As digital communication and marketing increasingly expand, businesses rely on email for professional correspondence. However, as businesses and clients increasingly rely on email as a trusted form of communication, phony emails sent by bad actors looking to scam unsuspecting clients, phishing, spoofing, and spam have become all too familiar. Such activities not only tarnish a brand’s reputation and consumer confidence but also negatively impact email deliverability and engagement. The good news? SPF, DKIM, and DMARC email authentication standards can alleviate many issues related to phishing, spoofing, and spam by safeguarding your brand and ensuring that legitimate emails get to their intended inboxes.
Understanding Sender Policy Framework (SPF)
SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is a type of email authentication that identifies your email recipients that the message they receive is coming from an authorized sender. SPF allows a domain owner to create and publish a DNS record of which IP addresses are authorized to send email on behalf of that domain. When the email is sent & received, the recipient’s server will look up the sending IP address in the domain’s DNS records. The email will pass the authentication if the sending IP matches with the one present in the DNS SPF record.
SPF prevents your brand from being spoofed and allows Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and email providers to identify legitimate senders. This basically means that your email has higher chances of getting delivered as such rather than spam because the providers know that you are trying to reach an appropriate audience with an authorized sender. Automated email warm up also helps establish your sender reputation over time, ensuring that even new domains gradually gain trust with inbox providers. This enhances overall deliverability.
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) Explained
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) is another security-based feature that uses cryptography to authenticate and verify an email. Domain owners can create their own digital signature for each email an organization sends out. A digital signature is created using a private encryption key that is only known to the sender. When a company sends an email, the servers of the sender append a digital signature to the message. When a recipient gets an email, its server looks up the public key in the sender’s DNS records to verify the signature.
DKIM serves two purposes. The first is called authentication, and is a way to verify that the email is actually coming from where it says it is coming from. The second purpose is to allow integrity to be used in conjunction with messages that require their contents to be unmodified during transmission. For instance, where a part of the email changes language or formatting or punctuation was added/removed, the signature generated by the private encryption key would no longer match that contained in the DNS records. This is critical, as it prevents bad actors from hijacking legitimate emails to spoof recipients.
DKIM is a type of authenticity stamp so it boosts email deliverability to ISPs such as Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo Mail. Notice as we talked about above, these types of services will see DKIM signature as valid so they’re more prone to see the communication as legitimate, it’s verified communication and not spam. So companies are less likely to get their marketing emails, transactional emails and customer service communications caught in spam folders. When users receive thousands of emails in a single day and the moment that a company could not reply the right way one or two times because the emails go directly to spam folder and their website does not have that advantage, a fact like that can make all the difference.
In addition, DKIM helps build brand reputation. In industries where this stability of data means everything – financial services, medical services, e-commerce, DKIM is yet another strong measure to prevent spoofing. If your customer receives your digitally signed email, they are more inclined to treat that payment link as serious and would be willing to remit payment or return sensitive personal data if it is known to be from a valid source.
Configuring DKIM is a joint effort between your mail host and your DNS host, but once the config is set up, it all happens behind the scenes every message sent signed, every handshake verified, in real-time. SPF and DMARC are two additional models intermingled in the multilayered defensive framework of email maintenance & security that not only box in delivery but protect your reputation and the trust of your customers.
The Critical Role of DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance)
While SPF and DKIM provide the ability to authenticate, DMARC takes one additional step and instructs the receiving servers what to do with an email if it fails authentication. DMARC allows the domain owner to specify what email activity that should be treated as bought into the inbox, sent to spam/junk, or rejected outright if SPF or DKIM fails.
DMARC also provides data around authentication so brands know who else might be sending on their behalf with wide reporting. By monitoring these reports, brands can identify instances of spoofing and adjust their authentication settings over time. With a strict DMARC policy, brands can fight against phishing, email spoofing, and other low-quality email attempts to not only maximize deliverability rates but the likelihood of reaching the inbox.
How Email Authentication Enhances Deliverability
Email deliverability stands as one of the foremost priorities in email marketing and brand communications overall. There’s no point in crafting the perfect, well-researched email copy if the email never reaches its intended inbox. Thus, to ensure optimal deliverability rates and project a professional brand image, email authentication protocols SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are essential technology.
SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is the primary layer of defense before moving onto DKIM and DMARC (DomainKeys Identified Mail and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance). Together, these three protocols assure ESPs and ISPs that your emails are real and sent from your domain; SPF certifies that the server transmitting the email is permitted to do so on behalf of your domain. DKIM ensures the message content has not changed while in transit by establishing a verifying cryptographic signature. Ultimately, DMARC tells the receiving server what to do should an email fail SPF and DKIM checks while providing the domain owner with feedback about how their domain is being used.
