Email to CRM and a custom sender domain: how to set up email

Many requests arrive by email: from website builder forms, classifieds platforms, partners and clients writing to info@. Without email to CRM, these emails are copied over by hand, with delays and losses. A request opened half a day later has already gone cold.

The second problem: emails to clients sent without your own domain land in spam more often. The client never sees the appointment reminder, the invoice or the commercial proposal. A sender domain is the part of the address after the @ that the email is sent on behalf of. The “Email” section solves both problems. Emails in your lead mailbox become CRM leads on their own, and your emails are sent from your domain.

Watch the one-and-a-half-minute video, and below you'll find the step-by-step setup.

Why businesses need email leads in the CRM

• Online school. A landing page on a website builder and a payment form send requests by email. The connected mailbox turns each email into a lead, right next to leads from the widget and calls.
• Real estate. Each line of business has its own project and its own mailbox. Requests from property portals land in the right funnel on their own: new builds separately, rentals separately.
• Clinic, salon. Notifications from online booking services become CRM leads. Reminders to clients are sent from the clinic's domain, and people trust such emails more.
• B2B sales. Requests for proposals sent to sales@ don't get lost between managers. Emails about a deal go out from the corporate domain.

How emails become leads in the CRM

The section is one page with two tabs.

• “Incoming” — mailboxes for leads. The account picks up new emails via IMAP, the standard way mail apps read a mailbox. New emails come in as leads automatically: each one becomes a lead in the CRM lead list of the project selected for the mailbox.
• “Outgoing” — sender domains. You add a domain and create two service TXT records at your domain registrar or hosting provider. DKIM signs your emails, and SPF allows them to be sent on behalf of the domain. Once the domain is confirmed, emails to clients from the CRM and autofunnels are sent from, for example, info@your-domain.com.

The section doesn't check your plan, and there are no paid toggles in it.

How to connect email to CRM

1. 1
   Prepare the mailbox

   Allow IMAP access in its settings. For Yandex and Mail.ru, create an app password: the regular mailbox password won't work. Links for creating one are right in the connection window.
2. 2
   Click “Connect mailbox”

   On the “Incoming” tab. The “Connect a mailbox” window opens.
3. 3
   Enter the “Email address”

   The mail service is picked automatically by the address domain, and the server settings are filled in.
4. 4
   Paste the password

   Into the “App password” field. For Rambler and the “Other” service, the field is called “Password”.
5. 5
   Choose the “Project”

   The field appears if you have several projects. Leads will go to the selected project.
6. 6
   Click “Connect”

   The “Awaiting check” status changes on its own. “Connected” means emails are being picked up. “Not connected” means the password or IMAP access didn't work.

For corporate email and Gmail, choose the “Other” service. Fill in “Incoming mail server (IMAP)”, “Port” and “Encryption”: you'll find these details in your mail service's help pages. For Gmail, it's usually imap.gmail.com, port 993, SSL and a Google app password. You can create a Google app password only when 2-Step Verification is turned on in your Google account.

What happens to the email next: the “Lead from email” entry

An email from a connected mailbox goes to the “Lead from email” entry in “Incoming settings”. That's where you decide what to do with the request: distribute it among employees, notify a manager in Telegram or set the right funnel stage. There you also choose whether every email from the same address creates a new lead. Different mailboxes can follow different branches: a “mailbox group” can send, for example, emails to the wholesale mailbox to the wholesale team, while the rest go to the “Other mailboxes” branch. How the scheme works is covered in the article on cloud phone system for business. Not every account has the “Lead from email” entry: it appears on the second version of telephony.

Lead forms from VK and other platforms can also be connected without an API: enter the lead mailbox as the notification address in the lead form settings, and every notification becomes a lead in the CRM.

How to add a sender domain so emails don't go to spam

1. 1
   Add the domain

   The “Outgoing” tab → “Add domain”. Enter the domain and choose the “Project”: each project can have one sender domain.
2. 2
   Copy the records

   The DNS records window opens right away with two TXT records, DKIM and SPF. Each value has a “Copy” button.
3. 3
   Add the records at your registrar or hosting provider

   In the panel where the domain's DNS (settings) is managed. If the panel adds the domain itself, take the short name from the “If the panel adds the domain itself:” line.
4. 4
   Check the status

   Click “Check status”. DNS changes take effect within 24 hours. The “Connected” status means you can send emails.

Email bounces and spam complaints

Below the domain name you'll see “Bounces”, the share of undelivered emails, and “Complaints”, the share of emails that recipients marked as spam. Bounces from 5% are highlighted in yellow, complaints from 0.1% in red. A yellow tag means it's time to clean non-existent addresses out of your list. Red means you should send emails only to people who expect them. Lots of bounces and complaints are a common reason for blocking: the domain status becomes “Blocked”, sending from it stops, and the support team will tell you the details.

Read also: Website form to CRM: connect your forms without a developer, How to set up Telegram lead notifications and SMS to clients, CRM for small business: how to never lose a single lead, Dkim and spf setup