Connecting an SPF record and not DKIM/DMARC

[AjayPatel24]

Hello,

We have seen the message in HubSpot regarding email sending and the need to authenticate/connect your domain to HubSpot as part of stricter guidance from email providers.

We want to connect our domain to send marketing automation and 1:1 emails in HubSpot from our corporate email addresses, however, we can only connect our SPF record as we have a technical issue with our DKIM.

What impact would only connecting our SPF record (and not DKIM or DMARC) have on email sending in HubSpot?

Thanks,

Ajay

[trevordjones]

Hi @AjayPatel24 ,

+1 On what @karstenkoehler says about it being hard to predict what the exact ramifications of not implementing DKIM and SPF will be, but it is fairly certain that email deliverability will be impacted.  Moreover, getting this done isn't hard and is well worth the effort.  I'd encourage you to check out this blog post on the issue.

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @AjayPatel24,

It's not possible to say what the exact consequences will be. Email service providers have different policies when it comes to their dealing with authentication (or the lack thereof). Still, it's probably safe to say that your email deliverability will suffer if you don't implement DKIM and DMARC. Some email service providers will take it as a bad sign that they are missing and move them into the promotion folder, spam folder or even quarantine them.

Google, for example, says that "If senders don’t meet these requirements, messages might be rejected or delivered to recipients’ spam folders.", see here: https://apps.google.com/supportwidget/articlehome?article_url=https%3A%2F%2Fsupport.google.com%2Fa%2...

In other words, it's probably adivsable to troubleshoot your technical issue with DKIM. Negative effects might be neglibible or more severe, depending on the predominant email service providers of your contacts and the email volume you're sending.

Best regards!