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Before you can send email through Hiveku, you must add and verify the domain you want to send from. Domain verification proves you own the domain and unlocks DKIM signing, which is required for good deliverability at Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and every other major mailbox provider.
Never send from an unverified domain. Even if it worked, messages would fail DMARC and land in spam. Hiveku blocks sends from unverified domains.

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Why you need a verified domain

  • Authentication — DKIM signing proves the message came from you
  • Reputation — Your domain’s reputation is tracked separately from the shared pool
  • Branding — Recipients see noreply@yourdomain.com, not a generic Hiveku address
  • Compliance — DMARC enforcement requires aligned DKIM or SPF

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Add a domain

1

Open the dashboard

Go to Settings > Email > Domains and click Add Domain.
2

Enter the domain

Enter the domain (or subdomain) you want to send from. We strongly recommend using a dedicated subdomain like mail.acme.com instead of the apex domain acme.com — it isolates sending reputation from your main domain.
3

Copy the DNS records

Hiveku generates DKIM, SPF, and DMARC records specific to your domain. Leave the page open while you add them to your DNS provider.

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DNS records to add

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DKIM (required)

DKIM signs your emails so receivers can verify authenticity. Hiveku provides 3 CNAME records, one per AWS SES DKIM token.
TypeNameValue
CNAMEabc123._domainkey.mail.acme.comabc123.dkim.amazonses.com
CNAMEdef456._domainkey.mail.acme.comdef456.dkim.amazonses.com
CNAMEghi789._domainkey.mail.acme.comghi789.dkim.amazonses.com

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SPF (required)

SPF tells receivers which servers are allowed to send on behalf of your domain.
TypeNameValue
TXTmail.acme.comv=spf1 include:amazonses.com ~all
If you already have an SPF record on this host, merge the include:amazonses.com term into your existing record instead of adding a second TXT record. Only one SPF record per host is allowed.
DMARC tells receivers what to do with unauthenticated mail and where to send aggregate reports.
TypeNameValue
TXT_dmarc.mail.acme.comv=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:dmarc@acme.com
Start with p=quarantine and graduate to p=reject once you have reviewed aggregate reports for a few weeks.

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Verify

Once you have added the DNS records, click Verify in the dashboard. Hiveku will query your DNS for the expected records and mark the domain as verified.
DNS propagation typically takes 15 minutes to 48 hours. If verification fails, wait and retry — it almost always resolves within a day. You can also re-run the check from the domain detail page.

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Domain reputation

Each verified domain has a reputation dashboard tracking:
  • Bounce rate — Percentage of messages that hard-bounced (target: < 5%)
  • Complaint rate — Percentage of recipients who marked your mail as spam (target: < 0.1%)
  • Reputation score — A composite 0-100 score derived from bounces, complaints, and delivery patterns
If reputation drops below healthy thresholds, Hiveku will surface warnings in the dashboard and may pause sending on severely degraded domains.

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Default domain

When you have multiple verified domains, one is marked as the default. If a send request omits a from domain, Hiveku uses the default. Set the default from Settings > Email > Domains.

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Multiple domains

You can verify as many domains as you need. Common setups:
  • mail.acme.com for marketing
  • tx.acme.com for transactional
  • acme.dev for internal or staging sends
Each domain is tracked and reputation-scored independently.