Send cold email from your custom-domain email address

Distro sends cold email through a Google account you connect: a personal Gmail account or Google Workspace. So the question "can I send from my own domain?" really becomes "does Google let this account send as that address?" If your domain's mailbox is on Google Workspace, the answer is yes and setup takes a few minutes. If your domain's email is hosted somewhere else, it can still work through Gmail's "Send mail as", with some trade-offs you should know about first.

This guide covers the three setups, how to tell which one you have, and what each one means for replies and deliverability.

First, a few facts about how Distro sends

• Distro connects to Google only. You sign in with Google and grant permission to send email and read replies to your campaigns. Distro never asks for your password, and it doesn't take SMTP or IMAP logins.
• Distro doesn't connect directly to other providers. There is no Microsoft 365, Outlook.com, Zoho or "any SMTP/IMAP server" connection today. In the sender panel on the Sending accounts page, Outlook is shown as Coming soon.
• Distro sends from addresses Gmail already allows. It reads your Gmail "Send mail as" list and offers the main address plus any address Gmail has verified. It never creates or verifies addresses for you.
• Distro reads replies from the connected Google account's mailbox only. Replies that land in a mailbox at another provider are invisible to Distro, which matters for stop-on-reply.

For the full picture, see How Distro sends email.

Which setup do you have?

Not sure where your email is hosted? Ask whoever set up your company email, or look at your domain's MX records: they point to the service that receives your mail. See What are MX records?

Path 1: Your mailbox is on Google Workspace

This is the simplest and most reliable setup. Your custom-domain address is itself a Google account, so you connect it directly.

1. ade@company.com
2. Google Workspace mailbox
3. Google sign-in (OAuth) from Distro
4. Outreach → Sending accounts: Active
5. Campaign From: ade@company.com

1. Open Outreach → Sending accounts and click Add sender.
2. Enter your name and ade@company.com, then click Save.
3. Under Email services, click Enable next to Google account.
4. Sign in to Google as ade@company.com and allow both permissions Distro asks for.
5. Back in Distro, the sender shows Active. Pick it as the From address in your campaign.

If your company restricts third-party apps, your Workspace admin may need to allow Distro first. See Connect your Google account to Distro and What Google permissions Distro needs.

Path 2: Another address on the same Workspace account (alias)

Use this when you want to send as sales@company.com or ade.o@company.com but keep everything in one person's mailbox. The alias belongs to the same Google user, so there is no extra login, no SMTP and no IMAP.

1. sales@company.com added as an alias of ade@company.com
2. Listed in Gmail "Send mail as"
3. Distro: Add sender, then Enable
4. Sender shows "Alias of ade@company.com"
5. Campaign From: sales@company.com

1. Add the alias in Google Workspace. An admin opens the Google Admin console, goes to the user, and adds the address under the user's alternate email addresses (aliases). Full steps: How to add a Google Workspace alias.
2. Make sure Gmail shows it as a sending identity. As that user, open Gmail Settings → See all settings → Accounts and look under Send mail as. A Workspace alias often appears there by itself; if not, click Add another email address and add it. For an alias of your own account Gmail normally doesn't ask for SMTP details.
3. Verify it if Gmail asks. If Gmail sends a confirmation email or code, confirm it.
4. Check that Gmail itself can send from it. Compose a message in Gmail, choose the alias in the From field and send yourself a test. If this fails, fix it in Google before going further.
5. Go back to Distro and add it. In Outreach → Sending accounts, click Add sender, enter the alias and click Enable. Distro finds it in your connected Google account, with no new sign-in. The alias appears as Active with Alias of ade@company.com underneath.
6. Choose it as the campaign sender. In the campaign composer, click the From field and pick the alias. See Use a verified alias in Distro.

If the alias shows Waiting for Google, Gmail hasn't finished verifying it: confirm the email Google sent, then click Check again on the sender. If it doesn't appear at all, see Why my alias is not showing in Distro.

