What is SPF?
Sender Policy Framework (SPF), the most basic form of email identity authentication, is an email authentication protocol designed to help detect and prevent email spoofing. It allows domain owners to list all authorized IP addresses that are allowed to send emails on their behalf. When an email is sent, the receiving server will check if the associated domain has an SPF record to verify the legitimacy of the sent email. The email will be either rejected or sent to the spam folder for failing to pass SPF authentication if the sender's IP address is not listed in the SPF record. This means that scammers, spammers, and fraudsters cannot maliciously spoof your company's domain.
Implementing SPF also signals to ISPs that your emails are safe and trustworthy, and that your sending domain is legitimate, which can help improve deliverability.
Why configure SPF?
Prevent spoofing
Spoofing means spammers and hackers may use your domain or company name to send fraudulent emails on your behalf. Hackers may convey false information, send malicious links or malware, and deceive recipients into providing sensitive information such as their bank account details. SPF protects the receiving email server by allowing it to verify that the emails sent from your domain actually come from you and not from a hacker. This reduces any malicious attempts from your email address.
With SPF, recipients can be confident that the emails they receive are from the expected sources. Senders can rest assured that phishing attempts will not deceive their audience or exploit their brand.
Improve email deliverability
SPF ensures that the emails you send reach recipients' inboxes rather than their spam folders. If your domain doesn't have a published SPF record, the receiving email server won't be able to determine if the email truly comes from you or a hacker, resulting in the possibility of the receiving domain marking your email as spam. Your message might be rejected altogether because your domain is unverified by any identity authentication protocols.
How does SPF work?
SPF checks the sending IP address against the authorized IP address list to ensure they match. When SPF is in use, your email will be sent to the inbox of the receiving domain, thereby increasing email deliverability.
Once the sending IP address and the authorized IP address match, the SPF protocol informs other servers that your email is safe.
SPF is often used in conjunction with DKIM and DMARC to allow organizations to assert ownership of messages, which are verified by the receiving organizations. Enabling DKIM for sent emails helps verify whether the email is sent from an authorized domain, preventing forgery and the sending of malicious emails and spam and improving email deliverability.
How can SmartPush help you implement SPF?
After creating a SmartPush account, you can choose to send emails using the SmartPush default domain or opt for a custom brand domain. SmartPush will automatically generate and manage the TXT records for you whether it be a default domain or a custom domain.
Default Domain
Upon successful account registration, you can directly select the default domain for sending emails. The default domains of SmartPush are sender domains that have completed SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication.
Custom Domain
SmartPush will help you automatically generate TXT records of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for custom domain authentication. If you upload the brand logo when authenticating the domain, it will also automatically generate TXT records of BIMI for you. Your domain administrator can easily publish the TXT entries to the DNS records of your domain to complete the authentication.
Note: If you haven’t uploaded the brand logo, we will only add SPF and DKIM email authentication, with a "P=none" DMARC policy. If you have uploaded the brand logo, we will help you add SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and BIMI authentication with the "P=quarantine" or "P=reject" DMARC policy.
You can view the authentication status of all custom domains by going to [Settings] > [Domain Management] on SmartPush.
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