Configure and validate email masking

Setting up an instance to use email masking.

Complete the steps in Configure a company domain for email masking.

This configuration and validation cannot be done in a sandbox instance.

This task requires administrator access to Admin Suite. And setting up the domain requires administrator permissions with Do anything capability.

If at anytime something looks amiss, pause and start the troubleshooting process. A day or two of delay can avoid months of reputation recovery later.

Email service providers (ESP) "remember" which senders have sent email identified as spam, and they block those senders up to 96 hours before reconsidering email from the sender. It is important to follow these steps before sending email to external ESPs. If you make a mistake, you might have to wait over 4 days before you can try again.

Validate the email-masking configurations before going into full production. This task validates the email invitation template, confirms email masking by sending a single test invitation, then expands validation by sending invitations to common email service providers (ESPs) to ensure delivery and avoid spam flags. Finally, you gradually increase sending volume to build a strong reputation with spam filters.
  1. Validate the syntax and rendering correctness of a survey-invitation email-template that will use masking.
    Warning: Improperly formatted email messages are indication of possible spam. It it important that the body of the message be syntactically correct.

    This step does not validate the email masking configuration! Do not send any external email yet because doing so risks the email being prematurely marked as spam.

    Use a survey invitation template; do not use a normal email template. This is necessary to validate DMARC, DKIM, and SPF.

    1. On the Distributions screen, select an invitation template to use email masking and click Preview.
    2. Verify the opt-out link is prominently displayed in your email.
      It is better to have someone opt-out than for them to click the Spam button and impact the domain's reputation.
    3. View the source of the email and find the section that holds the HTML body.
    4. Copy and paste the HTML body into the The W3 Markup Validation Service website.
      Work through any validation errors found. Some errors/warnings may be safely ignored. Contact Medallia Support for any concerns or issues.
  2. Add the domain to the Email domains screen to make it available setting up email messages.
    Use the subdomain, DKIM, and DMARC host names acquired in Prepare for email masking.
    Restriction: This step requires Experience Cloud administrator permissions with Do anything capability.
  3. Configure an invitation email to use the masking subdomain.
    1. In Admin Suite, go to Shared Assets > Distributions > Rules.
    2. Select the Rule to use for email-masked invitations and click Edit.
      The Rules editor for the rule opens.
    3. Scroll to the Invitation email section.
    4. Assign the masking subdomain to the From email address.
      This is also the Reply-to address unless you change it in the Advanced Settings.
    5. Click Save.
    Note: There may be a mix of masked and non-masked domains in the same instance, as well as a masked and non-masked survey URLs provided there is a Distribution setting configured for each domain. For example, Distribution setting A sends out emails with links to the survey using the masked domain A, and Distribution setting B sends out emails to the survey using the default Medallia domain for surveys. The email configuration HTML needs to be https://survey.example.com/?$SURVEY_EXTERNAL_ID$.
  4. Required: Send a test email to Medallia Support for validation and approval.

    Use Auto Importer to trigger and send the invitation to the address(es) provided by Support at the end of Configure a company domain for email masking.

    Use a "test" import file that you know will trigger the invitation. Upload the file on pretend. If there are no errors, upload it again on active to send the test invitation(s).

    Medallia Support will validate the email header is correct for the instance.
    Restriction: Do not proceed past this step until you have confirmation from Medallia Support that the configuration is valid.
  5. Validate the email and masking is working and is not easily interpreted as spam.
    1. Visit the Mail Tester web site and copy the email address shown there.
    2. Send a test invitation email to the email address. Follow the same process you used in step 4, above (using Auto Importer, etc.).
    3. Wait about 3 minutes.
    4. Click the Then check your score button on Mail Tester to get the results.
      Work through any errors found, escalating to Medallia Support as needed.
    When there are no errors, proceed to the next step.
  6. Validate email masking is working for general email service providers (ESPs).
    Send emails to the following services as sanity checks. Create test accounts as needed on the various services if you do not have them already. If the company knowingly uses or has strong preferences for other specific ESPs, add them to this list:
    • @medallia.com
    • @gmail.com
    • @yahoo.com
    • @outlook.com
    • @icloud.com
    The system is now ready to slowly start sending masked email invitations.
When first sending masked emails, gradually increase sending volume over several weeks to build a strong reputation with spam filters.
  1. Put the domain into the warm-up period.
    This is the process by which a domain shows itself to be reputable to the large ESPs and global spam blocklists by following good practices.
    1. Start sending no more than a few thousand email invitations per day, targeted towards the most active and loyal individuals first, to help build trust in the new domain.
    2. Double the sending volume every week (5 - 7 days) until reaching the target daily volume.
    3. Work with the company IT group to monitor the DMARC results and health check statistics.
      Important: If anything looks amiss, pause sending and start the troubleshooting process. A day or two of delay can avoid months of reputation recovery later.
    The typical time required to warm up an email domain depends entirely on the target volume. For example, to target 100,000 email invitations per day, warm-up takes 6 or more weeks on a ramp-up schedule as follows:
    • Week 1 — 5,000 invitations.
    • Week 2 — 10,000 invitations (2x previous week).
    • Week 3 — 20,000 invitations (2x previous week).
    • Week 4 — 40,000 invitations (2x previous week).
    • Week 5 — 80,000 invitations (2x previous week).
    • Week 6 — 100,000 invitations (2x previous week, capped to the target).
After the warm-up period is complete, you can fully use email masking for the selected invitation. Before using it for other invitations, be sure to validate their HTML integrity per step 1, above.