Email marketing glossary

SMTP

SMTP, which stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, is an internet standard responsible for getting emails from one place to another. It takes an outgoing message via an SMTP port and delivers it to an SMTP server. There, the outgoing mail server verifies the email authentication protocols and configurations, like DKIM, SPF, and DMARC records. Once the message has been verified, SMTP delivers the mail to the receiving mail server. At this point, the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) takes over the message’s place in the recipient’s inbox. In other words, SMTP is used to deliver messages, and IMAP is used to access messages.

Senders must keep a check on their SMTP configuration, as not paying attention potentially leads to deliverability issues.