Replies to the alias land in the same Gmail inbox, so Distro sees them, threads them and can stop the follow-ups when someone replies.

Path 3: Your address is hosted somewhere else

Say your company email runs on Microsoft 365 and you want to send as ade@company.com, but you connect a Google account (personal Gmail or Google Workspace) to Distro. Gmail can send as an outside address if you add it under "Send mail as". In that case, Gmail usually asks for the SMTP server details of the provider that hosts the address, and then mail sent as that address is handed to the provider's server for delivery.

1. Distro campaign
2. Your connected Google account (Gmail API)
3. Gmail "Send mail as" ade@company.com
4. Your provider's SMTP server (for example Microsoft 365)
5. Recipient's inbox

What this means in practice:

• Distro still only talks to Google. It asks Gmail to send the message as ade@company.com. Gmail then follows the "Send mail as" settings you saved. Google's documentation describes that an address with SMTP settings is relayed through that SMTP server, and that one without is sent from Google's own servers.
• The SMTP details come from your provider, not from Distro. Gmail needs the server name, username, password, port and security type of the server that hosts the address. Find them in your provider's documentation or admin panel: Where to find SMTP settings from your email provider. Distro never sees or stores these details, and can't recover them for you.
• Replies go to the other provider. When a prospect replies to ade@company.com, the reply lands in your Microsoft 365 (or other) mailbox, not in Gmail. Distro reads only the connected Google account's mailbox, so it won't show that reply in its Inbox and won't stop the follow-ups on it. You'd need to stop or pause those prospects yourself, or arrange for replies to reach the connected Google account's mailbox (for example with a Reply-To address, see below).
• Two sets of rules apply. The provider's own sending limits and policies apply to its SMTP server, on top of Google's.
• It's more to maintain. If the provider password changes, or the provider turns off SMTP sign-in for your account (some do by default for security), Gmail can't send as that address until you update the settings in Gmail.

Steps, if you still want this route:

1. Find your provider's SMTP settings in its official documentation. Confirm with the provider if anything is unclear.
2. In Gmail, open Settings → See all settings → Accounts (personal Gmail: Accounts and Import), then Send mail as → Add another email address.
3. Enter the address, then the SMTP details when Gmail asks for them. More help: Gmail is asking for SMTP settings.
4. Confirm the verification email Gmail sends to that address (it arrives in your other provider's mailbox).
5. Send a test from Gmail as that address and check it arrives.
6. In Distro, add it on the Sending accounts page with Add sender, then click Enable.

Using Reply-To to bring replies back

In the campaign composer, open the ⋮ menu next to From and choose Reply to to add a Reply-To address. If you set it to your connected Google account's address, most replies will go there and Distro can see them. The trade-off: prospects see that their reply goes to a different address from the one that emailed them, which some people find odd. See From vs Reply-To.

Deliverability: make the domain match the server

Mailbox providers check that the server sending the email is allowed to send for the domain in the From address, and that the message is signed for that domain. The checks are SPF, DKIM and DMARC.

If the From domain isn't authenticated for the server that actually sends, more of your email can land in spam or be rejected, and some mail apps show a "via" label next to the sender. Good authentication can improve placement, but mailbox providers always make the final call.

Read next: What is SPF, What is DKIM, What is DMARC and the Cold email deliverability checklist.

Quick answers

Can I connect my Outlook or Microsoft 365 mailbox directly? Not today. Distro connects Google accounts only. Outlook is listed as coming soon in the sender panel on the Sending accounts page.

Will Distro ask for my SMTP or IMAP password? No. Distro uses Google sign-in. Any SMTP details you enter go into Gmail's own settings, never into Distro. See SMTP vs IMAP.

Does an alias count as another mailbox on my plan? No. Plan limits count connected Google accounts. Aliases of a connected account don't add to that count, and they don't add sending volume either, because Google's limits apply to the whole account.