Why you have to wait for DMARC
You just finished setting up DMARC for your domain. Congratulations! You’re on your way to securing your domain. Now, you have to… wait a little. We all hate waiting, but it this case it’s necessary to wait at first. DMARC has two main functions- reporting (for monitoring and configuration) and conformance (for controlling unauthenticated email). Reporting comes first. Reporting relies on Data, That Takes time DMARC reports can help you get to conformance faster than ever before by providing useful senders and policy information. Learn the differences between reports and how to take advantage of DMARC reporting. DMARC is a must-have tool for email senders. It’s free and allows you to manage how recipients receive messages
from your domain. That’s why we’re helping you test and deploy DMARC in just days: we want to help you to get the most out of it. So here are our picks for the week to get you started with one of our favorite features, DMARC reports. Until you have DMARC data, it’s impossible to know if your Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) work as you expect. You need a valid DMARC record to get these reports. And while setting up DMARC isn’t rocket science, it does require some time and patience. Most organizations never get around to do it. That means many haven’t received their first DMARC report. Check out the facts and figures below to see why you should take action today. Why Wait a Week? The DMARC Analyzer helps you take action on your daily spam and abuse reports. The tool can be configured to send notifications about problem mail when you get new reports. This way, if the same bad actor is at it again, you see it right away, which means you can respond much faster than waiting a whole week to get updated data. If reports are coming in daily, you could try to analyze it daily as well. However, one day worth of data is not that much to base big configuration changes on. In addition, some ISPs send DMARC Forensic Reports less frequently, meaning you may not get the full picture if you jump the gun. What to do While You Wait If you have a DMARC record, you’re probably wondering when you’ll start getting reports. This takes time because organizations are just beginning to implement policies. If you're trying to gauge the
effectiveness of your messaging policy, consider other metrics besides DMARC reports, such as open rates or click rates. You can also learn more about our tips for using DMARC here . You can learn more about phishing, DNS, and email authentication (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC) on our info pages or check out our blog. There’s plenty to do while you’re waiting for DMARC reports. You can learn more about phishing, DNS, and email authentication (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC) on our info pages or check out our blog. We have some tips on how to get to reject, a list of DMARC’s features, some advice about selecting SPF all terms and reducing DNS lookups, and more. Or you can just get back to the whatever you were doing before you set up DMARC. In the meantime, we’ll gather your reports and be ready when you come back in a week. See you soon!