Summary
When authenticating email, the consensus among email deliverability experts and major service providers strongly favors using your own domain over an Email Service Provider's (ESP) domain. This practice is fundamental for establishing a robust sender reputation, improving deliverability rates, and ensuring brand recognition. While ESPs facilitate sending, relying on their shared domains for authentication can hinder your email's journey to the inbox, compromise your long-term sender identity, and prevent you from fully leveraging authentication protocols like DMARC and BIMI. Authenticating with your own domain establishes your unique sender identity, controls your reputation, and signals legitimacy to receiving mail servers, making your emails more likely to be trusted and delivered.
Key findings
- Enhanced Deliverability: Authenticating email with your own domain significantly boosts deliverability, making emails less likely to be flagged as spam and ensuring they land in the inbox.
- Independent Sender Reputation: It allows you to build and control your unique sender reputation, which is not transferable from an ESP's shared domain and provides proof of ownership, thereby controlling your sender reputation independently of the ESP's shared infrastructure.
- Brand Trust and Recognition: Using your own domain reinforces brand identity, making emails appear more legitimate and trustworthy to recipients and internet service providers (ISPs), improving brand recognition and providing a fundamental signal of trustworthiness.
- DMARC, BIMI, and Alignment: Authenticating with your own domain is crucial for achieving DMARC alignment, which is essential for effective domain protection, preventing spoofing, and enabling future standards like BIMI, with optimal DMARC enforcement requiring critical alignment between your 'From' address and the SPF and DKIM authenticated domains.
- Access to Analytics: Proper domain authentication is necessary for gaining access to valuable analytics tools, such as Google Postmaster Tools, providing essential insights into your email performance and helping to diagnose deliverability issues.
- Prevents Spoofing and Phishing: Using your own domain for authentication helps prevent email spoofing and phishing attempts, verifying the sender's identity and enhancing security measures.
Key considerations
- DNS Configuration: Implementing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC requires configuring specific records within your own DNS, linking them directly to your domain, which ensures your domain is the one being authenticated for maximum deliverability and trust with mailbox providers.
- Double-Signing Nuances: While some ESPs may double-sign emails-once for the client's domain to resolve the 'sent via' issue and once for the ESP's domain to show network ownership-it's crucial to ensure your domain's DKIM signature is prioritized and properly aligned, especially for DMARC enforcement, as services like Yahoo may only check one signature, potentially leading to DMARC failures if the ESP's signature is examined instead.
- Resolving 'Sent Via': Most ESPs can easily resolve the 'sent via' message to display your domain, although some setups might require manual requests or specific configurations.
What email marketers say
10 marketer opinions
For optimal email deliverability and strong sender identity, authenticating your email with your own domain for SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is paramount. Experts universally advise against relying solely on an Email Service Provider's (ESP) shared domain for authentication. Utilizing your own domain ensures that your brand consistently signals legitimacy and trustworthiness to receiving mail servers, directly impacting your inbox placement rates. This practice is essential for building and controlling your unique sender reputation independently, preventing it from being diluted or compromised by other senders sharing an ESP's infrastructure. Moreover, it is a prerequisite for achieving DMARC alignment, accessing critical performance insights from tools like Google Postmaster Tools, and establishing robust defenses against phishing and spoofing. While ESPs facilitate email sending, direct domain authentication is the foundational step for serious senders to maintain control over their email ecosystem and ensure long-term success.
Key opinions
- Superior Deliverability: Authenticating with your domain significantly improves inbox placement and reduces spam flagging by signaling legitimacy to email providers.
- Independent Sender Reputation: This practice is fundamental for building and controlling your unique sender reputation, which is not tied to a shared ESP domain, thereby providing proof of ownership and consistent trust signals.
- Strong Sender Identity & Trust: Using your own domain establishes a clear sender identity, fostering greater trust with ISPs and recipients, and is essential for brand recognition and perceived legitimacy.
