Newsletters are a key element of many organisations’ marketing strategy, but their security is critical to their success. This blog article will show you how essential robust security measures are to maintain subscriber trust and ensure deliverability.
Why are security basics essential for newsletter mailings?
Newsletters play an important role in corporate communications. Their security contributes significantly to protection against email forgery, spam and phishing and is crucial for the authenticity and integrity of every message. Implementing the technical measures SPF, DKIM and DMARC is not only important for building trust with recipients, but also increases the likelihood that your message will actually be received.
SPF: Protection of the sender domain in detail
The Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an essential mechanism that prevents the falsification of sender addresses by enabling incoming emails to be checked for authorisation. An SPF record is stored in the DNS of the sender domain and contains a list of IP addresses that are authorised to send emails for this domain. When an email is received, the recipient’s mail server checks this SPF record to determine whether the sending IP address is authorised. If this is not the case, the email can be categorised as spam or a phishing attempt.
DKIM: Securing email integrity
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) ensures that the content of an email remains unchanged from the sender to the recipient by providing each email with a digital signature. This signature is created with a private key and can be verified by the recipient with a public key that is stored in the sender’s DNS. This verification confirms that the e-mail has not been manipulated on its way and contributes to the authenticity of the message.
DMARC: Comprehensive authentication and reporting
DMARC builds on SPF and DKIM and allows domain owners to define policies on how to deal with emails that fail these checks. DMARC also offers the possibility of obtaining reports that provide information about all emails sent on behalf of the domain and help to detect and combat abuse.
Conclusion and call for action
Setting up security measures is a crucial step to ensure the success of your newsletter campaigns and to strengthen the trust of your recipients. We recommend that every newsletter sender actively works with their email service provider to ensure the implementation of SPF, DKIM and DMARC. These standards are essential to increase email security and protect against threats such as spoofing and phishing.
As an experienced software partner of Elaine, we provide the necessary technical support and guide our customers through the entire process of setting up and managing these security protocols. Our goal is to ensure that our customers’ newsletters meet the highest security requirements by optimising deliverability, protecting their brand and minimising risk.
Whether you’re already an Elaine customer or working with another ESP, newsletter mailing security basics are key to secure and trustworthy email communications. We are ready to support you with our expertise and resources and guide your organisation on its journey to a secure and effective newsletter strategy.