{"id":42858,"date":"2024-01-11T07:00:41","date_gmt":"2024-01-11T15:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dhblog.dream.press\/blog\/?p=42858"},"modified":"2025-05-21T18:21:44","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T01:21:44","slug":"email-authentication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www-dev.dreamhost.com\/blog\/email-authentication\/","title":{"rendered":"Email Authentication: How To Avoid The Spam Folder"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A survey of email marketing strategies around the world found that for every dollar spent, the average American business made $36<\/a>. In the EU and UK combined, the return on investment (ROI) is more like $41 for every dollar \u2014 possibly due to solid privacy regulations that help prevent spam<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it\u2019s no surprise the same study found that a massive 87% of brands call email \u201cvery critical\u201d to the success of their overall business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you haven\u2019t yet delved into the world of email to attract and retain a solid customer base, stop here and go read our very comprehensive email marketing guide<\/a> first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you\u2019re ready to refine your email marketing program and further increase ROI, we\u2019ll show you how in this guide to setting up email authentication to improve deliverability and protect your customers. <\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Is Email Authentication?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

First, a little clarification before we begin. Inbox service providers (ISPs) including Gmail, Yahoo, etc. are sometimes lumped in with email service providers (ESPs) like Mailchimp. However, we think it\u2019s important to differentiate between free ISPs that are meant for personal use and paid ESPs that focus on email marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alright, now let\u2019s dive in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Email authentication, or email validation, is a process ESPs put into place to filter out as much spam, phishing, scamming, spoofing, and other malicious action as possible before it hits inboxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The steps involved in editing your domain name system (DNS<\/a>) settings to enable the three most widely-embraced email authentication methods on your website \u2014 SPF, DKIM, and DMARC \u2014 put security processes in place to confirm the source and legitimacy of an email sender and message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

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DNS<\/h3>\n

The Domain Name System (DNS) protocol keeps records of which domain names correspond to specific IP addresses. DNS enables you to browse the web by typing in regular URLs instead of IP addresses.<\/p>\n \n Read More <\/a>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Today, all legitimate ISPs and most ESPs look for as many of the above protocols as possible attached to email messages before they deliver them. If you don\u2019t put them in place correctly, it raises red flags that you may not be a trustworthy sender. That can cause your messages to be relegated to the spam folder, or never even delivered at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seem like overkill?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s easy to think when you\u2019re not aware of how much spam email is flying around the internet every day \u2014 which is precisely<\/i> because email authentication is working as intended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Do I Need Authentication If I Use An Email Marketing Platform?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s get this out of the way at the top. Simply, yes, you should still set up email authentication via your website even when using a trusted ESP, aka email marketing platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Mailchimp for example \u2014 we keep going back to them because they\u2019re well known and have lots of helpful documentation on this matter<\/a> \u2014 users with domains that are not hosted by Mailchimp are encouraged to set up their own email authentication. This is because Mailchimp enables authenticated email on their hosted domains by default, as do many domain hosting<\/a> solutions, including DreamHost (DreamHost email<\/a> actually works with any<\/i> domain you own!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is probably the time to note that you should check with your domain host on whether or not email authentication is already set up on your website. We should also make it clear that you can only secure email authentication on domains you own \u2014 there\u2019s no authenticating Gmail, Yahoo, and other ISP addresses. Being able to authenticate your emails is just one several reasons why we\u2019re proponents of small businesses having custom email addresses<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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