When your emails consistently pass these tests, ESPs grow to trust your sending domain more. This trust is a contributing factor to inbox placement. Authenticated emails are more likely to land in the primary inbox rather than the spam and junk folders and over time, the better delivery rates for more and more emails sent create a sender reputation that helps with deliverability later on. It’s a feedback loop authentication consistency that leads to a great reputation, which then supports future projects.
Furthermore, with great authentication, you cannot be easily spoofed, nor can anyone impersonate your brand for phishing or nasty ulterior motives. While these things might not impact you, they can genuinely impact your customers and your reputation. Once people no longer trust your brand identity, it may take years to reclaim that trust. Therefore, adding SPF, DKIM, and DMARC not only improves deliverability, but it also shows you mean business about data preservation and security for your users.
Your metrics are involved with email authentication from the start. Authenticated emails bounce less from domain failures, meaning better bounce rates and cleaner lists. Moreover, the improved sender reputation that email authentication creates gives you a leg up with other platforms to secure better open rates and click rates. When users see your email in their inboxes and know it’s legit, they will want to take action. The longer this occurs, the better your connections, outreach, and opportunities for your email marketing campaigns to have excellent ROI.
When email marketing gets this ambitious and easy for businesses to overlook, great email deliverability with the trusted foundations of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are key required elements of any email strategy. Therefore, don’t skip the setup. Put time into getting it all right and maintaining it for the future, and you’ll see brand loyalty and audience engagement in no time.
Protecting Your Brand from Spoofing and Phishing
The biggest benefit of email authentication is protection against email spoofing and phishing. When brands do not authenticate their emails, it’s all too easy for malicious people to impersonate the legitimate brand and send phishing emails that convince unsuspecting receivers to give sensitive information or download malware.
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC reduce the likelihood of this malfeasance through multi-tiered authentication. SPF informs the receiver whether the sender’s IP address is legitimate or not; DKIM makes sure that the message content is unaltered by anybody other than the sender; DMARC tells the domain owner of a brand what to do with the potential phishing attempt. Therefore, only legitimate phishing attempts using one’s domain name happen legitimately, and consumers are less at risk of falling for such scams.
Steps to Successfully Implement Email Authentication
Ultimately, the most effective standards for correctly configuring SPF, DKIM, and DMARC include: domain owners creating specific DNS records to designate all permitted sending servers for SPF, creating and publishing DKIM keys, and establishing clear DMARC policies that align with owners’ concerns for their security levels; domain owners and email receivers actively assessing DMARC reports to understand traffic patterns, determine anomalies or unauthorized senders, and subsequently adjust authentication policies as needed. Domain owners should avoid transitioning from none/inactive to quarantine or reject on a whim so domains don’t risk innocent traffic being blocked. Therefore, increased communication between IT and marketing teams, as well as domain owners and email senders, fosters a more effective transaction with less disruption and increased chances of proper authentication.
The Long-Term Benefits of Robust Email Authentication
The promise of strong email authentication is a worthy long-term investment. While all of the short-term benefits from increased deliverability and security are immediately felt, long-term authentication fosters trust from consumers. More engaged consumers respect brands that take the extra step to maintain their sensitive information, meaning stronger customer loyalty and long-term brand equity.
Furthermore, stronger email authentication translates to fewer phishing incidents which can be costly to resolve and lower costs associated with legal fees or customer fines for data breaches or fraudulent activity against unsuspecting consumers. When brands are able to avoid such pitfalls thanks to educated and learned email authentication they maintain reputational integrity in the long run, as well as financial stability and market advantage.
Staying Ahead in the Evolving Email Security Landscape
These developments in email security will only continue to evolve over time, as each week brings new ways for nefarious actors to exploit the system. Thus, while SPF, DKIM, and DMARC provide a great foundation for security, it’s important that brands pay attention to the evolving landscape, regularly assess authentication, check on DNS changes, as well as search for potential new features for email safety.
In addition, linking email authentication with a larger-scale cybersecurity effort provides better comprehensive protection for the brand. Therefore, when brands are on the cutting edge of news regarding such vulnerabilities and possible improvements and adjust their email authentication strategies accordingly, they protect their image, their clients’ data, and their future potential.
Conclusion
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC Email Authentication are not optional but instead necessary for any brand concerned with successful email deliverability, improved security, and customer trust. Brands that support these authentication measures champion their own brand against increasingly nuanced vulnerabilities and champion the most effective email marketing campaigns to save face. Therefore, adopting such standards allows brands to champion their own customer retention and loyalty now and in the future while beating out the competition for sustained success.
