Email authentication can make or break your campaign. Email communication is a vital part of any business strategy, but it’s not just about writing a compelling message. How to Verify Your Sender Identity Your email performance depends on reaching your intended audience in the first place.
With email service providers (ESPs) continually tightening their requirements to filter out spam and phishing attempts, email deliverability becomes increasingly challenging for senders. Email authentication isn’t just an optional layer of security anymore — you must verify your emails to reach your subscribers’ inboxes.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through email authentication standards, share up-to-date requirements by ESPs, list the consequences of failing to verify your email domain ownership, and share the best practices for authenticating your emails painlessly.
What is email authentication?
Email authentication is the process of verifying domain ownership by the email sender. It validates you have rightful access to the email address you’re sending from, and you haven’t stolen it from someone else.
There are four email verification methods:
SPF (Sender Policy Framework)
(Domain Keys Identified Mail)
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance)
BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification)
Not familiar with these protocols? Let’s explain each in detail.
Understanding email authentication protocols
Whether you’re setting up email authentication manually or using a dedicated tool, you need to understand the core terminology.
DNS
A DNS record, short for Domain Name norway mobile phone numbers database System record, is a database record used to map domain names to IP addresses and other information associated with a domain. They can be different types, but email authentication protocols like SPF, and DMARC use TXT (text-based) DNS records. You can access your domain’s DNS records in your domain hosting platform.
DNS record example in a hosting platform
Accessing DNS records on the Gandi hosting platform
SPF
SPF is an email authentication method what is hyperpersonalization and how to achieve it in 2024? built around a list of IP addresses associated with a given domain. Only they have the right to send emails on behalf of that domain.
Back to SPF, it requires defining a specific DNS record for a domain, listing the authorized email servers that are allowed to send emails on behalf of that domain.
The mail server you’re sending to checks your domain’s SPF record. If the sending server’s IP address matches one of the authorized IP addresses listed in the SPF record, the email is considered authentic. If not, the email may be flagged or rejected.
Tip: You can use an SPF validation tool like MX Lookup to verify if you’ve set up your SPF record correctly.
is another authentication method that adds a digital signature to the email’s header using asymmetric encryption.
signature example
Here’s how it works:
The sender generates a pair of private and burkina faso leads public keys. The private key is kept secure on the sender’s server, while the public key is published in the DNS records.
When sending an email, the sender’s mail server generates a unique signature based on the email’s content and signs it with the private key.
The receiving server retrieves the public key from the DNS records and validates the signature. If it’s found ok, the email is legit.
DMARC
DMARC is an additional email authentication protocol that goes on top of SPF and . It lets domain owners provide instructions for email receivers on how to handle emails that fail authentication checks. For instance, you can specify if you want unauthenticated emails to be rejected or quarantined (sent to the spam folder).
DMARC also reports on email authentication so domain owners are aware of issues like spoofing attempts.
Tip: It’s recommended that you set your DMARC How to Verify Your Sender Identity policy to ‘p=none’ before you confirm that your legitimate emails don’t fail authentication checks accidentally. When you’re sure the process works properly, you can change it to “quarantine” or “reject”.
In detail: Learn how to configure your SPF, record, and DMARC in just a few steps.
BIMI
BIMI is an authentication method that enhances your sender trust with a recipient.
It displays your brand’s logo next to the email in the recipient’s inbox if the email passes DMARC authentication checks.
Contrary to or SPF authentication, BIMI isn’t required by any email service provider. However, it boosts your credibility in recipients’ eyes and may improve your email engagement — almost half of worldwide users consider an email safe when it contains familiar branding.
BIMI logo verificataion
Source
Important: BIMI is currently supported by a few email providers, including Gmail, Yahoo, and Fastmail, but it’s not available in Outlook.
You can implement BIMI authentication only after you’ve set up SPF, and DMARC. Here’s how:
Upload your logo image (in SVG format) to your public server.
Check out the requirements of your email service provider. For instance, Gmail requires having a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC). You can only get it if you’ve registered your logo as a trademark.
Add a BIMI record to your DNS record. You can format a TXT record using this BIMI generator.
Once you’re all set, you can check your BIMI record using the same tool.
BIMI verification
Source: BIMI Group
Which email authentication method is right for you?
You can, and often should, use multiple email authentication methods at the same time. Combining authentication methods strengthens your email security and deliverability.
Different authentication methods serve different purposes. Using all of them provides comprehensive protection against various risks.