Understanding the Sender Authentication Package

We are often asked about the Sender Authentication Package (SAP) by a lot of our Marketing Cloud customers. They often struggle to understand the benefits that SAP has to offer. It’s included with every Marketing Cloud Pro, Corporate and Enterprise License. Some technology savvy customers also ask about the difference between SAP and a Private Domain. Both of which are designed to optimize deliverability and sending reputation but the question is if they provide equal value.

Included in Salesforce Marketing Cloud Packages Professional and above, SAP offers a collection of tools which include link and image wrapping, a dedicated IP, and Reply Mail Management (RMM). A private domain is also included with SAP. While Private Domains, dedicated IPs and RMMs can be purchased individually, link and image wrapping is exclusive to SAP.

Major Differences

Dedicated IP addresses require a warm-up in order to establish a legitimate sending reputation. Since the number of email sends for every customer per month could range from a 100k to millions, companies who gain SAP with their Salesforce Marketing Cloud license will typically benefit more when able to consume high email send volumes, as a best practices, hitting their entire database with at least one campaign. If your company does not reach such email volume per month, it will be difficult for ISPs to detect you, hence making it difficult to establish a sending reputation. If you don’t hit the required volumes or can’t not come up with a campaign, contact us to discuss how we can help you.

Acquiring a Private Domain is a viable option for any company regardless of email volume. Private Domains are designed for senders who want to send authenticated mail and ensure that their landing pages direct back to the company instead of the Marketing Cloud. Link and image wrapping is not available via Private Domains and so should be considered in the decision making process.

Do you have Multiple Brands to Market?

Some of our bigger customers operate and market multiple brands, so getting a private domain on top of a SAP can be considered for a situation like this, because they need to use more than one sending domain. Since the SAP only comes with a single domain, they must purchase additional sending domains in order to achieve this end. If you plan to use multiple Private Domains within the same MID, be sure to choose a more generic sending domain when setting up your SAP. If you are unsure, talk to us today for clarification.