March 2016 Summaries

Sending transactional email is often perceived as easy, but it requires more than just connecting an ESP and sending emails. Due to the prevalence of spam and phishing, internet service providers are increasingly cautious, and ensuring fast delivery to the inbox is crucial for businesses that rely on transactional emails. Delayed or missing emails can result in lost sales, support costs, and damaged reputations. Email service providers' financial incentives often lie with quantity rather than quality, leading them to focus on generating revenue from bulk campaigns rather than delivering high-quality services. As a result, customers are often unaware of the true impact of delayed emails on their business. It's time for email service providers to prioritize transparency and become more open about their deliverability rates, delivery speeds, and performance metrics.

The importance of maintaining a good domain reputation cannot be overstated, as it significantly impacts email deliverability and can lead to messages being sent to spam. A customer's emails were consistently going to Spam in Gmail due to issues with their sending practices, which revealed the need to focus on domain reputation. The use of tools such as Domain IP reputation provided valuable insights into the sender's reputation, highlighting the importance of using reputable email servers and following best practices like TLS, DKIM, SPF, and DMARC. This experience underscores the significance of responsible domain ownership and the shift in responsibility from ESPs to domain owners to maintain a good reputation.

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) is a security protocol that helps prevent spam and phishing attacks by verifying the authenticity of emails. A custom Return-Path plays a crucial role in DMARC alignment, as it ensures that the domain in the Return-Path matches the domain in the "From" address, allowing DMARC to verify the legitimacy of the email and pass or reject it accordingly. When an ESP (Email Service Provider) like Postmark is used to power email for a domain, setting up a custom Return-Path helps align with SPF records, making it easier to implement DMARC policies. While not all ESPs support custom Return-Paths, DKIM records can still be used to achieve alignment and prevent spam messages from reaching recipients' inboxes.