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Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋
Welcome to Issue #232 of All About Email!
Last week, we took a look at DKIM2, the replacement for DKIM and how it improves on the old standard.
This week, I owe you all an apology and a full retraction of last week’s newsletter.
Let’s go! 👇
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Last week, I got it ALL Wrong
💡 Back in Issue 227, I talked about a very important email that Yahoo got completely wrong:
How could they have made it better?
How could they have avoided it?
How mistakes can be content opportunities (like today’s newsletter).
Most importantly, I talked about owning your mistakes and how acknowledging them and making the correction can help restore trust, increase loyalty, and rebuild your reputation.
🚨 Well, last week I made a lot of mistakes, learned a lot, and I’m here to set the record straight and apologise.
“The best way to learn anything in this godforsaken industry is to be wrong out loud!!”
Absolutely Gutted
😢 Last week, two wonderful and respected members of the email community reached out to me in both a constructive, fair and encouraging way.
They both held me accountable (for which I am grateful) for how badly wrong I got last week’s newsletter.
So, {{first_name|friend}}, this week I want to fully retract last week’s main content on DKIM2 and explain some things.
🤦♂️ I was absolutely gutted for a few days last week, which I guess is good, as it shows I care and wanted to put things right.
I immediately updated all my social media announcement posts to let readers know that things weren’t quite right and that I would be addressing them again.
What Went Wrong
🎉 A huge thank you to the two wonderful people, Laura Atkins and Ken O’Driscoll, for taking the time to correct me and educate me with grace.
Ken asked me whether my newsletter was based on an “AI-hallucination” or on an actual source. It wasn’t an AI-hallucination, unfortunately, all the mistakes were mine:
There were two specific articles I was reading, and Laura is familiar with one of them (let’s say I was being uncharacteristically naive on this point). 🤦♂️
It's also down to me, and to a misunderstanding of the technical articles (especially IETF processes) and other existing articles. 🫠
I was also using some outdated information, and again, Laura has very kindly updated me on those.
Clarification Points
🚨 Ken outlined these fundamental issues that were wrong about last week’s newsletter:
First, DKIM2 is still under development; the specification has not even been agreed upon by the DKIM Working Group, so in IETF terms, it’s nothing more than a collection of draft documents at this stage. That means it’s not in production anywhere and won’t be for a good while, if ever.
Second, DKIM1 also supports the ED25519 signing algorithm (RFC 8463) since 2018.
Third, DKIM1 also specified mandatory headers to sign (see RFC 6376, section 5.4, etc.) and also allowed a signer to specify additional headers for signing.
Laura echoed Ken’s words and told me, “I [Laura] cannot express how much this is still not ready for even experimental deployment.”
🚨 Furthermore, Laura added:
Folks should absolutely not be asking their providers for the roadmap.
DMARCbis took 10 years to go through that process. The DKIM2 working group was chartered last year. We don't know how long it's going to take.
In reference to my point in last week’s newsletter on “Next Steps/Action Items for Now”, Laura provided some further advice:
“2048 keys are not required, and some places still don't support them.”
Updating your DKIM keys isn't relevant to DKIM2 and doesn't matter. Key rotation is usually not handled by the marketer; the ESP handles it.
And the "understanding your email flow" is much more important for DMARC than DKIM2. The whole point of DKIM2 is that the sender doesn't need to worry about intermediaries causing delivery failures, unlike DMARC.
💡 “If” DKIM2 makes it to the production stage, Laura suggested, in the marketing space, the only change will be (when the time comes): "publish this record in DNS".
If you own infrastructure, you'll need to update it, but that's probably just plugging in a new library that's been written for you.
Sorry and Thank You Again
Thank you again to both Laura Atkins and Ken O’Driscoll for their grace, kindness and helping me make this newsletter better.
To Alison Gootee for her encouragement and to you for reading.
Apologies again, {{first_name|friend}}, I got it wrong, I’m sorry, and I hope you will continue to trust me and read my newsletter. I will do better next time.
I felt so down after last week’s email, and it’s not a feeling I want to experience again any time soon.
That’s it for this week. 👋
All About Email - Playlist 🎧
Every week, as I write this newsletter, I'll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.
Sponsorship Opportunities
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Email Marketing News & Tips
This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:
The Ecommerce Playbook - A Practical Field Guide for Modern DTC Brands. (Mailchimp)
Let This Sink In - 70% of phishing emails now pass DMARC authentication. (Tobias Knecht)
$2,000 - That’s just the beginning; the cost of manual email testing. (Preflight)
How Big is Too Big? - The Definitive Guide to Email Image Optimisation. (Let’s Talk Email)
Responsive Emails - Written in Markdown. (Dan Stevens)
A Lifecycle Marketer’s Edge - In the new AI world. (Naomi West)
Stop Depending on Social - How To Start a Newsletter To Replace Social Media Reach. (Beehiiv)
Inbound Email Protection - What DMARC can’t stop (Valimail)
HubSpot Alternatives - Email Marketing and CRM Without Paying Thousands of Dollars a Month. (Bento)
Things to Consider - Choosing the Right Subdomain. (Spam Resource)
Replay - An inbox optimization guide for the AI era. (Mailgun)
If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.
I hope you have a great week! 👋
