Always hitting the spam folder? Learn about email authentication and how it can improve deliverability.
Email is an effective marketing channel when messages reach recipients. The challenge is deliverability. Even if your audience is super receptive, you need to convince email platforms to allow your emails through spam filters.
This is where email authentication becomes really important.
While it’s possible to send emails en masse without verifying your identity, your messages are likely to be marked as spam sooner or later. You can prevent this by taking a few key steps in advance.
In this quickstart guide, we’re going to explain what email authentication is all about and explore how to authenticate your email accounts.
What Is Email Authentication?
Email authentication is about verifying your identity as the sender. It’s a bit like a background check, except there’s no need to dig out your driver’s license or passport.
In most cases, you can authenticate your email account by updating the DNS records of your domain. This creates a cryptographic identifier that allows email service providers to track who is sending emails.
The advantage of authentication is that senders who misbehave can be traced and blocked. On the flip side, good senders (like you) can build up a positive reputation that shields your messages from spam filters.
There are several different protocols for email authentication in use today. New technical standards have been introduced by various organizations over time, in part as a response to emerging cybersecurity threats.
However, the new additions have never replaced the older standards — mainly because senders want to reach every user, including those using older email clients and standard-specific platforms.
Why Does Email Authentication Matter?
The standout reason to authenticate your email is to protect legitimate emails from ending up in spam folders. Repeatedly landing in spam can lead to a damaged sender reputation, resulting in future emails being automatically filtered into spam. This means a drastic reduction in the visibility and effectiveness of your campaigns.
Email authentication acts not only as a proactive measure to avoid this scenario, but also as a remedial step to recover from a previously tarnished reputation.
The reason is that email providers keep a list of senders, where they share information about who has been “naughty or nice.” Authenticated email accounts with a strong sender reputation tend to avoid the clutches of overzealous spam filters. In contrast, accounts that are unverified are usually the first to suffer the spam folder treatment.
Google is taking a particularly hard-line stance. The search giant recently announced that from February 2024 onwards, senders who send 5,000 or more emails each day to Gmail accounts without being verified are likely to see a significant drop in deliverability. There are other good reasons to authenticate your email from a business perspective, as well. Email users want to know that they are receiving a message from a legitimate sender before opening your email. Email spoofing is a common problem, and it can quickly derail trust in your brand.
What Is Email Spoofing?
Email spoofing is when an email appears to have originated from one source, when it was really sent by someone else.
To achieve this sleight of hand, the spoofer simply forges the From: field in the email, to display a name and address of their choosing.
At first inspection, this might sound like nothing more serious than digital mischief. But skilled spoofing can be used for nefarious purposes.
At the low end of the scale, spoofers could use your brand to encourage users to open sales emails for unrelated products.
More worryingly, some cyber criminals use spoofing to lure people into giving up private information or money via phishing scams. Google and Facebook lost a combined total of $100 million in a single attack of this type back in 2017.
If you don’t want your name or brand caught up in this type of problem, email authentication is a must.
How Email Authentication Works
Whenever someone sends an email, providers want to check the message. More specifically, they try to confirm:
- The identity of the email sender.
- That the email content has not been altered.
To achieve this, email platforms use various different verification systems. Some check the email server that sent the message, while others examine the digital signature and encryption that were used by the sender.
4 Key Email Authentication Methods
Today, there are four email authentication standards in common usage, and another 5–10 less common or emerging standards that address specific use cases.
You don’t have to use them all. But verifying yourself with all four core standards is highly recommended. Here’s a closer look at each of them:
1. SPF: Sender Policy Framework
