Domain verification statuses
What Pending, Verified and Failed mean on a sending domain, and what to do if a verified domain goes back to pending.
A sending domain is Pending until all its DNS records check out, then Verified. Failed means it needs removing and adding again. You’ll see the status on Settings → Sending domains and in the Verification card at the top of each domain’s page, with a line underneath saying what to do next.
Pending
EmailFig is waiting for your DNS records. Add the records shown on the domain’s page (see Publish DNS records at your domain provider), then click Re-check DNS or leave it: EmailFig keeps checking on its own. Changes can take up to 48 hours to show up.
Each record in the table has its own status too. Temporary failure, with “We’re retrying this one.” underneath, is a hiccup on our side, not a problem with your records. EmailFig retries it for you.
If the domain still hasn’t verified after a few hours, the account owner gets an email headed “Action needed”. If it stays pending for 30 days, EmailFig stops checking and marks it Failed.
Verified
Every record checks out. Once the card says “this domain can send campaigns”, you’re ready to send.
Right after verifying, the card may show one of these first:
- “Verified. We’re securing the tracking domain for it now, which usually takes a minute or two. Nothing for you to do.”
- “Verified, but your account is still being set up for sending. Contact support if this doesn’t clear shortly.”
- “Verified, but we haven’t finished linking it to your account, so it can’t send yet. We’ll keep retrying, or click Re-check DNS to try now. Email contact@emailfig.com if it hasn’t cleared within a day.”
If you send through your own AWS account, the card may say what’s left to do there instead, such as “Verified, but your AWS account is still in the SES sandbox”. Settings → AWS shows the next step.
Your records are fine in each case, so there’s nothing to change at your DNS provider. When the domain is ready, the account owner gets an email saying so.
If the tracking domain can’t be set up
After the tracking record verifies, there’s one more step, and the card tells you if it went wrong:
| The card says | What to do |
|---|---|
| If the CNAME we gave you is proxied (Cloudflare’s orange cloud), switch it to DNS-only | Set the emfig record to DNS only at Cloudflare, then click Re-check DNS |
| Its DNS has a CAA record that doesn’t allow our certificate authority | Your domain has a setting (a CAA record) that limits who can secure it. Add amazon.com, amazontrust.com, awstrust.com and amazonaws.com to it (your domain provider can help), then click Re-check DNS |
| Its tracking hostname is already in use somewhere else | Email contact@emailfig.com with your domain name |
| We couldn’t finish setting up its tracking domain … Nothing for you to change | Nothing. We’ve been notified and are fixing it |
Failed
The domain can’t verify as it is, so Re-check DNS is hidden. Click Remove domain, then add it again from Settings → Sending domains. You’ll get a fresh set of records, so update your DNS to match.
The same fix applies if the page says Setup failed or “We couldn’t generate DNS records for this domain”. If removing and re-adding doesn’t help, email contact@emailfig.com with the domain name and a real person will help.
If a verified domain goes back to pending
EmailFig keeps checking your records after the domain verifies. If one is removed or changed, the domain goes back to Pending and nothing can send from it until it verifies again. The owner gets an email: “Action needed: yourcompany.com can’t send email”.
This usually happens after a DNS tidy-up: moving to a new domain provider or web host, clearing out old records, or another tool rewriting your settings.
- Open the domain from Settings → Sending domains. Any record that isn’t Verified is the one to fix.
- Add it back at your domain provider exactly as shown.
- Click Re-check DNS.
Sending works again as soon as the domain is verified. If a scheduled campaign can’t go out in the meantime, see Campaign statuses explained.