Hey Reader,

Last week I worked with two people on newsletter delivery issues.

Neither one of them reached out to me because they wanted to improve their cybersecurity.

They were referred to me because a mutual acquaintance knew I've helped other people with email delivery issues in the last couple of months.

Am I a newsletter or email delivery expert?

I guess...

Like everything, the bad guys have abused email enough that there are safeguards in place to verify who can send email for your domain, and also to verify that the mail wasn't modified before it got to you.

These are cybersecurity things that I am an expert on.

SPF, put simply, is your allowed list of sending servers.

DKIM is a secret code the receiving server checks to make sure the email wasn't changed after being sent.

Both of these are needed to make sure email is legitimate.

But you don't have to use them.

And for a long time, most people didn't.

Things are changing though.

In the fall of 2023 Google and Yahoo announced that they were going to require DMARC for anyone that sent more than 5000 messages per month (plus a few other requirements).

DMARC is a policy you state in your domains DNS.

It tells mail servers what to do with a message that doesn't match the policy.

If either the SPF or DKIM aren't setup correctly, the DMARC policy will fail and your email could go to spam..

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Most people think hackers won't target them because they're small.

That they aren't a big enough target.

Sadly, everyone is a target.

Probably even more because you're smaller than your corporate counterparts.

Small businesses like yours are less likely to think about cybersecurity, and that makes you vulnerable.

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This time it wasn't a hacker that victimized these newsletter operators...

It was not having these security measures in place correctly.

Don't be punished because you didn't follow the rules.

Every email that goes to SPAM or JUNK is an email that doesn't make you money.

If you want to know if your domain is setup correctly, check out the free tools at MX Toolbox.

Enter your domain, and run the SPF and DMARC checks. (Checking your DKIM is a little more involved).

Let me know if yours is setup correctly!

Better yet, reply and tell me your domain name and I'll check it for you.

I'll send you a follow up letting you know if it was all good or not.

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Thanks for reading, and if you need anything, just reply and ask.

Tom Smith III
Secure Creator