When it comes to email, your customers’ inboxes are sacred spaces. And the emails you send? They’re the burnt offering (too far?).
Getting an email banished to the spam folder even a single time can cost you serious credibility, and the more you do it, the harder it will be to recover.
One of the most important things you can do as an email marketer that will set you above the rest is sign your emails with proper DMARC records. If you’re not already using Dmarc records to improve your email deliverability, you should be. DMARC records are the best way to stay out of the spam folder and keep your customers happy. What exactly are they? They’re DNS records that allow you to manage your inbox reputation.
You can use them to tell the world which emails come from you and which don’t. If you have an unwanted email address, like one that’s been blocked by Gmail account services or Yahoo, then it won’t work anymore, but if you have a good one, then it’ll work just fine as long as you keep using Dmarcs.
So let’s take a look at how these records can help your business get better results from its email marketing efforts.
What Is DMARC?
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) is an email authentication system that helps to prevent phishing, spam and spoofing. DMARC protects email recipients from receiving fraudulent emails that appear to be coming from the company’s domain.
DMARC has a protocol that allows you to tell email receivers how to handle emails from your domain. It’s a way for senders to verify the legitimacy of an email sender and report back if they receive something fraudulent. The protocol was created by the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group (MMA). It was designed to provide a standardized way for organizations to prevent phishing attacks and other types of fraudulent emails by setting up email authentication policies.
Why Do You Need DMARC?
DMARC helps keep users and brands safe from malicious actors, which is good for everyone. Before we look at how to set up DMARC, let’s consider what benefits this simple solution can bring to your organization:
Better Deliverability
DMARC is a system that can be used by companies to ensure emails from their domains are delivered correctly and not being spoofed. But more than ever before, big companies require DMARC implementation as part of doing business with them. So, if your company sets up DMARC, external providers will consider it as a trust factor and will deliver your emails more reliably.
Risk Mitigation
Business email compromise is a growing problem worldwide. In 2019, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reported 23,775 complaints about business email compromise resulting in $1.7 billion in losses. DMARC reduces the risk of spoofing by ensuring that receiving servers have a better chance of detecting fraudulent emails.
Threat Monitoring
Once you set up DMARC, you can spot and identify any phishing attempts. You can ask providers to block the source of a threat that is trying to steal data or money from recipients.
How To Set Up A DMARC Record
You can do it yourself, but if you are doing this on behalf of yourself or a small business, it will be much easier to use a third party service. Something like dmarc digests or easy dmarc can do this for you. If you need help setting these up, please contact us!
If you chose dmarc digests, here are the instructions:
Step 1: Register your account and add your domain.
Step 2: Go “Set up DMARC”.
Step 3: Go to your DNS provider or the company that holds your domain name and create a “TXT record” of the values from dmarc digest.
That’s pretty much it! It may take up to 24 hours to start seeing data, and we would recommend paying attention to the deliverability rates of your dmarc signed emails and compare them to the emails you send without them.
If you want any help setting up your company’s email marketing campaign, GOA-TECH is standing by.
How Do I Stay Out Of The Spam Folder
If you’re like most businesses, your inbox is flooded with unwanted emails every day. That’s why we recommend using Dmarc records to help prevent your emails from being delivered to the spam folders.
DMARC records are Domain Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance records that allow you to specify which email accounts are legitimate and which ones aren’t. When you use DMARC records, recipients can see which messages have been authenticated by their domain owner and know whether or not they should trust the sender.
If you want to stay out of the spam folder then follow these steps:
- Make sure that all outgoing emails are authenticated with DKIM or SPF.
- Set up DMARC records on your DNS server and configure them with a policy of p=reject which will tell receivers not to accept any emails that are not authenticated with DKIM or SPF (which means no more spoofed emails).
- The best way to stay out of the spam folder is by using Dmarc records in conjunction with DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), SPF (Sender Policy Framework), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance). These three methods work together to verify that an email came from a legitimate source and has not been tampered with during delivery.
How Do I Set Up DMARC Record On My Gmail Account?
Gmail uses DMARC reports to determine if email addresses or domain names are spam or legitimate. If they’re not DMARC compliant, then they’ll be placed into the Gmail spam folder by default. However, if you add a DMARC record and set up DKIM for your domain, then Gmail will treat these messages as legitimate and deliver them to your recipients’ inboxes instead of the spam folder in Gmail.
If you use Gmail, you can let it know that it should send DMARC reports to the email address and domain of your choice. This makes it easier to verify that your emails are as safe as possible and get rid of spam in the future, while still giving you access to the information you need to evaluate the effectiveness of your own security measures.
To set up DMARC records in Gmail, follow these steps:
- Click on the gear icon in Gmail and select Settings from the menu that appears.
- In the General tab, click on “Settings” under Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
- Under “Forwarding,” select “Enable Forwarding.” This will allow you to specify a forwarding address for emails sent through Gmail’s SMTP server.
- Under “POP Download,” click on “Enable POP Download.” This will allow you to specify a download address for emails stored on your computer or phone when using POP access instead of IMAP access (which is required for DMARC validation).
- Click on “Save Changes” at the bottom of this page to save your settings.
Junk Emails Go To Spam Instead Of Inbox
You can avoid being caught in the spam filter by using DMARC records. If you’re a business owner, you know how important it is to keep your emails out of the spam folder. Junk emails will not only get ignored, but they’ll also hurt your marketing efforts.
Junk email filters are designed to catch unsolicited or unsubscribe email messages that are sent without permission or engagement from the recipient. These filters work by analyzing the header information of an email message and comparing it against a database of known spammer IP addresses and domains. If enough similarities are found between the sender’s information and what’s known about spam, then it will most likely be sent straight to the recipient’s spam folder or deleted altogether.
Monitor Your Email Reputation
Monitoring your reputation is important, but it is not enough. You need to take action. For example, suppose you are seeing a lot of spam complaints and other poor-quality feedback on your emails. In that case, you can use tools like the Return Path Reputation Monitor or the Feedback Monitor to get more information about what might be going wrong with your email program.
These tools provide data on how many people are receiving your emails and how they respond to them (e.g., did they mark it as spam or delete it?). If a large number of people are marking an email as spam or deleting it, then you need to change something in order for that behavior not to continue happening again in the future.
If you’re not already using Dmarc records, it’s time to start. Whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise, setting up a DMARC record will help ensure that your emails are delivered and read by recipients. By properly configuring and monitoring your email reputation, you can stay out of the spam folder while also improving deliverability.
With DMARC records in place, there will be fewer false positives when it comes time for ISPs to determine whether an email should be marked as spam or not. So get started today!
