The One Crucial Step You Probably Haven’t Taken For Email Deliverability

With #GivingTuesdayNow around the corner, you’re probably looking for the best ways to maximize your fundraising on a tight timeline. The use of email is a major component of any successful campaign; however, this isn’t limited to crafting a message and sending it to your audience. You’ll want to make sure you maintain high deliverability and ensure that your message reaches the people who care about it. This means suppressing inactive recipients and sending to your most engaged supporters. Another important, but often overlooked, step is to get DKIM and SPF set up with your email service provider. 

What are they? 

DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)   

DKIM is a cryptographic form of email authentication. It uses “public key cryptography” to verify that an email message was sent from an authorized mail server.  

Sender Policy Framework (SPF)   

SPF is an IP-based form of email authentication in which the sender of an email message is verified by the domain owner and given authorization. The domain owner can identify which mail servers they’re able to send from with SPF protocols.  

Why are they important?  

Inbox providers, such as Microsoft, recently started filtering email without valid entries. DKIM and SPF work to establish a public record to validate email messages so that the legitimacy of senders can be verified, which is kind of like saying: “Expect to receive email from my organization from these email servers.” These processes help detect forgery, prevent spam, and consequently can have large impacts on email deliverability.  

How do I get started?  

The set-up process for DKIM and SPF is a bit technical, and will be most easily accomplished by contacting your domain administrator and your email provider. Both will be able to work with you, provide step-by-step instructions, and ensure that these features are enabled. 

If you don’t do anything else for #GivingTuesdayNow, do this to boost your email deliverability and make sure that your appeals reach as many people as possible. If you’ve already got DKIM and SPF set up, or you’d like some more quick tips for boosting your #GivingTuesdayNow fundraising, you can watch our recent webinar on the topic, “Just in Time: Tactics for #GivingTuesdayNow” to get the insight you need from experts you can trust.