- DMARC and Postmaster Tools Enablement: Direct domain authentication is essential for achieving DMARC alignment, preventing spoofing, and gaining access to vital analytics tools like Google Postmaster Tools for performance insights.
- Security and Anti-Spoofing: Direct domain authentication acts as a robust defense against phishing and spoofing, verifying your sender identity and significantly enhancing email security.
Key considerations
- DNS Configuration Requirements: Proper implementation necessitates configuring SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records directly within your own domain's DNS, ensuring it's the authenticated domain for optimal deliverability.
- Managing Double-Signed Emails: Be aware that some ESPs may double-sign emails; however, it is critical to ensure your domain's DKIM signature is prioritized for DMARC alignment, as services like Yahoo might only check one signature, potentially leading to DMARC failures if the ESP's signature is chosen.
- Whitelabeling for Alignment: Achieving full DMARC alignment, which is crucial for maximizing deliverability and accessing tools like Google Postmaster Tools, often requires whitelabeling to ensure your domain is clearly associated with authenticated email.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks explains that best practice dictates using the sender's domain for email authentication, especially as DMARC requires alignment on SPF or DKIM which needs white labeling. Gmail prefers a whitelabeled DKIM envelope, and white labeling is necessary to get data in Google Postmaster Tools.
18 Jul 2023 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares a nuance, stating that Yahoo only looks at one DKIM signature, not multiple. He explains that if a message is double-signed and the sender's domain has DMARC, a DMARC failure could occur if Yahoo examines the ESP's signature instead of the sender's.
30 Dec 2022 - Email Geeks
What the experts say
3 expert opinions
The prevailing advice for email authentication strongly emphasizes using your own domain, rather than an Email Service Provider's (ESP) domain, to achieve the highest levels of deliverability, trust, and security. Experts agree that this approach is vital for ensuring 'strict' DMARC alignment, which is superior to 'relaxed' alignment for preventing spoofing and building sender reputation. It is critical that your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records are configured directly within your own DNS and linked to your domain, making your domain the primary authenticated entity. While ESPs facilitate sending and can often resolve 'sent via' displays, the responsibility for achieving proper domain alignment for DMARC, BIMI, and future standards ultimately rests with the sender's domain configuration.
Key opinions
- Optimal DMARC Enforcement: Authenticating email with your own domain is crucial for optimal DMARC enforcement, as it ensures critical alignment between your 'From' address and the SPF and DKIM authenticated domains, leading to more secure 'strict' DMARC alignment.
- Crucial Domain Alignment: Proper domain alignment is a fundamental requirement for DMARC, BIMI, and upcoming email authentication standards, reinforcing the need to authenticate using your own domain.
- Self-Managed DNS Records: For complete and effective email authentication, including SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, all required records must be set up within your own DNS and explicitly linked to your domain, ensuring your domain is the one being authenticated.
- ESPs' Role in Authentication: Most ESPs can easily manage the 'sent via' display, and ideally, they should support double-signing emails-once for the client's domain to resolve the 'sent via' notice, and once for the ESP's domain to indicate network ownership, all while prioritizing the client's domain for DMARC.
Key considerations
- Strict DMARC Alignment: For optimal DMARC enforcement and maximum trust, configuring authentication to achieve 'strict' DMARC alignment by ensuring your 'From' address aligns with the SPF and DKIM authenticated domains is crucial, as relaxed alignment is less secure and less effective.
- DNS Configuration Management: To ensure proper email authentication with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, it is essential to configure the necessary records directly within your own domain's DNS, linking them specifically to your domain rather than relying solely on an ESP's.
- ESPs' Double-Signing Feature: While many ESPs can facilitate resolving the 'sent via' display to your domain, some (like Zoho) may require manual requests, and ideally, an ESP should be capable of double-signing emails-once for your domain to resolve 'sent via' and once for their network ownership-with your domain's signature prioritized for DMARC.
