Setting up DKIM, SPF and DMARC for your emails

Setting up DKIM is intended to verify the identity of email senders. It is an authentication protocol that allows email recipients to discern whether an email has been sent legitimately or not, favoring deliverability if they are configured appropriately. It is configured in your hosting provider with the values indicated in your Acumbamail account.

SPF tells us which IPs can send emails using each domain in question. The best thing about this protocol is that you don't have to configure anything ; in Acumbamail it is already configured by default.

DMARC tells mail servers how to act when DKIM or SPF verification fails. It is configured by your hosting provider .

The reasons for making these configurations are more than enough:

You will get a higher open rate in your shipments, since they will not go to the spam or junk mail folder
You will protect your subscribers from possible virtual scammers who want to use your company name to carry out phishing .

What is DKIM?

DKIM ( DomainKeys Identified Mail ) is an email authentication protocol whose main function is to link a sending server with each email it sends. Once configured, the message is cryptographically signed with the domain name, so that the identity of the sender is verified. Also, being signed with a cryptographic mechanism, it is guaranteed that the message has not been manipulated during transmission. This may sound complicated but the only thing you have to do for this entire process to occur is configure a record in your DNS , Acumbamail takes care of the rest of the process automatically.

How to configure DKIM in Acumbamail

First, log into your Acumbamail account and go to the Your Account section. Once there, click on the Emails and Domains tab.

To configure DKIM, you must have previously added and verified your domain in My domains .

configure my domains

Go to Anti-Spam Settings (DKIM) to begin setup.

configure dkim and spf

configure dkim

DKIM , you must add a CNAME record from your hosting provider. The final value must be the one we indicated in the Antispam Settings section. There are some providers that add the domain name automatically, so check whether you have to add the part that includes your domain or not.

Although configuring these protocols is not complicated, if in doubt it is best to consult directly with the hosting provider before making changes. Additionally, in Acumbamail you have the Send to a technician button that will automatically send by email all the information necessary to configure the records to the email you indicate.

consult technician

Check the settings. Once you have it configured, return to your Acumbamail panel and on the configure DKIM page, click on Verify and you will be able to see if it is correctly configured. If not, you can click the error message to see if you have configured the logs correctly. Remember that they can take even more than 48 hours to spread. Remember that with each new change you make, you must press the Verify button again to check if the configuration has actually been completed.

Check configuration

As you can see, it is a simple process and having this verification method configured will significantly increase the reliability and reputation of your domain , which will translate into an increase in the deliverability rate of your shipments.

What is DMARC?

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) is a protocol that unifies the previous two. Because DKIM and SPF have become so popular, many email providers implement them. The problem is that before the existence of DMARC, email providers could decide for themselves what to do with emails that did not comply with the other protocols. DMARC basically allows you to specify a directive on what to do with them, for example sending them to the spam folder or even rejecting them. For the DMARC protocol to work correctly, you only need to have the DKIM and SPF records configured correctly (no action is required on the platform).

Since February 2024, major mail servers such as Gmail, Outlook or Yahoo consider it essential to have DMARC configured. If we do not configure it, we are very likely to end up in the spam folder.

How to configure DMARC in Acumbamail

DMARC configuration is not done within the platform itself, you have to do it with your hosting provider, where you have registered your domain. It is as easy as adding a TXT record.

This could be an example of a DMARC record that uses a TXT record:

v=DMARC1;p=none;pct=100;rua=mailto:yourdomain.com

So you understand what the above record means:

“v” is the DMARC version and is mandatory.
“p” indicates what the servers should do if the authentication fails. If it says “reject” it means that the message is rejected = bounced.
“pct” indicates the percentage of unauthenticated messages that are subject to the DMARC policy. 100 = 100%
“rua” is the address to which DMARC activity reports will be sent.

If you want to understand all the parameters you can set when configuring the DMARC protocol, take a look at this article.