An important channel of communication in business, is email. If you regularly use mails or are into digital marketing, you might know that SPF and DKIM are the necessary email authentication components. It protects the senders from spamming, spoofing, and phishing. Before we discuss how these components can affect your email deliverability, let’s know them individually.
Sender Policy Framework or SPF
It is an email authentication form that validates the mail server’s authorization from where the email has been sent. It is done to prevent spam and avoid forgery. Using the spf email protocols, domain owners can precisely identify the servers from which they send the emails.
How does it work?
The SPF works following the below three steps:
- A list of mail servers are authorized to send emails from a particular domain; the domain administrator publishes a policy defining those servers. These policies are called SPF, and they are a part of the overall DNS report.
- The incoming mail gets received on the inbound server. The servers look up to the rules for the return path or bounce domain in the overall DNS. The Inbound server compares the mail sender’s IP address with the SPF records’ authorized ones.
- The incoming mail server then uses the specified rules of the sender’s domain SPF to determine what they should do with the email. They would either accept, reject, or flag it.
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)
Using public-key cryptography, DKIM verifies email messages sent from an authorized server. It allows an organization to claim responsibility for a sent email in a certain way that the users validate. DomainKeys Identified Mail helps in preventing forged emails and avoid spam.
How does it work?
The DKIM works following the below three steps:
- A cryptographic key is published by the domain owner, which is formatted as the TXT record. It is present all over the DNS record.
- Once the message gets sent by an outbound mail server, it generates and attaches a unique DKIM signature to the message’s header.
- Inbound servers use this DKIM key to decrypt the signatures and compare the same with the fresh ones. The message would be proved authentic once both the values match. They should remain unaltered and unforged in the whole transit process.
In case you need to send commercial emails, you would need to use both SPF and DKIM. These will protect your emails from phishing and spam. It would improve your relationship with your customers and enhance the brand’s reputation. In other words, SPF and DKIM are one of the essential components that help to land your emails in your customer’s inboxes rather than the spam folders. It will help you generate more revenues as your customers will see your marketing emails.
By properly implementing these components in your email sending process, you will be able to improve your overall email deliverability conditions. Sending secure emails would strengthen your brand reputation and help you to stay ahead in the marketing game.
