Every brand puts a lot of effort into making their brands a success. Therefore, making people aware of your brand is a big and crucial part of it. EmailAn email (or electronic mail) is a method of exchanging communications through the internet. It is one of the most used features on the web and the number one mean... marketing is a successful way to reach your target audience. However, not all the emails reach the consumers. Some emails get lost in the spam folder. This costs the brand a heavy loss in sales. Easily prevent it with Email Authentication.

In this article, we try to make you understand what email authentication is. Also, understand what are its benefits, tips and practices. In addition, take a look at some of the best email authentication tools for you.

What Is Email Authentication? 

Email authentication is technical proof that an email is from the genuine sender and is not forged. In other words, it ensures that all the emails received are from the person it claims to be. It makes sure that no third party is faking an email under the name of a certified brand or sender. 

Email authentication protects our emails from getting phished. Email spoofing is a threat to the receivers. Here, emails seem to be sent from a reliable source. Therefore, a huge number of people fall prey to clickbait promoting free gifts. They end up losing all their savings.

To prevent this kind of fraud, email authentication exists. SPIs report all unauthenticated emails to the spam folder. Any unauthenticated can be mistaken for being forged and end up in the spam folder of the receiver. 

Email authentication also allows the brand to keep its information authentic. If anyone from the outside tries to alter the message sent by the brand, they are informed immediately. It ensures the trust of the brand among the customers. 

Email authentication has many benefits and prevents the consumers as well as brands. Therefore, it is important for brands to get their email authentication so that their program doesn’t go dead. It also helps them to earn the trust of their customers.

5 Steps To Email Authentication

Email authentication is one of the most crucial tasks for a brand. To make the process easier, we have jotted down the 5 steps:

• Keep the sender’s address consistent. To make the users trust your brand, you need to maintain a consistent singular address. Do not spam them from different addresses each time. They will report you spam! Keep your addresses recognizable and friendly. Users only open the mails from a trusted source.
• Authenticating your IP address. SPF plays a crucial role in email authentication. It compares the email sender’s actual IP address. With IP addresses authorised to send emails from the respective domain. Every brand has its own registered domain. To make sure that an outsider doesn’t use the domain, SPF does the comparison. Therefore, it is important to get your IP address authenticated so that you do not get lost in the spam folder.
• Confirm DKIM Signatures for your messages. DKIM is an authentication standard. Through cryptography, it signs the messages sent by you to your customers. This signature ensures the confidence of your receiver that the message has not been sent by a third party. Twilio SendGrid is one of the service providers that signs your messages for you.
• DMARC Authentication is crucial to protect your Domain. DMARC protocol uses SPF to prevent phishers from spoofing. This record allows the owner of the domain to instruct their servers about the spoofing. Moreover, it notifies the authorised sender whenever their messages are spoofed.
• Prepare for BIMI. BIMI allows the logo of the brand in front of the emails. So that among all the wild, the users can identify the sender. It is not necessary but it helps your user to identify your messages and your brand.

Top 6 Email Authentication Tools 

Email verification tools scan your email list. In addition, they use checks to remove invalid and spam emails. Some of the best email authentication tools are as follows:

• ZeroBounce. ZeroBounce uses multiple verification processes to verify your emails. It checks for the spam traps, and email addresses that message. Its key features are that it uploads the mail list for verification. In addition, it eliminates the emails that seem invalid to you one by one.
• Mailfloss. Mailfloss is a simple verification tool that verifies your emails in bulk. It detects temporary emails, duplicate emails and spam traps. Also, it carries out daily cleanup and allows you to blacklist senders. It is a well-priced software and provides easy support.
• MailerCheck. It is one of the most popular email marketing platforms and has one of the highest email delivery rates. They verify your emails in bulk to keep you safe. Moreover, they check inactive mailboxes, typos, and disposable email boxes.
• EmailListVerify. It performs a series of checks to clear out invalid emails from your inbox. It also eliminates temporary and duplicate emails. They offer services like bulk list email verification. In addition, check emails with a hard bounce rate. Their monthly subscription rates are based on the number of emails you need to be verified per day.
• Clearout. Clearout removes duplicate emails, spam traps, and emails with a hard bounce rate. It also helps you to create a top list in which you can pin leading B2B potential addresses.
• Email Checker. Email Checker is one of the major email verification tools. It protects you from invalid and spam emails. It identifies addresses with a hard bounce rate. In addition, it corrects your typos and errors.

