What is an SPF record and how do I get one?
Note - This article only applies to Act! Emarketing (AEM). This does not apply to Act! Marketing Automation (AMA).
SPF = Sender Policy Framework
A Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record is a Domain Name System (DNS) record that authorizes the IP addresses listed within the record to send on behalf of the domain name that owns the record. Without this record, any email that is not coming directly from your mail server but uses your domain in the email header is viewed as suspicious by other mail servers.
Since Act! emarketing services use Switpage’s servers to send on behalf of your domain name, without having an SPF record, it is possible that your email blasts can be incorrectly perceived as suspicious mail and sent to recipients’ spam folders because the emails are coming from a server IP address that does not match up with your domain server IP address.
An SPF Record helps keep your emarketing out of the junk folder
To avoid deliverability issues, it is strongly recommended that you have an SPF record added to your DNS for your domain that allows the Swiftpage Server IPs to send on behalf of your domain. To check to see if you already have an SPF record added:
How do I set up a SPF record for my domain?
Go to http://mxtoolbox.com/spf.aspx
Enter your domain address too look it up, then click SPF Record Lookup
Look for the following rows:
Note: In the actual table that appears on the results page, there may or may not be rows in between the rows listed below. You only need to verify the ones listed in this article.
| Prefix | Type | Value | Prefix Desc | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| v | Version | spf1 | The SPF record version | |
| + | a | Pass | Match if IP has a DNS 'A' record in given domain | |
| + | mx | Pass | Match if IP is one of the MX hosts for given domain name | |
| + | ip4 | 64.78.151.128/26 | Pass | Match if the IP is in the given range |
| + | ip4 | 216.241.183.0/24 | Pass | Match if the IP is in the given range |
| ~ | all | SoftFail | Always matches. It goes at the end of your record. |
If these rows are not present you will need to add the following to your DNS:
v=spf1 a mx ip4:64.78.151.128/26 ip4:216.241.183.0/24 ~all
If you send emarketing from multiple domains, you must do this for each domain separately.
Note: Swiftpage does not provide support for DNS modification. If you are unsure how to add this to your DNS, contact your domain administrator for assistance.
Credits: The majority of this article was originally published by Act! Swiftpage.