- Prioritizing Domain Alignment: Although managing authentication differently may not be technically wrong for all use cases, ensuring strong domain alignment is paramount for robust DMARC, BIMI, and future email authentication standards.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks explains that resolving 'sent via' is usually easy for most ESPs, noting that Zoho's DKIM setup sometimes required manual requests. He further advises that ESPs should be capable of double-signing emails, once for the client's domain to resolve the 'sent via' issue, and once for the ESP's domain to show network ownership. He emphasizes that domain alignment is crucial for DMARC, BIMI, and future standards, and should be managed properly, although he acknowledges that technically, managing it differently isn't wrong for everyone.
6 Dec 2023 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that for optimal DMARC enforcement and trust, it is best to authenticate email using your own domain. This ensures critical alignment between your 'From' address and the SPF and DKIM authenticated domains, leading to 'strict' DMARC alignment rather than the less secure 'relaxed' alignment that can occur if an ESP's domain is used for authentication.
30 Sep 2023 - Word to the Wise
What the documentation says
7 technical articles
Email authentication best practices universally advise organizations to authenticate their emails using their own domain rather than relying on an Email Service Provider's (ESP) shared domain. Major platforms like Mailchimp, SendGrid, AWS SES, Microsoft 365, and Google Workspace, alongside industry bodies such as DMARC.org and M3AAWG, all concur that authenticating with your proprietary domain is crucial for maximizing deliverability, fostering a robust sender reputation, and enhancing brand integrity. This approach ensures your emails are digitally signed and verified by your own identity, establishing direct trust with recipients and Internet Service Providers (ISPs), thereby reducing the likelihood of messages being flagged as spam or falling victim to spoofing.
Key findings
- Unanimous Industry Advice: Documentation from Mailchimp, SendGrid, AWS SES, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, DMARC.org, and M3AAWG consistently recommend authenticating email with your own domain.
- Enhanced Deliverability & Reputation: Authenticating with your own domain significantly boosts email deliverability and allows for the development of a strong, independent sender reputation.
- Stronger Brand Identity & Trust: This practice reinforces brand recognition and makes emails appear more legitimate and trustworthy to recipients and ISPs, establishing a clear sender identity.
- Crucial for Security Standards: Using your own domain for SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is essential for complying with email standards, preventing spoofing, and ensuring emails pass critical security checks.
- Avoids Shared Domain Limitations: Relying on an ESP's shared domain for authentication prevents senders from fully leveraging authentication protocols, as their emails are not digitally signed by their own domain, increasing the risk of being flagged as spam.
Key considerations
- Necessity for DMARC Enforcement: Implementing DMARC effectively and ensuring its alignment critically depends on authenticating emails with your own organizational domain, not a third-party ESP's.
- Risks of Shared Domain Reliance: Solely relying on an ESP's shared domain for authentication means your emails are less likely to fully benefit from strong digital signatures, risking deliverability issues and diluted brand identity by appearing as 'sent via' the ESP.
- Proactive Configuration Importance: Even when ESPs provide default authentication, proactively configuring SPF and DKIM for your custom domain is essential for robust security checks and improved deliverability, as highlighted by platforms like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace.
Technical article
Documentation from Mailchimp explains that authenticating your email with your own domain, rather than using Mailchimp's domain, enhances deliverability, builds a better sender reputation, and improves brand recognition by making your emails appear more trustworthy and legitimate to recipients and ISPs.
14 Feb 2025 - Mailchimp Knowledge Base
Technical article
Documentation from SendGrid clarifies that while they offer shared authentication, authenticating your own domain provides a significant boost to deliverability and sender reputation. It ensures that your emails are digitally signed by your domain, not SendGrid's, making them less likely to be flagged as spam and reinforcing your brand identity.
13 Aug 2021 - SendGrid Documentation
Can I use the same sending domain with multiple ESPs?
Do small email senders need their own SPF/DKIM records or can they rely on their ESP?
How to handle email authentication for ESP customers without their own domains?
Should I send email from a client's primary domain or a subdomain?
Should I use a separate domain or subdomain for bulk email sending?
Should I use a subdomain or my main domain for marketing emails?
