As an email marketer you’ll spend hours crafting the perfect email, ensuring that you’re sending something exciting and new to your customers. Then, you send it out only for it to land in that junk folder. That’s the last thing you want, so how do you get around it?
The best way is to use email domain authentication, so you can show you’re legit. That way, those spam filters aren’t going to catch you and ruin all that hard work. Here’s what it is, why you want it, and how to use it.
Firstly, what is email authentication, exactly? It’s a way that ISPs can check an email that comes through to you, and ensure that it’s legitimate. It does this by checking the address listed in the From field against the source of the email. If the two match, then it knows that it’s a legit email and will let it through.
There are plenty of spammers out there that will try to spoof email addresses and names, in order to catch out unwary people. If the email domain looks legit, then they’re more likely to open it and fall victim to what’s inside. Email authentication aims to cut down on this occurring, by catching those spammers before they even reach your inbox.
As well as this, these systems can pick up on other scamming methods too. For example, they can catch whether the email was changed in transit, which is what often what happens in machine in the middle attacks.
Using email authentication in your favor: As a business, email authentication ensures that your contacts get your emails, without them having to dig through their junk folder to get it. That ensures that everyone sees what you have to offer.
There are lots of different ways to use email authentication, and each method will have it’s own setup process. Typically, you’ll set up the rules for establishing emails sent from your domain, and then your servers will implement the rules. These will be published in your Domain Name System (DNS), which records each sending domain.
When you send emails, they’ll go through these checks. If they pass, then your email will be sent right to the inbox. If it fails, then it will be sent to the junk folder.
So email authentication looks useful, but it is something you should be investing time and money into? When it comes to protecting your brand, it’s something that you need more than you know.
Spammers are getting more creative, and you need to be able to beat them at their own game. If they can trick people into thinking they’re you, then they can cause all sorts of harm. If they manage to trick others into thinking they’re legit, then they can wreak all kinds of havoc. That includes spam, phishing, and other malicious communications. That’s going to severely dent customer trust, and that’s going to affect your business’s reputation.
As well as this, you need to think about your ROI. Crafting those marketing emails will take time and money, and you don’t want it to go to waste. If you’re not investing in email authentication, then there are going to be so many of your emails that are going straight into junk folders, never to be read. That’s a missed opportunity, and you shouldn’t let that happen.
When you start using email authentication, you’ll start seeing a better ROI almost right away. That’s simply because more people are seeing your emails, and so you’re getting through to more people.
Ready to get started with email authentication? There are multiple ways to do it, depending on the email platform that you use for your emails. BlueDot Email is the most popular email platform that companies use, so let’s see how the system works here. It’s a lot easier than you’d think to get set up.
Verify your domain: Before you do anything else, you’ll need to verify your domain. That will show that you’re the person or business who owns it, and so if an email comes from this domain, it should be legit. Take the time to do this first before you get started.
Be aware too that you won’t be able to verify emails from free domains, such as Gmail or Yahoo. If you’re using these and want to use email authentication, you’ll want to consider making the move to your own domain.
Pasting the authentication info: Now you’re verified, you’ll have some info that you’ll need to paste into your domain CNAME records. What exactly you’ll need to copy will depend on the service you use, so you’ll need to get the customised steps that BlueDot Email will give you.
To do this, click ‘Setup Email Domain’ on your BlueDot account from the Profile dropdown options, then ‘Start authentication’. Choose your domain provider from the drop-down menu, and click ‘next’. Then, you’ll need to follow the instructions you’re given to start authenticating. Copy the values you’re asked for into the fields, and then click ‘next’.
Confirm authentication: This part won’t actually need anything from you. Once you’ve sent all the data over, BlueDot Email will verify that it’s all correct. Then once it’s done, you’ll see that your domain is listed as ‘authenticated’ in the” Setup Email Domain” page. Remember, if you need to change details later on, de-authenticate it before authenticating again with the new information. That way everything will be correct and working as planned.
And there you have it. It’s easier than you’d think to authenticate your domain, and once you do it will give such a better ROI on your marketing emails. Plus, you’ll protect trust in your name as spammers won’t be able to spoof you. Start the authentication process now, so you can get the full benefit of your marketing emails.
