Most seasoned email marketers don’t understand SPF and DKIM. These two terms are used for email authentication mechanisms, and play an important role in achieving maximum email deliverability. Several email servers may outright deny your emails if they are unable to pass these checks.
SPF stands for Sender Policy Framework, serving as the first level of defense against “spoofing.”. It enables receiving email servers to verify that the sender has permission to send emails on behalf of your company.
DKIM record
It is an email security standard intended to ensure messages aren’t distorted in transit between the sending and recipient servers. When an email leaves a sending server, it uses public-key cryptography to sign emails with a private key. Recipient servers then use a public key, published to the domain’s DNS to verify that the message’s body hasn’t changed during transit and validate the source of the message. The message passes DKIM and is considered authentic once the signature is verified with the recipient server’s public key.
Benefits of using DKIM
DKIM is the easiest way to safeguard your email program and the reputation of your organization. It offers protection against “spoofing” and “phishing” scams, allowing your recipients to authenticate your messages and distinguish which ones aren’t and are actually from you. This authentication helps prevent recipients from unknowingly sharing personal information with scammers.
Additionally, it helps to enhance your organization’s reputation. Since your messages can be verified, they are more likely to be recognized and trusted. Recipients feel more at ease when they’re in contact with you, knowing that your emails are secure. This can encourage more two-way communication with your email list and help build relationships with your customers.
Finally, DKIM helps in maintaining the integrity of your email program. You can ensure the credibility and success of your email program by regularly checking your DKIM records. This ensures that your sender domain remains secure, protecting it from spammers attempting to reach your customers. It’s a simple step that keeps your recipient and email communications relationships in good shape.
Sender Policy Framework (SPF)
It restricts who can send emails from your domain and strengthens your DNS servers. SPF helps prevent domain spoofing and allows your mail server to verify the origin of a message from the domain it claims to be from.-. SPF comprises three key components: an authentication method, a policy framework as its name suggests, and specialized headers embedded within the email to convey this information.
Importance of SPF
It is a “proposed standard” that helps safeguard email users against prospective spammers. Phishing and Email spam often use forged “from” domains and addresses. Hence, checking SPF records and publishing is considered one of the most simple and reliable anti-spam techniques.
If you have a good sending reputation, a spammer might exploit it by sending an email from your domain. However, an accurately set up SPF authentication will show the receiving ISP that although the domain can be yours, the sending server has not been approved to send mail on behalf of your domain. Furthermore, an SPF record in a top domain will automatically authenticate any subdomains under it automatically that may not contain their own SPF record.
Final words
Hopefully, we now have a better understanding of DKIM and SPF. However, these aren’t the only email authentication mechanisms, there are more, but these are the two most significant ones.
You can make good use of these two in your favor. Everybody should, and eventually, they all will in the future, but we’re just not there yet. Even with these tools and their power, they’re still not shining as bright as they should because of poor adoption. Hopefully, things will be much better in the future. Everything will change soon, and that start will probably begin when every one of us starts adopting these tools as early as possible.
If you seek some professional help to jumpstart with email marketing, then let Sootra Consulting guide you. All you need is to ask or send us your business information or email requirements at support@sootraconsulting.com. So, let’s start talking!
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