Sender Identities
Every marketing email in Gordon CRM must be sent from a verified sender identity. This is an email address on a domain you control, verified via DNS records.
How Sender Identities Work
A sender identity consists of:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Sender Name | The human-readable "From" name (e.g., "Acme Marketing"). |
| Email Address | The full email address (e.g., hello@acme.com). |
| Domain | The domain portion of the email address. |
| DNS Verified | Whether the domain has been verified via DNS records (DKIM, SPF). |
Workspace vs. Platform Identities
Gordon CRM supports two tiers of sender identities:
Workspace Sender Identities
- Created and managed by workspace owners/admins under Settings → Sender Identities
- Scoped to a single workspace
- Must be DNS-verified before they can be used to send emails
Platform Sender Identities
- Managed by super admins at the platform level
- Used for transactional emails only (verification emails, password resets, workspace invitations)
- Not used as a fallback for marketing emails — this protects the platform domain's sender reputation
Sender Resolution Order
When the campaign or broadcast sweeper needs to send a marketing email, it resolves the sender in this order:
- Step/Broadcast-specific sender — If the campaign step or broadcast has a
sender_identity_idset, use that verified identity. - Workspace default — Query the workspace's verified sender identities and use the first one found (ordered by creation date).
- Fallback sender — If no workspace sender identity exists, the system generates a virtual sender address using the workspace name and a dedicated fallback domain.
- Fail — If no fallback domain is configured in the environment, the enrollment is marked as
failed(campaigns) or the broadcast is marked asfailed.
How the Fallback Sender Works
When a workspace doesn't have its own verified sender identity, Gordon CRM constructs a virtual email address:
{slugified-workspace-name}-{short-id}@{FALLBACK_SENDER_DOMAIN}Example: A workspace named "John's Team" with ID a1b2c3d4-... would generate:
johnsteam-a1b2c3d4@mail.gordoncrm.comThe fallback sender also:
- Sets the From Name to the workspace's display name (e.g.,
"John's Team") - Sets the Reply-To header to the workspace owner's email address, so replies go to a real inbox
Why not the platform sender? Marketing emails are intentionally isolated from the platform's transactional domain. This ensures that a workspace's bulk email activity never harms the deliverability of system-critical emails like password resets and verification links.
DNS Verification
To verify a domain, you need to add DNS records (typically DKIM and SPF) to your domain's DNS settings. The exact records are provided by Gordon CRM when you add a new sender identity.
Once the records propagate and are confirmed, the dns_verified flag is set to true and the identity becomes available for sending.
⚠️ Important: Only DNS-verified sender identities can be used to send emails. Unverified identities are stored but cannot be selected for campaigns or broadcasts.