From domain
The domain after @ in the From address people see in their inbox.
Say it out loud
“The bit after the @ that customers actually read. Everything we prove has to match it.”
The From domain is what a recipient sees and, in practice, the only identity they judge. It is also the anchor for DMARC: the entire authentication apparatus exists to answer whether the proof on a message belongs to this specific domain. One message can carry three different domains, and only this one is visible.
The only address a human will ever see. Trust is decided here.
The envelope. This is the domain SPF checks, and the recipient never sees it.
The domain that signed the message. On a misconfigured setup this says your platform's domain instead of yours, and that is the whole bug.
Alignment — the check that fails while everything else passes — is simply the question of whether either of the bottom two domains matches the top one.
Yours
Nobody does this for you.
Where you find it
- Klaviyo → Settings → Domains and hosting → Sending domains
- Mailchimp → Website & Domains → Verified domains
- Braze → Settings → Email settings → Sending domains
What goes wrong
Sending as `hello@aurora.klaviyomail.com` or a bare `noreply@`. The first fails alignment and looks like a third party; the second tells every recipient that replies are unwelcome, which is a deliverability signal as well as a rude one.
Not the same as
- The display name
- “Aurora Coffee” is a label anyone can type. The domain is the part that is checked.
- Return-Path / envelope sender
- Invisible to the recipient, and the domain SPF actually validates. They are frequently different on purpose.
The dated rule behind this
A definition is not a citation. These are the pages with the primary source, the date it was published, and what to do about it.
See also
Where this sits
Stop 2, you build the message. You choose a From address, write a subject line, and add the things the law requires to be in the message.