How to Set Up Email Alerts

Email remains the most dependable alert channel for domain monitoring. Unlike chat integrations, email creates a permanent, searchable record of every alert — which matters when you are troubleshooting an incident or proving due diligence to a client.

Adding an Email Alert Channel

1. Open Settings → Alert Channels from the sidebar.
2. Click Add Channel and choose Email.
3. Enter the recipient email address and a display name (e.g., "DevOps Team").
4. Click Send Test Email to verify delivery.
5. Save the channel.

Once saved, the email channel can be assigned to any alert rule.

Adding Multiple Recipients

Two options:

Option A — Multiple channels: Add a separate Email channel for each recipient. Useful when different people need different alert subsets.

Option B — Distribution list: Point one Email channel at a team distribution list (e.g., [email protected]). Simpler to manage when everyone needs the same alerts.

For most teams: critical alerts go to a group address, domain-specific alerts (e.g., a client domain expiry) go to the account manager.

Assigning Email Channels to Alert Rules

1. Go to Alerts → Alert Rules.
2. Create a new rule or edit an existing one.
3. Under Notification Channels, tick your email channel(s).
4. Save the rule.

Multiple channels can be assigned to a single rule — for example, SSL expiry alerts to both Slack and email.

Which Alert Types Work Best via Email

Strongly recommended for email

• Domain expiry warnings — 60 days, 30 days, 14 days, and 7 days. Low-frequency, high-stakes. A paper trail matters.
• SSL certificate expiry — 30 days and 14 days. Easy to forward to a developer who needs to act.
• Blacklist detections — Ensure the right people see it even if they are not watching a chat channel.
• WHOIS registrar or nameserver changes — Rare, high-severity. Email creates an audit trail.
• Health score drops — Significant drops (10+ points) warrant an email with context for diagnosis.

Better via Slack/Discord/webhook (not email)

• Uptime alerts — If your site goes down at 3 AM, you need a push notification, not an email you read at 9 AM.
• DNS record changes — Can be noisy. Filter to unexpected changes before emailing.

Recommended Thresholds

Alert Type	Recommended Threshold
Domain expiry	60 days, 30 days, 14 days, 7 days
SSL expiry	30 days, 14 days, 7 days
Health score drop	10+ point decrease
Blacklist hit	Immediate (any detection)
DNS change	A, MX, NS record changes only

Reducing Alert Fatigue

• Use severity filtering — only email on Medium and High severity
• Consolidate: use workspace-level rules for portfolios, not per-domain rules
• Review and prune alert rules quarterly

Deliverability Tips

• Add ElasticDomain's sending domain to your email allowlist
• If your company uses strict email filtering, whitelist the sending IP with your IT team
• The test email during channel setup confirms delivery before you rely on it