Introduction
Deliverability is crucial for any sender when it comes to email communication. Your marketing efforts will go in vain if your emails fail to reach your customers' inboxes.
With the increasing number of phishing, fraudulent, and deceptive emails, recipients are losing trust in the authenticity of emails. Legitimate senders are often mistaken for brand impersonators, leading to emails being marked as spam, landing in the junk folder, or even being blocked altogether.
The Phishing Statistics and Email Fraud Statistics in 2019 reported that phishing criminals create approximately 1.5 million new phishing sites every month, impersonating various company brands for fraudulent activities. 76% of businesses reported being victims of phishing email attacks.
Therefore, at SmartPush, our top priority is to safeguard the reputation of your brand and domain. This article will guide you through the four major authentication methods - SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and BIMI, to enhance the security and deliverability of your emails.
What is Email Authentication?
Email authentication is used by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to determine if you are a legitimate sender. It helps prove that an email is not forged, thus preventing phishing emails.
Besides preventing spam, phishing, and fraudulent attacks, email authentication can also improve your deliverability, which is crucial for all email marketers. ISPs can differentiate between legitimate and phishing emails, reducing the risk of being targeted.
On the contrary, neglecting email authentication may harm your brand reputation and deliverability, wasting your marketing costs.
Types of Authentications
Different authentication methods are responsible for various verification stages and require mutual collaboration to achieve the best results. Here are the four common authentication methods, you can click to check further details:
SPF, DKIM, DMARC: Enhancing Protection for Your Sending Domain
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are the three most important email identity authentication protocols. You can verify your legitimate emails and prevent hackers from attacking your domain by implementing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. They can also:
- Prevent hackers from deceiving and sending fraudulent emails using your domain.
- Earn the trust of ISPs as a verified sender.
- Demonstrate compliance with customers, government agencies, and other third parties regarding the content of your sent emails.
- Improve your email deliverability and avoid your emails being classified as spam.
SPF: The First Step to DMARC Compliance
DMARC compliance starts with SPF. SPF helps identify the IP addresses authorized to send emails from a specific domain. This authentication policy lets ISPs determine when fraudsters and phishers attempt to send malicious emails to your users by impersonating your domain.
By using SPF, recipients can be confident that the emails they receive come from the expected source, while senders can rest assured that fraudsters cannot deceive recipients using their domain.
DKIM: Further Strengthening DMARC Compliance
Once SPF is enabled and functioning correctly, you should start implementing DKIM. DKIM allows domain owners to send digitally signed emails, allowing recipients to verify that the emails are genuine and haven't been altered during transmission. When an ISP receives an incoming email, it retrieves the sender's public key to decrypt the signature. If the DKIM value matches, the email passes the identity authentication; otherwise, it fails.
Note: DKIM does not react to emails that don't pass authentication. It requires the complement of DMARC authentication to complete the final protection strategy.
How SPF and DKIM Combine in DMARC
DMARC is an anti-spoofing email authentication protocol that utilizes SPF and DKIM to enhance the security of domain-based emails.
-
SPF authentication: It checks if the email comes from an IP address authorized to send messages on behalf of the domain.
-
DKIM authentication: It verifies the sender's authorization and ensures that the email hasn't been altered during transmission by validating the digital DKIM signature.
-
DMARC policy and alignment: DMARC policy and alignment further validate SPF and DKIM authentication. If an email fails SPF and DKIM authentication, the DMARC policy you've deployed will be implemented. If the email passes authentication, it will enter the recipient's inbox.
BIMI: Advanced Identity Authentication on top of DMARC
BIMI allows you to display your brand logo in the inbox. Your emails stand out among competitors in this way, and your customers can trust the legitimacy of your emails.
BIMI builds upon the DMARC standard. Before implementing BIMI, you need to be DMARC compliant, which requires having proper SPF and DKIM records.
Therefore, to make BIMI works for you, you first need to verify your SPF and DKIM, start implementing DMARC, and guarantee the DMARC policy "p=quarantine" or "p=reject";
The three benefits for adding the BIMI certification:
- Enhance brand influence;
- Increase email open rates by displaying logos;
- Improve the sender's reputation through positive feedback with a high open rate.
How SmartPush Helps Stores Complete Identity Authentication
SmartPush supports you to authenticate the custom domain name at one time without repeated operations:
Step 1. Go to [Settings] > [Sender domain] on SmartPush and click Add domain.
Step 2. Enter the domain to be authenticated and logo (optional)
If you upload the logo: The TXT records for SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and BIMI authentication will be generated automatically. The domain administrator needs to add these TXT records to the domain management backend to authenticate the four domains.
If you do not upload a logo: The TXT records for SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication will be generated automatically. The domain administrator needs to add these TXT records to the domain management backend to authenticate the three domains. However, the DMARC policy will be set as "P=none."
Step 3. Set up the sender email - an authenticated domain name supports adding up to 3 usernames.
Set up the authentication with these 3 steps and you can send your marketing emails with ease!
You can view and manage all the authenticated domains on the "Domain Management" page.
Last but not the least
Email phishing attacks are constantly evolving, so no one should ignore the importance of domain authentication. Hackers always attempt to impersonate your brand and lure customers into disclosing sensitive information. Email marketers should implement aforementioned authentication protocols to prevent phishing attacks and improve marketing campaign efficiency and boost conversion rates.
Comments