Dancho Danchev rightfully scolds the 60% of the Fortune 500 who still aren't using authentication on their primary domains to prevent phishing attacks.
Many of the readers of this blog send email marketing on behalf of the Fortune 500, and I'm sure that most of that email is authenticated with Sender ID or Domain Keys / DKIM. But most of that email is not sent from the primary domain of company - it comes from news@mktg.ford.com instead of news@ford.com or something like that. We do this to help with email deliverability, but our primary concern is not protecting the domains that we don't use from phishing (we care, but we don't get paid to care).
The lesson for marketers is that we should be educating our customers more about why and how to set up Sender ID and DKIM for their primary domains in addition to the ones that we send mail from. While it may not affect us on our next campaign, it will protect the long term viability of the customer's email reputation and will make you look smart to your customer!
Shocking, but not really, right? Just b/c you are a big company doesn't mean you understand email marketing. That is why blogs like this one are so valuable. I think there is an enormous opportunity in this space to educate marketers. Collaborative deliverability blogs are a great step in the right direction.
dj
Posted by: DJ Waldow | August 20, 2008 at 01:00 PM
Wow pretty ridiculous that such large companies can make mistakes such as these - who are they hiring to run their campaigns?
Posted by: Nick Stamoulis | August 21, 2008 at 11:59 PM
Nice writing. You are on my RSS reader now so I can read more from you down the road.
Allen Taylor
Posted by: fortune 500 | March 23, 2009 at 12:56 PM