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Summary

Setting up Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is a critical step for email deliverability and preventing spoofing. However, it can become a significant challenge when your Email Service Provider (ESP) does not offer clear or comprehensive documentation on how to configure your SPF record. This situation often leaves senders guessing or searching for external guidance, increasing the risk of misconfiguration that could lead to emails landing in spam folders or being blocklisted.

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What email marketers say

Email marketers often find themselves in a bind when trying to ensure proper SPF setup for their clients but are met with a lack of clear guidance from the Email Service Providers. This situation is particularly frustrating as it can directly impact campaign performance due to emails being marked as spam or blocked. The consensus is that ESPs should provide straightforward documentation, but when they don't, marketers must get creative.

Marketer view

Email marketer from Email Geeks explains they usually rely on ESP documentation to set up SPF for clients. They take the specific values provided by the ESP, add them, and then pass this information on to the client for implementation. This process is standard for ensuring proper email authentication.

13 Jan 2021 - Email Geeks

Marketer view

Email marketer from Email Geeks notes that their client's current ESP provides no search results for SPF documentation. Although the ESP mentions a checkbox for 'sender authentication,' it fails to offer any specific details or values needed to actually publish an SPF record, creating a significant hurdle for proper setup.

13 Jan 2021 - Email Geeks

What the experts say

Email deliverability experts agree that lacking clear SPF documentation from an ESP is a common but problematic scenario. They suggest that while ESPs should ideally provide this information, senders can use advanced techniques, like analyzing DMARC reports or inspecting email headers, to independently determine the necessary SPF entries. This proactive approach is vital for maintaining email deliverability and avoiding blocklists, even when direct guidance is absent.

Expert view

Deliverability expert from Email Geeks offered to check their database for the ESP in question, suggesting that experts often maintain their own records of SPF settings for various providers due to inconsistent public documentation. This highlights a common expert strategy for dealing with absent or unclear ESP guidelines.

13 Jan 2021 - Email Geeks

Expert view

Email expert from SpamResource emphasizes that proper SPF configuration is crucial for avoiding spam folders, even if ESP documentation is lacking. They recommend monitoring mail logs and DMARC reports as reliable ways to identify the correct sending IPs for your domain.

10 Aug 2023 - SpamResource

What the documentation says

Official documentation, primarily the SPF RFCs (like RFC 7208), defines how Sender Policy Framework should function and be implemented. While these documents don't specifically address the absence of ESP documentation, they provide the foundational knowledge necessary to infer or verify SPF requirements. Understanding the core principles of SPF helps in troubleshooting situations where direct ESP guidance is missing.

Technical article

RFC 7208 (Sender Policy Framework) states that SPF is designed to detect sender address forgery. It explains that a domain publishes an SPF record to specify which mail servers are authorized to send email on its behalf, thereby helping recipient servers verify the legitimacy of incoming mail.

Apr 2014 - RFC 7208

Technical article

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) documentation on SPF emphasizes that the SPF record must be a TXT record in the DNS. It details the various mechanisms and qualifiers (e.g., 'a', 'mx', 'ip4', 'include', 'all') that can be used to define authorized senders and how they interact to determine SPF pass or fail.

Aug 2018 - IETF RFCs

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