Email fraud can cost companies millions and destroy brand reputation. Shockingly, 97% of people around the globe cannot identify a sophisticated phishing email. It is a myth that email fraud should only be the concern of security professionals. This issue directly affects marketers’ success and the business’ bottom line.
Not convinced? Here are five top reasons marketers should care about email fraud.
1. Email fraud destroys brand reputation.
66% of consumers have made a purchase online as a result of an email marketing message. Because of the high click and purchase rates generated through email, this channel is not only a great one for marketing, but is becoming an increasingly targeted channel for cybercrime.
Major brands have been in the headlines in the recent months due to cyber-attacks affecting their customers. That stigma is a difficult one to reverse.
2. Email fraud breaks customer trust.
Marketers have been working to make email communications more and more personalized in order to create unique and trusted connections for their customers.
At the same time, phishing has become smarter and more targeted as well, making it difficult for the untrained eye to know the difference between a legitimate message from a trusted brand and a potentially malicious one. If a customer interacts with a fraudulent message purporting to be from a trusted brand, they are 42% less likely to interact with that brand in the future.
3. Email fraud negatively impacts revenue.
If a customer stops purchasing via the email channel, this directly impacts the revenue generated through the marketing team.
20% of marketers say that their business’ primary revenue source is directly linked to email operations. More than 70% of customers across all age groups including 65+ prefer email as the channel through which they wish to be contacted. Because of this, email fraud can cause catastrophic damage to the marketing teams’ bottom line.
4. Email fraud is marketing’s responsibility.
According to The World Economic Forum, three out of five chief executivessay they believe corporate brand and reputation represents more than 40% of their company’s market capitalization. With brand trust being a key performance metric for executive-level sponsors, preventing threats against the brand should be top of mind for all marketers.
5. Email fraud is preventable.
The good news is that email fraud is preventable. Authentications standards like DMARC (Domain Based Message Authentication Reporting & Conformance) allow senders to tell participating internet service providers like Google, Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft what do to with unauthenticated mail. Auditing all mail streams for proper SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail) implementation is the first step. Once a marketer feels confident that their legitimate traffic is properly authenticating, DMARC can begin blocking the fraudulent traffic at participating internet service providers.
Email fraud affects everyone, including marketers. Raising awareness and taking the proper steps to help prevent email fraud can have lasting effects on the trust and success of a brand in the marketplace.
Want to know more about email fraud? Download our guide for marketers or better yet, reach out to our Email Fraud Protection team to learn how Return Path can help!