How To Fix DMARC Failures Step-by-Step

1. Verify DMARC Record: Check your DNS for correct DMARC setup. Ensure the policy (p=none, p=quarantine, or p=reject) aligns with your email security goals.
2. Review SPF Settings: Confirm all authorized email sources are included in your SPF record and stay within the 10 DNS lookup limit.
3. Check DKIM Configuration: Ensure DKIM signatures match your domain and are properly aligned.
4. Address Alignment Issues: Use relaxed alignment (aspf and adkim tags) to troubleshoot, then move to strict alignment for stronger security.
5. Fix Third-Party and Forwarding Issues: Authorize third-party senders, update SPF/DKIM records for each, and implement both protocols to prevent failures during email forwarding.
6. Monitor and Adjust: Use tools to analyze DMARC reports, track sender performance, and fine-tune policies over time.

Pro Tip: Start with a relaxed DMARC policy (p=none) to monitor issues without affecting email delivery. Gradually enforce stricter policies as your setup stabilizes.

Quick Overview:

Why It Matters: DMARC failures can lead to emails landing in spam, being rejected, or worse - your domain being spoofed. Fixing these issues ensures your emails are delivered and your brand stays protected.

How to Fix DMARC Failures Step-by-Step

If you’ve identified DMARC failures in your email authentication setup, don’t worry - there’s a systematic way to address these issues. Follow these steps to pinpoint and resolve the problems, ensuring your email system is secure and functioning as intended.

Check Your DMARC Record Configuration

Start by verifying that your DMARC record is correctly published in your DNS. Use a DMARC lookup tool to check your domain’s policy and identify any configuration errors like missing tags or syntax issues. If no record exists, create a TXT DNS record under the _dmarc subdomain according to the DMARC specification.

Make sure your policy (p=none, p=quarantine, or p=reject) matches your email security goals. This step is crucial to maintaining a strong email authentication framework.

Review SPF Settings

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) alignment requires the Return-Path domain to match the From address. Check that your SPF record includes all authorized sending sources and adheres to proper syntax. Common issues include missing IP addresses for legitimate senders or exceeding the 10 DNS lookup limit. Test your SPF setup by sending test emails and reviewing the authentication results in the email headers.

Test DKIM Setup

Ensure your DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) signature aligns with your From domain. If no DKIM signature is specified, email providers like Gmail may assign a default signature (e.g., d=domain.gappssmtp.com), which can cause alignment problems. Use tools like Google Admin Toolbox's Messageheader tool to analyze your email headers for missing or invalid DKIM signatures. Adjust your DKIM alignment modes as needed to strengthen authentication.

Configure Alignment Modes

DMARC allows you to set alignment modes for SPF and DKIM as either relaxed or strict. Relaxed alignment treats subdomains (e.g., mail.example.com) as matching the parent domain (example.com), while strict alignment requires an exact match. Start with relaxed alignment to monitor and troubleshoot issues, then move to strict alignment once your setup is stable. Use the aspf tag for SPF and the adkim tag for DKIM in your DMARC record to configure these settings. If you don’t specify alignment modes, DMARC defaults to relaxed alignment.

Fix Third-Party Provider and Email Forwarding Issues

Emails sent by third-party providers or forwarded through other servers can disrupt SPF and DKIM alignment. For example, SPF often fails after forwarding, and DKIM can break if the email content is altered. To address this:

• Authorize third-party providers to send emails on your behalf by authenticating your domain with them.
• Publish dedicated SPF and DKIM records for each third-party vendor.
• Implement both SPF and DKIM to ensure that if one fails (e.g., due to forwarding), the other can still validate the message.

Begin with a relaxed DMARC policy (p=none) to monitor activity and resolve issues before enforcing stricter rules. Regularly review DMARC reports to identify failing messages and their causes. This proactive approach not only improves email deliverability but also protects your brand’s reputation.

For Salesforce users, special considerations apply. If Bounce Management or Email Security Compliance is enabled, configure a DKIM key with a matching domain field. Alternatively, disable Bounce Management and add include:_spf.salesforce.com to your SPF record.

How to Prevent Future DMARC Failures

Fixing DMARC failures is just the first step. The real challenge is ensuring your email authentication stays consistent as your email infrastructure evolves. Over time, new issues can crop up, potentially compromising your DMARC compliance. To stay ahead of these challenges and keep everything running smoothly, consider these proactive measures.

Perform Regular DNS Record Audits

Make it a habit to review your DNS records monthly. Regular audits help catch new issues that might arise as your email setup changes. This practice complements the initial DMARC fixes and ensures long-term compliance with authentication standards.

