Authentication: A license plate for your email that provides a trackable identifier to indicate you’re a legit emailer.
The company just switched from ConstantContact to MailChimp. So far, I’m really impressed with the improved analytics. We sent an e-blast for A/B split testing. In Outlook, the “From: email name” included MailChimps send ID authentication. “Why is this happening?” said the owner of the company, very upset. “Why would you not want authentication?” I asked myself. They want the email to look like it’s coming from their company. Ok. ISPs (Outlook, AOL, Hotmail, etc.) are now checking incoming emails for authentication. IF your email isn’t authenticated, it looks SUSPICIOUS.
Eh…, why is it suspicious? IF it’s coming from you, why is it coming from Mailchimps server asks the ISP? So, they run your email through much more difficult spam filters. If your emails are authenticated, it doesn’t go through their extra, hard spam filters. If your email lists are going through Outlook, AOL, AT&T, Gmail, Cox.net, Yahoo, etc. you’ll want to authenticate your marketing campaign and figure out which type you need (DKIM, domain keys, SenderID, SPF). Currently, there is no standard for authentication.
What’s the Fix? After talking to Mailchimp, they suggested creating DKIM for authentication or our own custom domain for emails. The IT dept created a DKIM. Through account settings, you need to verify it through Mailchimp and then authenticate it. This takes 24 – 48 hrs. What if you can’t? The down and dirty is to turn off authentication. Would you really want to do this? No. Creating a custom domain for emails will be the next step.
From: MailChimp [help=mailchimp.com@mcsv20.net] on behalf of MailChimp [help@mailchimp.com]
sumanidesign 