Battle for the Inbox
In the realm of Email Marketing there is an unending battle between email service providers and unsolicited senders trying to flood your inbox with their marketing messages. Some of these messages can be things you have signed up for, a check box you selected when signing up for a service or purchasing a product giving the sender permission to send you marketing messages, Others, however may leave you stumped wondering where they found your email address. Despite requests for no further communication the emails continue to pour in.
Email Service Providers, such as Google / Gmail and Yahoo have recently implemented some new policies for email authentication that were previously optional related to the use of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Each of these methods make use of DNS to provide a different set of tools for senders to help identify emails they sent as authentic and in the case of DMARC what to do if an email that is received that is not.
SPF – Sender Permitted From
SPF provides a list of IP addresses that are considered as trusted for a particular from address. If you are making use of a service like GMail, Yahoo, or Outlook or even your ISPs email service then your SPF record will already be set by your provider. It authorizes their own systems to send email for anyone using their service.
DKIM – DomainKeys Identified Mail
DKIM adds a special signature automatically to any emails sent using an authorized sending platform that can be compared to a public record published in their DNS. The process makes use of cryptography to prevent forgery and is based off the the domain of the sending server, typically the one listed in the from address. If the signature check passes you can safely conclude the sender’s identity is authentic.
DMARC – Domain-based Message Authentication
Reporting, and Conformance – doesn’t directly offer any authentication in itself but it provides information on what a recipient’s system can do when an email is received that is determined to be fraudulent or forged.
Each of the above technologies have been used for many years however, recently Google and Yahoo have made the decision that any incoming mail into their networks must make use of the above technologies otherwise they will automatically be rejected. The 1Point platform has already been using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC with all messages sent from our platform. If you are using a shared pool, then you are all-set immediately upon signing up for your 1Point account. Your emails are being sent using the shared platform’s from address that identifies it as having been sent from the 1Point platform. If you are instead using a dedicated pool of IPs with your own domain however, there may be additional setup that is required, Don’t worry, its not that difficult and we’ll provide you with a datasheet detailing the changes you’ll need to make to your DNS. We’ll take care of the rest of the setup necessary on 1Point to properly identify your email with your name and that your mailings will pass SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication.
Our team will continue to strive to make sure you messages reach your intended recipients inbox and will work with each email provider and their requirements and any changes to the industry standards.