Just because you press the "send" button doesn't mean your commercial bulk email will be delivered. Even if you maintain an opt-in list and follow the CAN-SPAM Act's requirements and industry best practices, it's the Internet Service Provider (ISP) decides whether to deliver (and or mark as spam) your messages to their subscribers. A new feature in Total Blue System increases the likelihood that ISP's will deliver your commercial bulk email, just as you sent it, to your customers and prospects.
Let's take a look at this system called DomainKeys and how it can help drive better results from your email newsletters and sales offers:
DomainKeys is an email authentication system created by Yahoo!. It gives email providers a mechanism for verifying both the domain of each email sender and the integrity of the messages sent (i.e., that they were not changed during transit).
- Since the actual domain can be verified, it can be compared to the domain claimed in the from field of the message. If the sender is genuine, a profile can be established for that domain that can be tied into anti-spam policies. This means your message won't be marked as spam.
- If the email is a forgery, it can be dropped, flagged or quarantined. As Yahoo! says, DomainKeys is an email forger's worst nightmare.
With Total Blue System's Email marketing module now including DomainKeys, when you send an email marketing message, or we send one on your behalf, it will include a digital signature to insure the integrity of the message. Email authentication is a way to ensure that an email actually comes from whoever it claims to come from. It's a vital step in stopping spam, forgery, and fraud.
DomainKeys uses something called a digital signature. A digital signature is a technology used to simulate the security properties of a handwritten signature in digital form. This is done by creating a "private key," available on your outbound mail servers, and a matching "public key," which you publish in DNS. When you send email, your email system automatically uses the stored private key to generate a digital signature of the message which is then attached to the message. The receiving email system fetches the public key from DNS and uses it to verify that the signature was generated by the matching private key (or not).
- When your customers get a commercial bulk email from you, they're likely to see a more "secure" looking icon next to the message that comes with the DomainKey feature. It's up there in the message's "header." What they see depends on their ISP, but here's an example of what it looks like for your customers who have @yahoo.com email accounts:
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Email headers are pieces of information that get attached to an email as it makes its journey from the sender, through various computers on the Internet, and on to the receiver. When you use DomainKeys, a header called DomainKey-Signature: is added to each email. This header contains the digital signature of the message which was generated using the stored private key described in the above section about digital signatures. The authentication information appears in the Standard Message Report/Message Summary. It tells you that the message was signed.
DomainKeys helps with branding.
Preventing forged email helps you in a number of ways, including branding. Using DomainKeys reduces the chance that someone will impersonate your domain and use it for fraudulent purposes, including "phishing attacks" -- the solicitation of personal information such as passwords, credit card numbers, etc.
DomainKeys helps with deliverability.
Using DomainKeys doesn't guarantee that your email will bypass any spam filters on the receiving end, but if your recipients can confirm that the email truly came from you, and if they consider you someone of good reputation, they are more likely to receive and open your mail.
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