Summary

The website content outlines the necessity for email senders to implement DMARC, SPF, and DKIM records by February to ensure email authenticity and deliverability, particularly when using an Email Service Provider (ESP) like Convertkit.

Abstract

The article emphasizes the importance of setting up DMARC, SPF, and DKIM for email accounts to maintain a high delivery rate and avoid issues with email authentication. The author shares their personal struggle with configuring these records, noting that misalignment can lead to a 100% failure rate in email delivery, as was the case for them until proper alignment was achieved. The process involves verifying the sender domain, configuring DNS settings with the help of services like Cloudflare, and setting up a system to monitor DMARC failures. The author provides a step-by-step guide on how to set up these records using Convertkit as the email provider, recommending the use of Cloudflare for managing DMARC settings, and suggests creating a dedicated folder for monitoring DMARC failures to troubleshoot any ongoing issues.

Opinions

The author acknowledges that the process of setting up DMARC, SPF, and DKIM can be tedious but is critical for bulk email senders.
The author experienced significant delivery issues due to misalignment of email settings, which were resolved after proper configuration.
Despite Convertkit's warnings about potential delivery rate decline, the author recommends verifying the sender domain to ensure proper email authentication.
The author strongly recommends using Cloudflare for DNS configuration and DMARC management, finding their toolset more reliable than Convertkit's instructions.
The author suggests that monitoring DMARC failures is a useful practice for identifying email delivery problems and offers to assist others facing similar challenges.

DMARC — Required By February — It’s boring but you have to do it!

New Email Settings Required By February

I know this is boring, but if you send any email in bulk, and by bulk, I mean anything via an email service provider, you need to have certain things in place by February, or you could be in trouble.

I’ve just spent the last couple of weeks trying to get all the DKIM, SPF and DMARC stuff working on my email account, and it’s been a grind.

The problem is everything needs to be aligned… which means if you send from ABC.com, then all three records must reflect that.

That can actually be an issue because your Email Service Provider may make it look like emails come from ABC.com but they are actually coming from one of their addresses.

This will result in DMARC failing

That graph shows that until I finally got everything in place and aligned (Wednesday 13th) I had a 100% fail rate.

This was problematic, especially as I had followed my Email service provider's instructions!

How to set up DMARC, SPF & DKIM

This is how I finally set everything up and got it working, My email provider is convertkit.

Step 1: Verified Sender Domain

Convertkit doesn’t make having a verified sender domain set up a priority. They give you warnings that your delivery rate may go down.

Ignore the warnings and set it up. You’ll find it under domains in the settings.

Step 2: Configure your DNS

It's time to get techy you’ll need to add settings to your DNS for all 3 settings: DMARC, SPF & DKIM.

I STRONGLY recommend you use a free Cloudflare account and set things up there. They have added a DMARC tool and will configure your settings for you.

Take the SPF and Dkim settings from convertkit. They are included with the Verified Sending domain, where it says to show DNS records.

Now, add them to your DNS settings.

For DMARC I recommend using Cloudflare’s Dmarc management tool to create your DMARC settings

This will give you everything you need; if you are using your ESP’s SPF & DKIM settings, ignore the ones cloudflare give you and just use their DMarc settings.

After doing all this (and removing the Cloudflare spy/dkim settings I originally added) everything worked fine for me.

Final Tweak

You should set up a folder in your email for DMARC failures. I was getting hundreds of these a day originally, but it’s calmed down now, and it does help indicate if you have issues.

If you are having issues, reach out, and I’ll see if I can help you. You can also get advice and general online marketing help in my Free Community — The Launchpad (don’t be scared .. we are friendly!)