Use Merchant email as the sender's email
Available from the Growth plan
UpPromote uses the Amazon email service to send emails to affiliates. The default sender's email address is [email protected]. If an affiliate replies to an email, you won't receive it.
However, you can use your email address as the sender's email and receive any replies from affiliates by going to Settings > General > enable Use your email address as sender's:
Email deliverability and sender authentication
You can technically use any email address as the sender. However, when emails are sent automatically — rather than manually — inbox providers evaluate them more strictly.
From the recipient’s perspective, automated emails are system-generated. This means email providers look for clear signals that the sender is trustworthy and authorized, especially when the emails are sent repeatedly or at scale.
We strongly recommend using a branded (custom) email domain, for example:
instead of free email domains such as:
@gmail.com@yahoo.com@outlook.com
Why using a branded (custom) email domain is recommended?
To protect users from spam and email impersonation, major email providers such as Google and Yahoo now apply stricter authentication rules to system-generated emails. These rules help inbox providers verify that emails are legitimately sent on behalf of a domain — and they directly affect whether your emails reach affiliates’ inboxes.
Free email domains are only designed for personal, manual communication. When they are used for automated or system emails, providers may apply stricter filtering, which can result in:
Emails being marked as spam
Emails being delayed or dropped
Reduced visibility and control over delivery issues
Branded domains, on the other hand, allow you to explicitly authorize systems like UpPromote to send emails on your behalf, which improves reliability and long-term deliverability. This authorization is done through standard email authentication methods — one of the most important being DMARC.
What is DMARC and how it helps
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) is an email authentication standard used by inbox providers to verify that emails sent from your domain are legitimate.
In simple terms, DMARC helps email providers confirm that:
"This system is allowed to send emails using this domain.”
DMARC works together with other authentication methods (such as SPF and DKIM) to:
Prevent email spoofing and impersonation
Protect your brand identity
Improve inbox placement for automated emails
Because UpPromote sends emails on your behalf, setting up DMARC helps ensure those emails are trusted by receiving servers.
If your sender email uses a custom domain (for example, @yourbrand.com), setting up DMARC is recommended to ensure consistent and reliable delivery of automated emails.
This applies to:
Affiliate notification emails
Recurring or high-volume emails sent via UpPromote
Merchants using free email domains
Free email providers (such as Gmail or Yahoo) manage DMARC internally and do not allow custom configuration.
While you may still use a free email address as the sender, doing so carries higher delivery risks and offers limited control. For this reason, using a branded domain is the preferred approach when enabling this feature.
How to authenticate DMARC
To use your branded domain safely and meet email provider requirements, you’ll need to add our DNS records to your DNS management.
To get our DNS records, please open UpPromote > go to Settings. Make sure the feature Use your email address as sender's is enabled, and then you’ll see a yellow banner on the screen that contains the DNS file download.
Each domain service may have a different way to add DNS records. We have a tutorial with Cloudflare and Squarespace that you can take a look at as references.
Once your email domain is DMARC authenticated, the yellow banner on the Settings page will disappear.
Other requirements for all senders:
Make it easy to unsubscribe:
Every email must include a one-click unsubscribe link. No worries! UpPromote is taking care of this for you. To help every user meet this new requirement, UpPromote automatically adds a one-click unsubscribe link to the footer of every email.
Keep your spam rates low:
Low spam complaints are a key way to show inbox providers that you are a legitimate sender who follows deliverability best practices. Try to keep your spam rates as low as possible already to avoid the spam folder—now you’ll need to keep them under 0.10%. You can use Google’s Postmaster Tools to monitor your spam complaint rates.
We recommend taking immediate action to ensure a successful delivery of your bulk emails.
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