Email Deliverability
Add DNS records in IONOS
Exact steps for IONOS — and the SPF helper to avoid.
Get to your DNS settings
- Log in at my.ionos.com and open “Domains & SSL”.
- Click the gear (⚙) under Actions for your domain and choose “DNS”.
- Click “Add Record” and choose the type.
- Enter the Host name and value, then save.
The IONOS gotcha: the Add Record menu has a special “IONOS SPF” option that rewrites your SPF with IONOS’s own mail servers. For sending through Focal, add a plain TXT record for SPF instead — and be deliberate about whether IONOS SPF is also enabled, since only one SPF record is allowed.
The host field
IONOS adds your domain automatically — use "@" for the root, "_dmarc" for DMARC, and "focal._domainkey" for DKIM. The CNAME target field is labeled “Points to.”
The #1 mistake: don’t type your full domain in the host/name field. When we ask for a record named "focal._domainkey.yourdomain.com", you enter only "focal._domainkey". Almost every DNS provider adds your domain back on automatically — type the whole thing and you get "focal._domainkey.yourdomain.com.yourdomain.com", which silently fails. Enter only the part before your domain, and use "@" (or leave it blank — see your provider below) for the root.
TTL defaults to 1 hour — leave it. Changes take effect within about an hour.