DealerSocket Email Hell

[Chris Leslie]

I am amazed it's this difficult for the program that's supposed to deliver emails, to actually deliver emails.

 

[SoCalMark]

I am amazed it's this difficult for the program that's supposed to deliver emails, to actually deliver emails.

Yah, Right -------------- :thumbup:

Most of these CRM programs have more bells and whistles than the average salesperson can comprehend anyways. All you have to do is watch one of them try to create a template in any of the programs and you can witness a complete meltdown. Anything requiring more than an icon on the desktop with a send/receive button is already too much technology for 85% of them.

 

[Dealersocket_SC]

Hello All,

I am with DealerSocket Support we would like to apologize for any confusion you may have had in updating spf records of your dealership domains. Below is information to help clear up and resolve the matter described in this forum.


DealerSocket's domain (dealersocket.com) is used for emails sent by campaigns and by dealership representatives in DealerSocket CRM. When email was first developed there wasn’t much inherent security. There was nothing stopping someone from sending an email and making it look like it came from tcook@apple.com or mary.barra@gm.com. This is called spoofing and can lead to problems. One of the ways to get around this is Sender Policy Framework, or SPF for short. SPF allows the owner of a domain to authorize specific IP’s, domains, or vendors to use their domain on their behalf. This protects your domain and reputation from malicious actors. Any email server that sends emails using your domain name, whether it’s DealerSocket, Google, SendGrid, MailChimp or others will need your authorization using SPF.

A good webpage of the basics to spf is https://support.dnsimple.com/articles/spf-record/

Please contact your IT department and have a technical representative add DealerSocket’s mail servers to your SPF record. If you have multiple domains, such as a separate domain for each franchise, then this will need to be repeated for each domain. When you edit your SPF record you will need to add ‘include:_spf.dealersocket.com’. We have many IP’s that are used to send email and these IP’s can change over time. So adding our ‘a’ or ‘ip4’ records will not work in the long term.

https://my.dealersocket.com/help/AdminToolsHelp/Dealership_Domain_Validation.htm

Here are a few valid examples:

v=spf1 v=spf1 include:spf0.dealershipname.com include:_spf.google.com include:_spf.dealersocket.com -all

This record authorizes any IP’s found under spf0.dealershipname.com, _spf.google.com, and _spf.dealersocket.com to send emails using your domain name.


v=spf1 include:_spf.dealersocket.com -all

This is an example of what a record should look like if you do not authorize anyone else to send on your behalf. It authorizes all IP’s found under _spf.dealersocket.com to send emails using your domain name.

We often see dealers have trouble getting the syntax correct when updating their SPF record. There are various online tools that can help you confirm that everything is setup correctly. One such tool is https://mxtoolbox.com/spf.aspx or https://vamsoft.com/support/tools/spf-policy-tester. We recommend adding one of our IP’s into the checker so that you not only check the syntax, but also that we are authorized to send on your behalf. We have many mail server IP’s, but you can use 192.41.47.228 as a test.

If you need any additional help please contact us at 949-900-0300 extension 3 or shoot us an email at Support@dealersocket.com

 

[John V.]

LOL - Pretty sure i said to do this over 1 month ago but no one listened......

Hello All,

I am with DealerSocket Support we would like to apologize for any confusion you may have had in updating spf records of your dealership domains. Below is information to help clear up and resolve the matter described in this forum.


DealerSocket's domain (dealersocket.com) is used for emails sent by campaigns and by dealership representatives in DealerSocket CRM. When email was first developed there wasn’t much inherent security. There was nothing stopping someone from sending an email and making it look like it came from tcook@apple.com or mary.barra@gm.com. This is called spoofing and can lead to problems. One of the ways to get around this is Sender Policy Framework, or SPF for short. SPF allows the owner of a domain to authorize specific IP’s, domains, or vendors to use their domain on their behalf. This protects your domain and reputation from malicious actors. Any email server that sends emails using your domain name, whether it’s DealerSocket, Google, SendGrid, MailChimp or others will need your authorization using SPF.