Start by auditing your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. Check for outdated entries that could pose security risks or cause errors, such as exceeding the SPF 10 DNS lookup limit. Ensure any changes to SPF records are approved by the DMARC project owner.

Next, focus on your DKIM configuration. Monitor key rotation schedules and confirm that all active sending sources have properly configured DKIM signatures. Double-check that your DKIM selectors are valid and that the corresponding public keys are correctly published in your DNS records.

Lastly, regularly analyze your DMARC data. Look for signs of new legitimate email sources, unexpected delivery patterns, compliance regressions, or changes in email volume. This data can guide adjustments to your SPF and DKIM records as needed. To stay ahead of potential problems, consider setting up alerts to notify you of unexpected changes.

Document every change meticulously. Use a worksheet to track domain names, sender hosts (including IP addresses and DKIM selectors), deployment phase dates, and any other relevant details. This documentation will be invaluable for troubleshooting and onboarding new team members.

Use DMARC Monitoring Tools

Continuous monitoring is key to detecting authentication issues as they happen, rather than weeks later. These tools are essential for keeping your DMARC policies effective and fine-tuning them to counter evolving threats.

Monitoring tools generate reports that reveal which servers are sending emails and whether those emails are passing authentication checks. Automate the analysis of these reports to flag anomalies immediately. Regularly review the reports to address issues, block unauthorized senders, and refine your policies. When updating your DMARC policies, avoid abrupt changes - such as jumping from "p=none" to "p=reject" - to prevent disruptions in legitimate email flows.

Keeping an eye on the changing threat landscape will also help you respond quickly to new unauthorized activities, ensuring your email infrastructure remains secure.

Document Email Infrastructure Changes

Every change to your email infrastructure should be documented before implementation. This step is crucial for tracking progress, troubleshooting, and ensuring ongoing compliance.

Log details such as what was changed, when it was done, who made the change, and why it was necessary. Establish approval workflows for DNS and email configuration changes to prevent any accidental disruptions to your email authentication.

Additionally, maintain an up-to-date inventory of all third-party services authorized to send emails on your behalf. If you introduce new tools - like marketing platforms, CRM systems, or notification services - update your authentication records immediately. This proactive approach will help you confidently enforce stricter DMARC policies, such as moving to a "p=reject" setting, without compromising the integrity of your email infrastructure.

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Using Advanced Email Infrastructure Solutions

Manually troubleshooting DMARC issues can work, but let’s face it - it’s tedious, especially for large-scale email campaigns. That’s where advanced email infrastructure platforms come in. They automate the tricky parts, like keeping your authentication records accurate, so you can focus on what really matters: your outreach. Here’s how Infraforge simplifies DMARC troubleshooting and takes the hassle out of email infrastructure management.

Infraforge Features Overview

Infraforge is designed to handle DMARC compliance from the ground up. It automates the setup for SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records, so you don’t have to. This is especially important now that email providers like Google and Yahoo require proper authentication under their 2025 standards. Emails that don’t comply? They’ll either get quarantined or outright blocked.

Here’s what Infraforge handles for you:

Infraforge also offers dedicated IPs, pre-warmed domains, SSL support, domain masking, multi-IP provisioning, and API integration. These features work together to enhance your sender reputation right from the start.

One standout feature is bulk DNS updates, which is a lifesaver if you manage multiple domains. Instead of painstakingly updating each domain’s DNS records one by one, you can apply changes across your entire portfolio in just a few clicks. This automation doesn’t just save time - it also significantly improves email deliverability, giving Infraforge an edge over its competitors.

Infraforge vs Other Platforms

While many platforms focus on monitoring DMARC compliance, Infraforge goes a step further by automating the entire email infrastructure.

Take EasyDMARC, for example. It’s great for monitoring DMARC compliance and even lets you edit SPF, BIMI, and DMARC records directly through its interface. But it doesn’t provide the kind of hosted infrastructure that Infraforge does.

Then there’s PowerDMARC, which simplifies complex configurations and offers detailed aggregate reporting to help you keep tabs on your email security [34,36]. Like EasyDMARC, it’s more about monitoring and managing existing setups.

Infraforge, on the other hand, delivers the full package. It doesn’t just help you fix issues - it prevents them from happening in the first place. At $17 per month for mailbox slots (with a minimum of 10 slots), Infraforge is positioned as an all-in-one solution for businesses that need both reliable infrastructure and compliance.

The key difference? Platforms like EasyDMARC and PowerDMARC are tools for monitoring and tweaking. Infraforge provides a ready-to-go infrastructure that eliminates many of the headaches associated with email authentication.

How Infraforge Simplifies DMARC Troubleshooting

What sets Infraforge apart is its proactive approach to DMARC troubleshooting. Instead of reacting to problems after they occur, the platform prevents common authentication issues with automated configurations. It sets up DMARC, SPF, DKIM, and custom domain tracking for each domain, adhering to industry best practices.

Infraforge also takes care of SPF lookups, DKIM key rotation, and alignment automatically, removing the guesswork and reducing the trial-and-error process that often comes with fixing alignment issues.

For businesses navigating the strict 2025 email standards - where spam complaint rates must stay under 0.3% - Infraforge’s health monitoring is a game-changer. It provides real-time insights into sender reputation and flags performance dips early. And if something does go wrong, the centralized dashboard makes it easy to pinpoint and resolve issues across multiple domains and providers, all in one place.

Conclusion: Main Points to Remember

To maintain DMARC compliance and address failures effectively, focus on a few critical steps. Start by verifying your DMARC configuration, aligning SPF and DKIM, and addressing any issues with third-party providers. A systematic approach - checking your DMARC record setup, ensuring proper alignment of SPF and DKIM, and resolving third-party authentication issues - will not only fix immediate problems but also strengthen your email security for the future.

Consistent monitoring is key to staying ahead of potential failures. Organizations that implement DMARC policies correctly can reduce phishing and email spoofing by up to 99%. Yet, only about 30% of domains globally have a DMARC policy in place. This leaves a massive opportunity to enhance your email security and gain a competitive advantage by prioritizing proper email authentication.

One of the most important strategies? Start with relaxed alignment and tighten policies gradually. Use a monitoring policy (p=none) initially to identify issues without disrupting email delivery. Once you've resolved any configuration problems, move toward stricter enforcement. And don’t forget to document every change you make to your email setup - this small habit can save you significant troubleshooting time later.

For organizations managing large-scale email campaigns, advanced tools can make the process much easier. Solutions like Infraforge automate DNS configurations, handle dedicated IP management, and provide real-time monitoring to proactively prevent DMARC failures. These tools shift the focus from reactive fixes to proactive protection, ensuring smoother operations.

With email providers continually raising their standards, having strong DMARC compliance is no longer optional - it’s essential. Whether you manage it manually or rely on automated solutions, investing in robust email authentication will improve deliverability and safeguard your sender reputation, all while reducing security risks.

FAQs

What happens if I don’t fix DMARC failures in my email system?

Failing to resolve DMARC issues can leave your organization vulnerable to serious threats like email spoofing, phishing attacks, and malware distribution. These risks don’t just compromise your security - they can also tarnish your brand’s reputation and diminish customer trust.

On top of that, unresolved DMARC problems can result in legitimate emails being marked as spam or even rejected entirely. This disruption in communication with clients and partners can hurt your email deliverability, interfere with daily operations, and weaken your overall security defenses over time.

How can I stop third-party email providers from causing DMARC failures?

To prevent DMARC failures when using third-party email providers, you’ll need to take a couple of key steps. First, include their sending IP addresses in your SPF record. This ensures that their emails are authorized to send on your behalf. Second, confirm that they’re applying DKIM signatures with your domain. This step authenticates the emails properly and helps avoid any hiccups.

For DMARC compliance to work smoothly, both SPF and DKIM need to align with your domain. When these alignments are in place, your emails are more likely to pass authentication checks, keeping your deliverability strong and reliable.

How can I monitor and improve my DMARC compliance over time?

To keep tabs on and improve your DMARC compliance, leveraging specialized tools like PowerDMARC, Dmarcian, or Valimail can be a game-changer. These platforms offer detailed reports and real-time alerts, making it easier to track your email authentication status and quickly spot any issues.

It's a good idea to adopt a phased approach when enforcing DMARC policies. Start with a monitoring policy (p=none) to observe email flows without impacting delivery. Once you’ve resolved any misconfigurations, move to quarantine, and finally, enforce reject policies. This step-by-step method ensures that legitimate emails aren’t disrupted during the transition.

Regularly reviewing DMARC reports is essential for analyzing sender alignment and fine-tuning your policies. Tools like EasyDMARC or DuoCircle can automate much of this process, saving time while keeping your compliance efforts on track. For businesses with advanced email infrastructure needs, platforms like Infraforge provide tailored solutions to improve deliverability and support large-scale email campaigns.

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