3 Authentical Email Benefits

Email authentication is one of the most crucial steps that marketers can ensure. To make their mailing campaigns a success. The benefits of email authentication are as follows:

• Protection of your consumers and subscribers. Email authentication ensures the safety of your consumers. Email authentication never allows a third party. To use your domain to get access to your subscribers. If your email is authenticated, your customers will develop trust in your brand. In addition, you won’t be liable for the consumers who get scammed. If you are not authenticated and a customer gets spammed under your name, they become very hesitant to open the mails. Moreover, the news of these scams can spread like a wildfire and destroy the reputation of a brand.
• Protection of the reputation of the brand. Email phishing is the most common way that consumers lose trust in the authenticity of a brand. Email spoofing may alter the message that you are trying to communicate in your emails. It might lead to misunderstandings with your users. Therefore, email authentication will help you prevent all the above consequences. It has tools which eliminate email phishing. In addition, maintain the hard-earned trust of your consumers.
• Supporting email deliverability. Email authentication has a direct effect on the rate of deliverability of emails. The emails land in the inbox of the user once the source and credibility of the address are verified. 

However, if the emails are not authenticated, there is a high chance that they will end up in the spam folder. It is harmful to both the brand and the consumer. Therefore, it prevents brands from sending their information. In addition, the consumer from receiving it hence, acting as a barrier.

Tips And Best Practices For Email Authentication

Emails play an important role in the marketing campaigns of businesses. Email authentication can be a tiresome process for entrepreneurs. But having a few tips at hand always facilitates the user. Here are some of the trusted tips and practices to help you with the email authentication:

• Use a strong email password. It becomes easy for hackers to access your account if your password is weak. It is advisable to use a unique password for your address that you do not use for other accounts.
• Be cautious. Be vary of accessing your email from the free, public or unverified WiFi hotspots. These hotspots might have a way of leaking your information to hackers. 
• Be vary of the phishing emails. Hackers have a way of entering your system by tempting you to open links. However, it is easy to identify fraud emails. You can identify them from grammatical errors, and urgent links to win a free gift. In addition, messages from unknown senders, etc.
• Do not indulge in phishing emails. The best thing to do with phishing emails is to ignore them. They might get your information even if you try to click them or block them. Do not care about replying to them. Just report them and let them rest in your spam box.
• Believe in the Two-factor authentication process. Whenever your consumer’s login into their new account, make sure to send them a mail or SMS. This way you will know that it’s your consumer who is indulging in the process. It never hurts to be double sure of the authenticity and that your consumers feel cared for.

In conclusion

There are a million ways to market one’s brand in today’s world. However, email marketing is one of the most best ways to communicate with your customers. 

When consumers let you in your private space, it is the duty of the brand to maintain its credibility. Ensure that your email is authenticated. In addition, no third party is able to use your brand name to deceive your consumers. You may believe that you are not liable for your customer’s security but that is not true. Therefore, once your customers are deceived using your name they lose faith in you. Therefore, you lose your customers and recommendations. In addition, customers question your credibility. In addition, you might also be liable to a heavy fine in some circumstances.

Email authentication prevents consumers. In addition, it also has innumerable benefits for the brand. These changes might not be visible on the surface but they affect the goodwill of a brand in a huge way. Therefore, email authentication removes the barriers between senders and receivers

In addition, receivers must also be cautious of spam and junk mailers. Therefore, they should avoid giving out their sensitive information to anyone they don’t trust.

Email marketing is one of the easiest ways of creating connections with consumers. Therefore, both parties can take advantage of these tips and by taking precautions.

Have you ever received an important mail that you later found in the spam folder? Have you authenticated your email address? Comment and tell us about your experience with email authentication.