Your campaign's domain and email, explained

The short version: every Electbase site launches on a free address like yourname.electbase.com, and you can connect your own domain — yourname.com — whenever you're ready. Either way, your site is served over HTTPS with the padlock, automatically. If you plan to send campaign email from your own domain, there's one more piece worth doing early: email authentication. Here's what all of that means in plain English.

Your free Electbase address

The moment your site exists, it's live at yourname.electbase.com. That's a real, secure, shareable address — fine for getting started, fine for a QR code on a palm card. Plenty of campaigns launch on it and connect a custom domain later.

Bringing (or buying) your own domain

A custom domain — janedoeforcouncil.com — looks more established, fits on yard signs better, and is yours to keep after the race. You have two paths:

• You already own one. Connect it from your dashboard — the steps are below.
• You need one. Domains cost roughly $10–20/year from any registrar (Cloudflare, Porkbun, Namecheap, GoDaddy). Pick something short, spellable, and sayable out loud — you'll be saying it at every door. Buy it anywhere, then connect it the same way.

Connecting your domain, step by step

1. Open the Custom domain card in your dashboard and enter your domain — janedoeforcouncil.com, no https://, no www.
2. Electbase shows you three DNS records. Copy them exactly as shown:
   • a verification record (a CNAME starting with _acme-challenge) that proves to the certificate authority you control the domain,
   • an A record at the root of your domain, pointing at Electbase's address,
   • a www CNAME so www.janedoeforcouncil.com works too.
3. Add all three at your registrar — wherever you bought the domain, in its DNS or "Manage DNS" screen. Leave the TTL at whatever the default is.
4. Press Check status. Electbase looks for your records, and once it sees them, requests your security certificate.
5. Wait. Typically a few minutes; occasionally up to an hour if your registrar is slow to publish changes. You don't have to sit on the page — Electbase re-checks on its own every half hour and finishes the job whether or not you're watching.
6. Done. The card reads Active and your site answers on your domain over https://.

Your old yourname.electbase.com links and QR codes keep working — they redirect to your new domain automatically, so anything already printed stays good.

If it's taking longer than an hour

Almost every stuck connection is one of two things, and both are at your registrar rather than on our side:

• The verification record got mangled. Many registrars automatically append your domain to whatever you type in the "name" field, so pasting _acme-challenge.janedoeforcouncil.com produces _acme-challenge.janedoeforcouncil.com.janedoeforcouncil.com. If your registrar does that, enter just _acme-challenge. Check the saved record afterward — what's stored is what matters, not what you typed.
• Your domain isn't using your registrar's DNS. If you've pointed the domain's nameservers somewhere else (Cloudflare is the usual one), add the records there instead. Records added in the wrong place are invisible to everyone, including us.

Leave the card open or come back later — once the records are right, the next automatic re-check picks them up without you doing anything else. If it's still stuck after that, send us the domain and we'll look at what our end can see.

Email from your domain

A custom domain unlocks matching email — jane@janedoeforcouncil.com instead of a Gmail address. It reads as more professional on fundraising asks and press outreach, and it keeps campaign mail out of your personal inbox.

Electbase doesn't provide inboxes, and connecting your domain to Electbase doesn't create any. Mail is a separate service you set up with a provider — Google Workspace is the common path (roughly $7–$8.50/user/month depending on plan and commitment — check Google's current pricing), and Microsoft 365, Fastmail and Zoho all work the same way.

The important part: connecting your domain to Electbase never touches your email. The records we ask you to add are for your website only. Your MX records — the ones that route mail — stay exactly as they are, and we will never ask you to change them. If you already have email on your domain, it keeps working through the switch, uninterrupted.

Email authentication: the part campaigns skip (and shouldn't)

Before you send campaign email from your domain — newsletters, fundraising asks, volunteer blasts — set up three DNS records: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. This matters for two reasons:

1. Deliverability. Major mail providers increasingly filter or reject mail from domains without authentication. Unauthenticated campaign email lands in spam — which means the fundraising ask you wrote never gets seen.
2. Spoofing protection. Without these records, anyone can send email that appears to come from your campaign's domain. Political campaigns are targets for exactly this. Authentication lets receiving servers reject the fakes.

In plain English:

• SPF is a public list of which servers are allowed to send mail for your domain. Mail from anywhere else fails the check.
• DKIM puts a cryptographic signature on each message proving it really came from you and wasn't altered along the way.
• DMARC is the policy that ties them together: it tells receiving servers what to do with mail that fails (let it through, quarantine it, or reject it) and sends you reports on who's sending mail claiming to be you.

Each one is a DNS record you add at your registrar — the same place you pointed your domain at Electbase. Your email provider (Google Workspace, or whatever email-blast tool you use) gives you the exact values to paste in; it's a 15-minute job, and you do it once.

The order to do things

1. Launch on your free yourname.electbase.com address — day one, no setup.
2. Buy or bring your custom domain and connect it (dashboard → Custom domain → add the three records shown → Check status). SSL happens automatically; the whole thing usually finishes inside a few minutes.
3. Set up name@yourdomain email with a mailbox provider (Google Workspace is the common path). This is separate from Electbase and doesn't disturb your site.
4. Add SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records before your first email blast from the domain.

Email-authentication checklist

The checklist version of the section above — work down it before your first blast:

• Custom domain connected to Electbase and resolving over HTTPS.
• Mailbox provider chosen (Google Workspace is the common path) and name@yourdomain receiving mail.
• SPF record added (one TXT at the root): include your mailbox provider and every blast tool you send from, e.g. v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com include:servers.mcsv.net ~all (Mailchimp shown; use YOUR tools' documented include values — one SPF record only; merge includes, never add a second record).
• DKIM enabled at each sending service (Workspace Admin → Gmail → Authenticate email; Mailchimp → verified domain) and each CNAME/TXT they hand you added at the registrar.
• DMARC record added (TXT at _dmarc.yourdomain): start at v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:you@yourdomain to collect reports, then tighten to p=quarantine once reports run clean for 2–4 weeks.
• Verified with a checker (e.g. a mail-tester service or your provider's toolbox) BEFORE the first blast: SPF pass, DKIM pass, DMARC pass.
• Re-check after adding any new sending tool — every new sender needs to enter the SPF include list and get its own DKIM key.