Validating a Domain on Mailgun with GoDaddy DNS Settings

Zach Johnson on February 11, 2019

Using Mailgun for sending out transactional emails helps prevent messages from going to spam. This is why we recommend the service to our clients.

Signing Up for an Account

The first step is to sign up for a Mailgun account: https://signup.mailgun.com/new/signup

Add a Domain to Your Mailgun Account

Once your account has been set up, you’ll need to add your domain. To prevent interference with your current email hosting, Mailgun suggests using a subdomain instead of your root domain, such as mg.waaz.co versus of waaz.co. Submit the “Add Domain” form and keep the page open, we will need the provided settings to use in GoDaddy’s settings.

Add the DNS Records to GoDaddy

Log into your GoDaddy account and go to the My Products page. Scroll to the Domains section and expand it if needed. Find the domain you added to Mailgun and click on the DNS button in its row. Keep this tab open so we can quickly add the records from Mailgun.

Adding the TXT Records

We need to copy the two TXT records over to GoDaddy from the Mailgun tab.

Copy Over the SPF Record

Go back to the Mailgun settings tab and copy the first provided value from “Enter This Value” column.

In GoDaddy’s DNS settings page, scroll to the bottom of the list of DNS records and click the Add button. Select TXT from the dropdown menu in the dialog.

In our example, we are setting up mg.waaz.co, so “mg” needs to be used for the Host field (make sure you don’t add the full domain to the Host field, just the subdomain portion).

For the Time To Live (TTL) setting, choose custom, and then in the Seconds field enter 600 and click Save.

Copy Over the Domain Key Record

Next step is to copy the domain key from Mailgun to GoDaddy. From the Mailgun tab, copy the Enter This Value for the second TXT row.

Back in the GoDaddy tab, click the Add button in the DNS settings list. For the Host field add “krs._domainkey.mg” (notice the .mg at the end of that value and adjust accordingly). Paste in the value copied from Mailgun into the TXT Value field.

Domain Key DNS record sample, the second TXT setting

Adding the MX Records

Next up are the two, super-simple MX records. In the DNS settings page for GoDaddy, start the dialog for a new DNS record (click Add at the bottom of the page).

Choose MX from the dialog dropdown. Enter the following values:

Host: mg (adjust according the to subdomain you added to Mailgun)
Points to: mxa.mailgun.com
Priority: 10
TTL: Custom
Seconds: 600

Repeat those same steps for a second MX record, but use mxb.mailgun.com instead of the mxa prefixed value for the Points to field.

Preview of the MX records used by Mailgun

Add the CNAME Record

Finally, we are going to add the CNAME record. This setting is optional, but is beneficial for tracking open rates of the emails.

Start another dialog to add a DNS record in GoDaddy and choose CNAME from the Type dropdown.

Use the following values for the fields:

Host: email.mg (adjust the “mg” portion as needed)
Points to: mailgun.org
TTL: Custom
Seconds: 600

Mailgun’s CNAME DNS record for usage tracking

Finalize the Domain Validation

Now that the DNS records have been added to the domain, we can validate the domain in Mailgun. In the Mailgun tab we have open (with all of the DNS settings to use), scroll to the bottom of the page and click Get Started Sending.

On the following page, scroll to the Domain Validation & DNS section and expand it.

Click on the Check DNS Records Now button. Hopefully everything listed now has a green check box. If not, wait a few more minutes and try again. Typically these settings only take 5-10 minutes to propagate, but could take upwards of 24-48 hours.

Bonus: Setting Up Mailgun with WordPress

After the DNS settings are configured for your domain, setting up WordPress to utilize Mailgun is a breeze.

In Mailgun, go to the Domains page and click on the domain you added earlier. Copy the API Key near the top of the page.

Log into your WordPress admin dashboard and go to the plugins page. Click on the Add New button at the top of the page. Type “Mailgun” into the search bar at the top right. Find the plugin named “Mailgun for WordPress” by Mailgun and click Install (screenshot below). When it finishes installing click the Activate button.

When the plugin activates, hover over the Settings menu on the left and click on Mailgun. Scroll down to the API Key setting and paste in the API Key from Mailgun.

Finally, for the Mailgun Domain Name setting put in the domain you gave during the initial Mailgun configuration.

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes.