Google & other inbox providers are constantly changing their acceptance policies to give more and more preference to email traffic that utilizes DMARC and DKIM technologies.  This gives them better control when categorizing email, both for advertisement value and for detecting and eliminating spam, viruses, malware and other threats to large scale email hosting.  But, it presents challenges to companies that are sending email to Google customers, both consumers and businesses hosted on Google email servers.

How do you configure SPF, DKIM, and DMARC?

What do I do with DMARC reports when I receive them?  

How can I get good information about my email deliverability?

These are all questions that we commonly get from our customers trying to ensure that their business emails are visible to their customers and prospects.  Since Google is often a first mover in new technologies, you can expect other big email hosts, like Microsoft Outlook.com, to follow their example.  This means SPF,  DKIM, and DMARC are becoming a requirement for doing business.

MxToolbox is here to help you get ahead of that curve!  Last year we introduced both DKIM and DMARC lookups and monitors for our customers.  Now, we’re introducing a beta version of a DMARC Reporting product.

MxToolbox DMARC Reports will give you insight into what your customers are saying about the email coming from your servers or email that appears to come from you.  Once configured, our new DMARC Report gives you statistics on:

• Email volume & compliance by Inbox Provider (Google, Outlook, Yahoo!, etc.)
• DMARC Compliance Rate & DMARC issues
• Email volume from each sender or forwarder IP
• SPF & DKIM Authentication issues
• And more…

Also, included in the report is the ability to view and export raw data.

Why Should I configure DMARC and what value does this report provide me with?

In addition to getting high value into seeing where your email is being sent from, who is receiving it, and identifying SPF & DKIM issues with your email, DMARC also provides you with the ability to:

• Prevent Reputation and Blacklisting issues
• Reduce domain spoofing
• Improve deliverability rates

A common method spammers use to trick email recipients into opening mail containing harmful malware or phishing links is to forge the “From” address on email messages so that when the recipient sees the message it appears to come from a legitimate person in your domain. As a result mail filters and users will flag the spoofed mails as spam or phishing.  This may cause you email deliverability and reputation issues, as you may find legitimate email being blacklisted by Inbox providers. With DMARC, you can avoid these significant headaches as your DMARC record tells providers like Gmail what they should do with messages that aren’t coming from you.

While we’re in beta, you can setup one domain for free.  Just follow the instructions on the DMARC Report Setup Page.  We will recommend adding a DMARC record to your DNS if you don’t currently have one already or if you do have one, we’ll just recommend a slight change to your DMARC record so we can start building your reports. Then you just wait until email is delivered and DMARC reports begin to be filed and viewable with MxToolbox!

You can even access DMARC Reporting from your DMARC Monitor!