email delivery for IT professionals INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................................ 3 HOSTING AND HARDWARE ............................................................................................................................... 4 IP/DNS ............................................................................................................................................................. 5 DNS Naming................................................................................................................................................ 5 I already have a domain.......................................................................................................................... 5 I'm sending on behalf of someone else................................................................................................... 5 I'm sending on behalf of several companies............................................................................................ 6 IP Ranges .................................................................................................................................................... 6 Test IPs ....................................................................................................................................................... 6 Registrars.................................................................................................................................................... 7 From Email.................................................................................................................................................. 7 WHOIS Contact Information ......................................................................................................................... 7 Reverse DNS................................................................................................................................................ 7 MX Records ................................................................................................................................................. 7 Shared IPs ................................................................................................................................................... 8 Dedicated IPs .............................................................................................................................................. 8 Transactional Messaging ............................................................................................................................. 9 Publish Your IPs .......................................................................................................................................... 9 MTA............................................................................................................................................................... 10 MTAs ........................................................................................................................................................ 10 Security..................................................................................................................................................... 10 Rate Limiting............................................................................................................................................. 11 Error Correction/Handling......................................................................................................................... 11 Authentication .......................................................................................................................................... 11 SPF ....................................................................................................................................................... 12 Domain Keys ........................................................................................................................................ 12 DKIM .................................................................................................................................................... 12 SenderID .............................................................................................................................................. 12 Testing Authentication ......................................................................................................................... 12 BOUNCE HANDLING........................................................................................................................................ 13 VERP ......................................................................................................................................................... 13 Hard Bounce ............................................................................................................................................. 13 Soft Bounce............................................................................................................................................... 14 Bounce Categories .................................................................................................................................... 14 Categorization .......................................................................................................................................... 14 FBL (FEEDBACK LOOPS)................................................................................................................................... 15 FBL Registration Resource ......................................................................................................................... 15 FBL Maintenance ....................................................................................................................................... 16 Email Headers ........................................................................................................................................... 16 Reporting Abuse................................................................................................................................... 16 List-Unsubscribe .................................................................................................................................. 17 Unique Identifiers................................................................................................................................. 17 GETTING STARTED WITH SENDING.................................................................................................................. 18 Warm-up .................................................................................................................................................. 18 Whitelisting IPs/Domains .......................................................................................................................... 18 Whitelisting Registration Resource........................................................................................................ 18 Abuse.net............................................................................................................................................. 19 DNSLW ................................................................................................................................................. 19 Certification ......................................................................................................................................... 19 SenderScore Certified ........................................................................................................................... 19 Safe Sender Certified ............................................................................................................................ 19 Goodmail ............................................................................................................................................. 20 DELIVERABILITY TOOLS .................................................................................................................................. 21 Return Path ............................................................................................................................................... 21 Unica ........................................................................................................................................................ 21 Microsoft SNDS ......................................................................................................................................... 21 MONITORING AND EXCEPTION REPORTING..................................................................................................... 22 Engagement Monitoring ............................................................................................................................ 22 Scraping MTA Logs.................................................................................................................................... 22 Static/Dynamic Error Handling .................................................................................................................. 22 Blacklist Monitoring................................................................................................................................... 23 Spam Filters .............................................................................................................................................