The importance of authentication

In their fight against spam and phishing, email providers are becoming increasingly strict and are placing more demands on senders like Laposta. The best and most powerful way to let email providers know that you are indeed the sender of your newsletter and to ensure that your newsletter is actually delivered to the inbox of your contacts is to authenticate your domain.

This is why authentication is so important

Authentication is becoming increasingly important to prevent your newsletters from landing in the spam folder or not arriving at all, especially after new measures that have been introduced by Gmail and Hotmail. 

But what exactly is authentication?
If you send newsletters from your own domain (like info@yourcompany.com), you want to show that you are truly the owner of that domain. You do this through authentication, by adding special rules to your DNS settings. DNS stands for Domain Name System and essentially works like the phonebook of the internet. Here, email providers can check if you are who you say you are. The rules you add ensure that your domain is recognized as trustworthy.

As a user of Laposta, you only need to add a few DNS records (a maximum of three) for authentication. In your account, you can see exactly which ones. You just need to copy them into Laposta and paste them into your DNS settings.
Thus, you don’t need to make any adjustments to your SPF or DKIM.

Why authentication is good for you as a sender

Activating authentication is beneficial for you in several ways as a sender of newsletters:

• Better deliverability: your campaigns are more likely to reach the inbox of your recipients rather than the spam box. This means that your important messages are actually read.

• Improved reputation: you build a better (sending) reputation as a sender. Email providers see you as a trustworthy source, which further increases the chances of successful future deliveries.

• Protection against abuse: authentication also helps to prevent malicious actors from abusing your domain for sending spam or phishing emails. This protects both your reputation and that of your recipients.

Check your authentication

Have you already authenticated your domain? Check it yourself on your Settings → Authentication page. You will immediately see the status of the domains for which you have placed a sending address in your account. If authentication for your domain is mandatory (for example, because your host has set the security standard DMARC), you will automatically see a notification about this in your account.

If you still need to set up authentication, you can follow the instructions displayed on your screen. You can also follow this guide in which you are walked through the authentication process step by step and find examples from different hosting providers, with instructions specific to their own DNS settings management panel.

Do you have questions? Feel free to contact us at helpdesk@laposta.nl.