Despite the rise of new digital marketing channels, emails remain a powerful, cost-effective marketing strategy that enable businesses to connect with their customers and prospects. The first step to guarantee the success of your email marketing is to ensure seamless email deliverability.
Two email authentication protocols you can use to ensure your emails reach the inbox of your targets are DKIM and DMARC. What are DKIM and DMARC, and why are they essential? Make sure you keep reading!
First, What Is Email Authentication?
Let's say that you receive an email from your bank claiming that there has been suspicious activity on your account, and they ask you to click on a link to verify your information. The email contains the bank’s logo and email format, appearing to protect you from cybercriminals, and includes urgent language to create a sense of urgency.
Some emails look good – when in reality, they are dangerous. Email authentication is a method used to verify the authenticity and integrity of email messages. By implementing email authentication protocols, the likelihood of successfully detecting and mitigating email-based threats, like phishing attempts, would increase.
In the scenario above, if the email fails any authentication checks in place, it would raise red flags for both the email service provider (e.g., Microsoft Outlook, Gmail) and the recipient, helping to prevent potential harm or unauthorized access to personal information.
As a marketer, it is important to understand how email filtering algorithms work and to properly set up DNS (Domain Name System) records to prevent emails from being marked as spam and increase their deliverability rate.
Think about it - if your emails get flagged as spam or phishing messages, they will likely end up not being opened or read. Implementing email authentication protocols can enhance email security, reduce the risk of email impersonation, and provide better protection against phishing attacks.
Two of the commonly used authentication protocols today are DKIM and DMARC. In simple terms, the purpose of DKIM and DMARC is to verify that a sender is authorized to send emails on their domain's behalf and verify the authenticity of email messages.
What Is DKIM?
DKIM, or DomainKeys Identified Mail, is a method that allows the sender of an email to digitally sign the message using cryptographic techniques. In the same way that the signature on a check helps confirm who wrote it, the DKIM signature is added to the email header, and the receiving end’s mail server can check it to verify the email’s legitimacy.
The DKIM signature assures that the email was not tampered with during transit and genuinely came from the stated domain. By validating the DKIM signature, the recipient can determine if the email is authentic and from a trusted source. If the DKIM signature was used, the message is considered legitimate, and the receiving mail server gives it a PASS and lets it in the recipient’s inbox.
Here's a simplified overview of how DKIM works:
DKIM helps combat email spoofing and tampering, providing a mechanism to verify that an email is legitimately sent by the claimed sender domain and that email content is original and unaltered. It enhances email security, reduces the risk of phishing, and keeps you away from spam folders by establishing your sender reputation.
What Is DMARC?
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) is an email authentication protocol that builds upon DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) and SPF (Sender Policy Framework). In other words, for DMARC to work, it requires either an SPF or a DKIM record or both of them to be set.
DMARC lets domain owners specify policies for how incoming emails that originate from their domain should be handled by the recipient's mail servers. DMARC helps combat email spoofing by providing a framework for email senders to authenticate their messages using DKIM and SPF and instruct the recipient's mail server on what should happen to emails if they fail authentication.
DMARC policies can be set to three different levels:
DMARC helps prevent email spoofing, phishing attacks, and domain abuse by allowing domain administrators to control how their domain is handled in terms of email authentication failures. Below is a simplified overview of how DMARC works:
As a sender, performing routine monitoring of DMARC reports is crucial, particularly if you run multiple email campaigns regularly and send emails to a large group of people all at once.
DMARC reports will let you know of any phishing or spoofing attempts to your domain, as well as informs you if your own emails are getting rejected because of failed DKIM or failed SPF checks. By monitoring your DMARC record, you can adjust your authentication policies in cases where legitimate emails are erroneously getting marked as spam.
Key Takeaways
DKIM and DMARC, along with SPF records, have to be set up in the domain’s Domain Name System (DNS) settings. These email authentication protocols help establish trust in the email system by ensuring that the sender's identity can be verified and that the message has not been tampered with while in transit from server to server.
Both DKIM and DMARC helps combat various types of email messaging threats, including spam, phishing, and email spoofing. These protocols work together to provide a layered approach to email authentication. As a sender, implementing these protocols can improve the chances of your emails being delivered successfully and mitigate the risk of your domain being abused for illegitimate purposes. Meanwhile, email recipients can use these protocols to determine the authenticity of incoming emails and identify potentially fraudulent or malicious email messages.