and value.
Select Done. The channel card shows Pending until every record is verified.

A second address on the same domain, say offers@acme.com, needs no new records and shows no Return-Path option: it shares the domain you already connected. Deleting a channel keeps the domain, so you can add an address again later without touching DNS.

Verify the records

Open the channel from the Channels tab to see each record’s status and select Check Status. Pluspoint also re-checks on its own, so you can simply come back later. DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to reach every provider.

When both records are verified, the channel becomes ready and appears in the sender lists of campaigns, surveys and automations. Until then it is not offered as a sender.

A domain that stays unverified for about a week is removed together with its channels. Connect it again when you are ready to add the records.

Receive replies in Inbox

Sending works as soon as the records verify. To also read and answer email in the Pluspoint Inbox, turn receiving on and forward your address to Pluspoint:

Open the channel from the Channels tab, turn on Receive emails in Inbox if it is off, copy the Forwarding address and save. The address is private to this channel and never changes.
In your mail host, forward everything that arrives at your address to it. You can keep a copy in your own mailbox; Pluspoint only needs the forwarded one.
- Google Workspace, from your own mailbox: in Gmail open Settings → See all settings → Forwarding and POP/IMAP and add the forwarding address. Gmail sends a confirmation email to that address. It lands in Inbox, though you may need to reload the page to see it; open it there and confirm. Then choose Forward a copy of incoming mail and save.
- Google Workspace, by an administrator: in the Admin console, add a Gmail routing rule for the address that also delivers each incoming message to the forwarding address. No confirmation step is needed.
- Microsoft 365, by an administrator: in the Microsoft 365 admin center open the user’s mailbox, select Email forwarding and enter the forwarding address, keeping a copy in the mailbox. Microsoft 365 blocks forwarding to outside addresses until an administrator allows it in the Exchange admin center.
- Microsoft 365, from your own mailbox: in Outlook add a rule for all incoming messages with the action Redirect to the forwarding address. Use redirect rather than forward: a forwarded message arrives as sent by you and does not appear in Inbox.
Send a test email to your address and check that it appears in Inbox.

Every email sent to your address then opens a conversation in Inbox with the sender as the contact, or joins the existing conversation when it is a reply. Your team answers from Inbox: the reply goes out from your address and lands in the customer’s thread. Mail you send from your own mailbox does not appear in Inbox.

Leave Receive emails in Inbox off when customer emails should stay in your own mailbox. The channel then only sends: neither it nor its conversations appear in Inbox, and nothing forwarded to it is received. When you turn it off later, or you delete the channel, remove the forwarding rule in your mail host as well.

What the channel can do

Send campaigns, automation messages, survey invitations and live-chat follow-ups to visitors who left.
Receive your customers’ emails in Inbox and answer them from there, once Receive emails in Inbox is on and forwarding is set up. The channel can then also start a new email conversation from Inbox.
Campaign and automation emails automatically carry an unsubscribe link. Mail apps such as Gmail also show their own Unsubscribe button on them, except on survey invitations. Contacts who unsubscribe are never emailed again.

Bounces and complaints

A message shows as sent once it has been handed over for delivery. An Inbox reply that cannot be delivered, for example because the mailbox no longer exists, shows as Failed; hover over it for the reason. If a mailbox does not exist or the recipient reports the email as spam, that address is blocked from all future sends automatically. Campaign and survey emails do not show these bounces on the message, and a spam report does not change the contact’s subscription.

Send only to people who agreed to hear from you. If too many of your emails bounce or are reported as spam, Pluspoint may disconnect the channels on your domain and contact you before sending resumes.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause	Fix
A record stays Pending long after you added it	DNS changes have not propagated yet, or the record name was entered twice. Some providers add your domain to the name automatically.	Wait up to 48 hours. If your provider appends the domain, enter only the part of the name before your domain.
The CNAME record shows Failed	The record was removed or changed, or it is proxied through a CDN.	Copy the value again and make sure the record is plain DNS, not proxied. Emails keep going out meanwhile, but are more likely to land in spam until it is fixed.
“This domain is already registered”	The domain was connected from a different account, perhaps by a colleague or an agency.	Use that account, or contact support to move the domain.
The channel shows Disconnected after working for a while	The domain has to be verified again, sometimes with a new TXT value.	Open the channel, add every record shown as Pending exactly as displayed and select Check Status. The channel returns to ready when the records verify again.
Emails go to spam	The domain is new to inbox providers.	Make sure both records are verified, then start with small sends before large campaigns.
Customer emails do not appear in Inbox	Receive emails in Inbox is off on the channel, forwarding is not set up or not confirmed yet, your mail host blocks forwarding to outside addresses, or an Outlook rule forwards messages instead of redirecting them.	Turn on Receive emails in Inbox on the channel and save, check the forwarding rule, open Gmail’s confirmation email from Inbox and confirm it (if it never arrived, resend it from Gmail’s forwarding settings), in Outlook rules choose Redirect to, and in Microsoft 365 ask your administrator to allow external forwarding. Then send yourself a test email.
A reply shows Failed	The customer’s mail server rejected it, usually because the address no longer exists or the server blocks your messages.	Hover over Failed for the reason, check the address with the customer and resend.
The domain shows Suspended	Pluspoint paused sending from this domain, usually after too many bounces or spam complaints.	Reply to the message from our team, or contact support. Sending resumes once the issue is resolved.
“Couldn’t delete” when removing the channel	A live-chat channel uses this one to reach visitors who left.	Under Reach visitors who left on that live-chat channel, pick another channel or Pluspoint Email, then delete.