Newsletter email domain separate from site domain?

Memberships & subscriptions
1

Hi there,

In a self-hosted Ghost 4.1 instance I have set it up on domain.com. I’d like the member emails to come from subdomain.domain.com. I have mailgun set up on subdomain.domain.com and the sending key entered in Ghost’s admin UI. However, it only sets me “save” a newsletter email address that matches the domain of the site. Otherwise, it just fails and asks if I want to retry. Is this a bug, a feature, or a mistake on my part?

Thanks

2

Working on this too. I guess the correct configuration is the following:

  • Ghost on domain.com
  • Mailgun with subdomain.domain.com
  • Mailgun subdomain TXT and CNAME records set in DNS (avoid adding unless you have an account in Mailgun you want to use to receive emails)
  • email account for subdomain (if using Google apps you can add a domain alias for your subdomain)
  • email provider MX records set for subdomain in DNS (to get confirmation emails and reply to newsletters)
  • config.production.json set with subdomain SMTP credentials
  • newsletter tab on Ghost admin dashboard set with Mailgun subdomain and private API key (wondering if creating a subdomain API key would work the same or would it be even better)

Then, you would be able to change support/newsletter email in Ghost dashboard. Once you add the new mail, Ghost asks Mailgun to send a confirmation mail (via subdomain) that you will receive at your account@subdomain.domain.com (thx to MX record configuration). By clicking on the button in confirmation message you set the new email address.

Let me know if you can make it work this way.

3

Out of interest did either of you manage to sort this? I’m in exactly the same position and struggling with this.

4

It’s not true that Admin only lets you save a reply-to email from the same domain as site…but it does send a confirmation link at the reply-to email that you set, which you have to click

I think the key point from Sigul is that you can setup a Google Workspace email domain alias for mail.domain.com to receive such a confirmation email. (You just have to setup Google’s MX records for the subdomain).

Technically, you can setup Mailgun to receive emails at the subdomain, but that requires the min. $35 plan and setting up routing.

Ultimately, I think the optimal setup is to book a domain variation like domain.net or domain.co just for email sending purposes…I went through the typical mail.domain.com that Mailgun suggests, but it still left me with emails that showed weird “on behalf of” notations in Outlook and Hotmail. For the cost of a domain at about $8 per year, you get a technically perfect email setup (ie for deliverability)

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