SPF Email Authentication – What It Is, Why You Need It, and How to Set It Up

The spam folder. It’s the cemetery of many sales campaigns.

Not even the best email campaign can save you if your email deliverability is poor.

A good step toward improving that is by setting up an SPF record.

By reading this post, you’ll learn what SPF is, why you need it for sales outreach, and how to set it up.

SPF Explained

Sender Policy Framework was developed to combat email spoofing.

Spoofing is the practice of pretending to send from a trusted domain to launch cyber crimes like phishing attacks.

How does SPF protect my email from spoofing and phishing?

SPF lets you decide what email servers can send on your domain’s behalf. You add the authorized servers to a DNS TXT record, called an SPF record. You then add this SPF record to your domain’s DNS records.

With the SPF record set up, receiving servers can check your domain’s SPF record. If the email comes from an unauthorized server, the email will fail authentication and potentially not get delivered.

Further reading: What Is SPF for Email? - Your Sender Reputation Might Depend on It

What Does an SPF Record Look Like?

An SPF record looks like a confusing line of code. However, it’s super easy to understand once you understand its structure.

Take this SPF record, for example:

v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all

This is the SPF record for Google Workspace. Need to authorize Google’s sending servers? You’d use this record if you only used Google’s sending servers.

Here’s what it all means:

• 💡 The v mechanism defines the SPF version. It’s currently always v=spf1.

• 💡 The include holds the domain of the sending servers you want to authorize. If the sending server is an IP number instead of a domain, you’d use the ip4 or ip6 tag instead.

• 💡 The all mechanism determines what result the server should return if an email fails authentication. In other words, it has a say in what happens to unauthorized emails. For example, -all means hard fail, and it tells servers to reject emails that don’t match the authorized senders. On the other hand, ~all means a soft fail and signals to servers that emails failing SPF should be accepted but treated with caution, often landing in the spam folder. The all mechanism isn’t the only factor determining what happens to unauthorized emails. Server configuration and your DMARC record’s policy settings also have a strong say in these emails’ fate.

What Steps Do I Need to Set Up an SPF Record for My Domain?

These are the high-level steps to set up an SPF record:

1. ➡️ Find out what your SPF record should look like: Depends on your email providers

2. ➡️ Check if your domain already has an SPF record: You cannot have multiple SPF records, but you can add multiple sending servers to a single SPF record.

3. ➡️ Add the SPF record to your domain’s DNS records or modify the existing one: It’s slightly easier to add a new one but remember: no multiple SPF records allowed.

4. ➡️ Validate your SPF record: DNS changes can take a while to propagate fully. Give it at least a few hours before checking your record with a DNS checker tool.

Instructions too vague? Our dedicated guide explains everything: Setting Up an SPF Record - It’s a Step-by-Step Guide with provider specific tutorials.

The Benefits of SPF - Why You Need it for Sales Outreach

If you’re doing sales email outreach, you need SPF.

SPF will make your emails more secure and trustworthy.

Email providers appreciate when your emails are secure and will give you better inbox placement for it.

To put it bluntly, not having SPF set up will cause your emails to land in spam!

Here are five other serious consequences of not setting up SPF:

1. ➡️ Anyone can pretend to send from your domain: Faking the sender address becomes easy if no SPF record is set up for a domain. 90% of all emails were spam or scams in 2024. Don’t let these emails look like they came from your domain!

2. ➡️ Your domain reputation will take a significant hit: Spoofed emails often (and rightly so) get marked as spam. If the emails “come” from your domain, its reputation suffers.

3. ➡️ Your domain’s email deliverability will tank: With your emails insecure and recipients likely hitting the spam button on the spoofed emails, your domain’s overall deliverability will nosedive faster than your Wi-Fi during an important Zoom call.

4. ➡️ Your domain will appear on blacklists: Eventually, your domain will likely end up on an email blacklist. And even though it’s possible to get removed from such a blacklist, it’s basically the deliverability graveyard.

5. ➡️ No ROI on your email outreach: What are you doing sales outreach for? Right, to generate revenue. Well, if no one even sees your emails, you won’t earn a dime.

For a deeper analysis of these five negative consequences of not setting up SPF, read: Do I Really Need an SPF Record?

SPF vs. Other Email Authentication Protocols

For superior email security and higher open rates, you must go beyond SPF only.

Two other essential email authentication methods are DKIM and DMARC.

DKIM

DomainKeys Identified Mail authenticates the content of your emails.

DKIM checks if your emails have been modified during transit. If they are, they fail authentication and may not get delivered or sent to the spam folder.

DMARC

DMARC’s role is quite simple. It determines what to do with emails that fail SPF or DKIM authentication.

You decide whether to:

• ➡️ Send unauthorized emails to spam

• ➡️ Reject unauthorized emails

• ➡️ Let unauthorized emails pass normally (useful for testing purposes)

SPF, DKIM, and DMARC work together to make email more secure and ensure that more people read your emails.

For any kind of email outreach, you must set up all three.

We understand this can be a bit of a nuisance, but look at it this way:

These email authentication protocols keep email viable as a primary sales channel. Without them, email outreach would already be dead.