A good webpage of the basics to spf is https://support.dnsimple.com/articles/spf-record/

Please contact your IT department and have a technical representative add DealerSocket’s mail servers to your SPF record. If you have multiple domains, such as a separate domain for each franchise, then this will need to be repeated for each domain. When you edit your SPF record you will need to add ‘include:_spf.dealersocket.com’. We have many IP’s that are used to send email and these IP’s can change over time. So adding our ‘a’ or ‘ip4’ records will not work in the long term.

https://my.dealersocket.com/help/AdminToolsHelp/Dealership_Domain_Validation.htm

Here are a few valid examples:

v=spf1 v=spf1 include:spf0.dealershipname.com include:_spf.google.com include:_spf.dealersocket.com -all

This record authorizes any IP’s found under spf0.dealershipname.com, _spf.google.com, and _spf.dealersocket.com to send emails using your domain name.


v=spf1 include:_spf.dealersocket.com -all

This is an example of what a record should look like if you do not authorize anyone else to send on your behalf. It authorizes all IP’s found under _spf.dealersocket.com to send emails using your domain name.

We often see dealers have trouble getting the syntax correct when updating their SPF record. There are various online tools that can help you confirm that everything is setup correctly. One such tool is https://mxtoolbox.com/spf.aspx or https://vamsoft.com/support/tools/spf-policy-tester. We recommend adding one of our IP’s into the checker so that you not only check the syntax, but also that we are authorized to send on your behalf. We have many mail server IP’s, but you can use 192.41.47.228 as a test.

If you need any additional help please contact us at 949-900-0300 extension 3 or shoot us an email at Support@dealersocket.com

 

[craigh]

Not sure why @Alexander Lau marked this one "Too Old School" - SPF records is the standard for this sort of sender validation.
These steps are required for almost any CRM/email sending service. If they don't have a setup like this, expect deliverability to suffer.

 

[AWNick]

Not sure why @Alexander Lau marked this one "Too Old School" - SPF records is the standard for this sort of sender validation.
These steps are required for almost any CRM/email sending service. If they don't have a setup like this, expect deliverability to suffer.

Maybe he's just calling DealerSocket old school and not the SPF record issue itself.

SPF records are a good thing and I think the policy is good, but the bigger issue is that our website clients just stopped receiving leads and weren't notified at ALL by DealerSocket about the implementation of their system. Emails weren't being handled correctly and DealerSocket didn't say a word about it.

 

[SoCalMark]

#1 -- No matter what DealerSocket has to say about the SPF records, email SHOULD NOT be sent through a third party email server using the domain of another. It's just bad practice -- period!

Here is what they sent me THANKS TO THIS FORUM !!

v=spf1 +a +mx +ip4:198.46.81.61 +ip4:209.11.182.133 include:_spf.dealersocket.com -all

Input accepted, querying now...
evaluating v=spf1 +a +mx +ip4:198.46.81.61 +ip4:209.11.182.133 include:_spf.dealersocket.com -all
SPF record passed validation test with pySPF (Python SPF library)!

Current records show ..
v=spf1 ip4:192.41.46.26 include:_spf.google.com include:dealersocket.com ~all


if you revise to …
evaluating v=spf1 ip4:192.41.46.26 include:_spf.google.com include:_spf.dealersocket.com ~all
SPF record passed validation test with pySPF (Python SPF library)!


Tom Bathurst
Sr. Technical Support Engineer III
DealerSocket, Inc.

 

[craigh]

email SHOULD NOT be sent through a third party email server using the domain of another. It's just bad practice -- period!

Not sure I follow this. Using a single domain across multiple mail servers is not uncommon.
It would be nice if everyone could dedicate a domain and IP to each service for each client, but the system does not require this.
Having the correct SPF records included proves domain ownership and that the server has the proper permissions to send on your behalf.

 

[craigh]

As a customer, I was on the receiving end of a Dealer Socket campaign today.
I can't hold them responsible for all of this, but a few points:

1. This "on behalf" thing is ugly and obvious. The email is a "personal" email that claims they know what I want, but is clearly sent from a marketing machine
2. The email address is comes from is prospects@dealership.tld - use your brain dealers, this is not an internal name, it's a public facing email address.
3. I am a service only customer who has never looked at their inventory, but all 3 Dealer Socket emails I get were saying 'we found the car you were looking for` in this impersonal format from their prospects account.

As a customer, this is a poor experience that does not help your image as a dealer.
I have also replied to all 3 emails letting them know I should not be in their sales schedule, but they reply to nothing.