Email Authentication

Email Authentication: Does SPF, DomainKeys, DKIM and SenderId have anything to do with Email Delivery?

Will email authentication help me get my email delivered? NO it won't.

Will I have a better chance of getting the big boys in email to deliver my email if I have email authentication in place? YES it will.

Just how popular is email authentication? Adoption is at over 50% says 2008 survey…

Pretty confusing huh? I am not going to go into the nuts and bolts of email authentication here. But I am going to tell you what it can do for you and your email delivery. Also let me say right now that email authentication is a good thing. Anything that reduces the amount of crap we have to compete with in our subscriber's inboxes is only to our benefit and theirs.

Let's start by talking about what email authentication is NOT before we try to understand exactly what it is.

• It is not a spam filter technology.
• Your email will not magically be delivered by using authentication.
• Your emails will not be deleted if you do not use authentication.

Let's define a little about what it is.

• Authentication has been incorporated into spam filter technologies.
• You don't have a hope in hell of achieving high delivery rate without authentication.
• Your email will not be delivered if email authentication is improperly configured.

Now you are even more confused huh?

Email authentication includes SPF, DomainKeys DKIM and Sender Id in one blanket category. Each is rather different but all are trying to do one thing: Tell any email server that receives your email from your server that it is really from you.

If any email comes in from another server pretending to be from me don't allow it thru because it is NOT from me.

Now that sounds like spam filter tech to me, don't you? Well it is not because spammers set up their own little domains and email servers all with email authentication in place and send a bunch of spam till they get shut down and then they move on.

What authentication does do is to stop spammers from faking your domain as the sender and raising spam complaints against your domain.

Here is a quote from Exact Target's blog on email authentication:

"In 2008, it’s time to utilize sender authentication. Why? As an email marketer, you simply cannot establish a strong reputation without it. While sender authentication doesn’t explicitly prevent spam or phishing scams, it does allow ISPs easy detection of illegal activity, spoofing, and other harmful tactics spammers employ that can negatively affect your brand. Because a spammer can send an email that appears as though it was sent from your domain, your domain is at risk."

"ISPs offer various sender authentication standards such as Sender ID, SPF, and DomainKeys. Using these standards in your email helps ISPs make more informed decisions regarding mail acceptance and disposition, thereby increasing your deliverability rate. If you’re not currently authenticating, 2008 is the year to start."

So How Else does Email Authentication Benefit Me You Ask?

The reasons for eamil authentication is real simple, you will never even be considered for whiltelisting at major ISPs and ESPs if you do not have email authentication in place. Whitelisting gives you premium delivery status and goes hand in hand with your email reputation.

• Priviously AOL would not whitelist you without SPF in place.
• Now AOL will not whitelist you without DomainKeys in place.
• Yahoo! and Gmail will not whitelist you without DKIM in place.
• Microsoft will not whitelist you without SenderID in place.

Spam Assassin now does a check for SPF records. It however does not penalize you for the lack of it but it does apply a spam score of 2.6 if it is improperly configured.

Will email authentication get my email delivered?

No.

But you are not going to get whitelisted at the top ISPs and ESPs without it in place either.

Is it worth my time the understand this and get it set up right.

Yes.

20% of legitimate email is deleted or filtered by mistake! - source Lyris.com Name: Email:

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