Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is the authentication of emails to ensure that they originate from a verified sender. For instance, if an email is sent from blogiestools.com, the email recipient’s server performs a background check to confirm if the sender is blogiestools.com, if not then the email is automatically marked as spam or rejected by the recipient’s email server.
SPF works well when used together with other email authentications methods like DKIM and DMARC.
Benefits of SPF
The main function of SPF is to prevent spammers from using your domain name to send emails. For someone to use your domain to send emails, the emails must originate from your domain.
Other than preventing email spoofing, the benefit of setting up SPF in email marketing is to improve email deliverability.
Setting Up SPF
Setting up SPF records incorrectly can result in email sending failure. If you are using cPanel, you can set up SPF using the procedure below:
- Login to cPanel Account
- Go to Email Deliverability
- Click SPF Enable
- Enter your name and SPF value (provided by your email service provider or SMTP platform)
- Then Click Install
- Give some minutes and then Refresh the page
- Email Deliverability status should read as Valid
- You are done
You can test, by sending an email from your domain. It should read from example@yourdomain.com if everything was set up correctly.
You might be interested to read on: What is DKIM in email marketing? Or What is DMARC.
