Best Practices to Prevent Emails Ending up in Recipients Spam Folder

Best Practices to Prevent Emails Ending up in Recipients Spam Folder

Introduction to SPF, DKIM, and DMARC

SPF, DKIM AND DMARC are authentication methods designed to prevent email spoofing. In this day, regardless of whether you are using Black Pearl Mail or not, it is considered standard practice to implement SPF, DKIM and DMARC in order to reduce the chances of your emails ending up in your recipients spam folder.

What is email spoofing?

Email spoofing is when an attacker sends an email that appears to come from your organisation using a rogue email server. 

How does SPF & DKIM work?

SPF works by publishing the known IP addresses that your email will be sent from. The recipient can then use these IPs to determine if the email came from the actual sender. If it doesn't match one of the IP addresses in the SPF record, then the recipient can mark the email as spam.

DKIM works by creating a public and private key pair. The private key is used to add a digital signature to the headers of the email. The public key is publicly available so that the digital signature can be validated. If the signature isn't validated, then the recipient can flag the email as spam.

What about DMARC?

DMARC utilises SPF and DKIM to determine the authenticity of an email. It allows email senders to determine how recipients should handle messages that are failing DKIM and SPF (i.e. reject, quarantine, allow).

What next?

Black Pearl Mail strongly recommend that you implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, following the recommended best practices from your email provider. You can follow these practices in the help articles found in the section below.

Configuring SPF


When setting up SPF for M365, we also recommend including our Black Pearl Mail SPF entry into your record; include:_spfv2.blackpearlmail.com. As an example, if you are using M365, then your SPF may look something like the below:
v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com include:_spfv2.blackpearlmail.com ~all

If you are using Google Workspace, then your SPF record may look something like the below:
v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com include:_spfv2.blackpearlmail.com ~all

Please note, that your SPF record may also contain other entries for additional services you may use to send email such as Mail Chimp or your CRM provider.


Configuring DKIM

Click here for Microsoft's best practices for DKIM (Note: ensure 2048 bit key is generated if possible)
Click here for Google's best practices on DKIM (Note: ensure 2048 bit key is generated if possible)

Configuring DMARC


If you have any questions related to this article, please contact support@blackpearlmail.com for assistance.

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