Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance, commonly known as DMARC, is an email validation protocol designed to protect email domains from being used in phishing and spoofing attacks. It allows email domain owners to protect their domain from unauthorized use, commonly known as email spoofing.
Why is DMARC important in email marketing?
DMARC plays a critical role in email marketing. It not only protects a brand’s reputation by preventing spoofing and phishing but also significantly improves the chances of an email reaching a recipient’s inbox.
Understanding the crucial role of DMARC becomes easier when considering the context of email marketing. CRM and marketing automation platforms like ActiveCampaign often involve sending large volumes of emails. DMARC helps ensure that these emails are genuinely from the brand they claim to be from and do not carry malicious content.
Email service providers use DMARC policies to decide what to do with emails that fail DMARC checks. When a DMARC policy is in place, it tells receiving servers to reject or quarantine emails that fail the check. This helps to prevent fraudulent emails from reaching the inbox of unsuspecting recipients, thereby enhancing the security of email communications.
How does DMARC integrate with sales and marketing software?
Marketing and sales software, such as ActiveCampaign, can significantly benefit from DMARC. When used in conjunction with DMARC, these platforms can become safer and more reliable in their email communications. They can reduce the risk of emails being marked as spam or, worse, not being delivered due to security issues.
DMARC also contributes to the integrity of email marketing campaigns. By ensuring that your emails are delivered and not mistaken for spam, you maintain your brand reputation and increase the likelihood of your email marketing efforts being successful. Sales automation processes involving emails also become more efficient as DMARC helps ensure the emails reach their intended recipients.
What are best practices for implementing DMARC?
Implementing DMARC involves setting up a DMARC record in your domain’s DNS settings. It’s important to start with a “none” policy, which means you’re only monitoring and not actually enforcing any actions on emails that fail DMARC checks.
During this phase, you’ll receive reports about DMARC failures and can learn about any configuration issues or unauthorized use of your domain. Once you’re confident that legitimate emails pass DMARC checks, you can move to a “quarantine” or “reject” policy.
To ensure that DMARC works smoothly with your email marketing software, it’s a good idea to work with your email service provider or marketing software support team to set up DMARC correctly. This will ensure that your marketing emails comply with DMARC and don’t face delivery issues.
Also known as
- DMARC Protocol
- DMARC Policy
- DMARC Email Security