Email delivery is a minefield. The rules are always changing. What’s right for Hotmail, doesn’t work for Gmail. You need SPF compliance, Sender ID, DKIM, Domain Keys and DMARC. Some people say it’s best to send from a shared IP pool, some that it’s best to have your own IP. The goal posts keep moving and what you thought you knew last year has changed. Only this weekend there was a discussion on the Only Influencers email group discussing some possible Gmail changes last Thursday that have impacted Gmail delivery. Webmail clients, like Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook (Hotmail), never announce changes to their filtering methods so we’re all left to scramble around trying to guess what they’ve done. All of…
DKIM
Why you should care about DMARC
This may be the most boring blog you read but it is important and although it is a little tech-heavy, persevere, it will pay off! What is DMARC and why should you care? Let me start by explaining what DMARC is and then how it works. DMARC stands for ‘Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance’ and it is a technical specification for email which is gradually gaining a foothold in the market. Its purpose is to standardise how receiving email servers perform email authentication, using the accepted mechanisms of DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) and SPF (Sender Policy Framework). What it means to email marketers is consistent authentication results with all ISPs and inbound mail receivers which implement the DMARC standard…