We’re big on email. We’re big on deliverability. We think we wrote a pretty darn good guide about it.
One of the common issues we’ve seen with email marketers is that they don’t authenticate their domains.
What is domain authentication?
It’s a way to provide verifiable information about the origin of the message, or in other words, to prove you (the domain owner) sent the email and not someone else.
Why is domain authentication useful?
Two reasons:
- Deliverability. Most inbox providers prefer authenticated emails, so your chances of avoiding the spam folder increase significantly. It can also help for reaching the Primary tab in Gmail (but doesn’t guarantee it).
- Protection against malicious emailers. When authenticating your domain, you can tell the receiving server to reject unauthenticated emails. This way, nobody can spoof your domain.
How do you authenticate a domain?
There are 4 things you need to set up to be fully authenticated: DKIM, SPF, DMARC and BIMI.
- First, you should set up DKIM. It’s probably the easiest.
- Then, SPF is next because you also need it for DMARC right after.
- Third on the list is DMARC with a “reject” or “quarantine” policy because that’s needed for BIMI.
- Lastly, set up BIMI to have the domain authenticated and also get a nice profile picture in some inboxes so you can stand out in the crowd of emails.
You’re ready and spoof-proof!
Go and conquer those inboxes!