A complete guide to setting up and using EasyDMARC

Do you want to enhance your email security and prevent third parties from sending emails in your name, while improving the deliverability of your legitimate emails? In that case, using EasyDMARC is the way to go. In this article, we give you a head start by discussing the most frequently asked questions about DMARC and EasyDMARC. You’ll get a quick rundown on how DMARC records work and how you can configure them to get the most out of this tool.

What are DMARC, DKIM, SPF, and BIMI records?

DMARC, DKIM, SPF, and BIMI are different types of email security protocols that can be added to the DNS. Their deployment will improve various parts of your email security. Out of these, DMARC is arguably the most important one in current times. However, it is important to have all of these records configured well in order to maximize your domain’s security. You can read more about these different records and what exactly they do in this detailed guide on DMARC, DKIM, SPF, and BIMI.

What is EasyDMARC?

EasyDMARC is a tool that makes deploying DMARC, SPF, DKIM, and BIMI records seamless and easy. The tool provides you with an easy-to-use control panel, through which you can edit all settings – without any technical knowledge and without having to edit anything in the DNS yourself. Moreover, EasyDMARC automatically provides you with useful data about outgoing email flows from your domain, including the servers that they come from. This data will give you valuable insights to further improve your email security and outgoing email strategies. You can learn more about what EasyDMARC can tangibly help you with through this case study.

How can I purchase EasyDMARC for a domain?

EasyDMARC is easy to purchase for both new and existing domains. It is currently not possible to order EasyDMARC with us for a domain that is not in your Openprovider account.

When you are purchasing a new domain, either through the website or the control panel, you will see a screen like the one below. Simply select EasyDMARC (and any other products that you want to purchase, such as an SSL certificate) and complete the transaction. EasyDMARC will immediately be added to your new domain.

When you want to add EasyDMARC to a domain that you already registered, simply go to the control panel and select this domain from the domain overview page. Simply click the “edit” button next to the domain. You will then see a page with an overview of all products and features you can enable for this domain. Click on “Enable now” next to EasyDMARC to enable EasyDMARC for this domain. Make sure to have enough available money in your account balance!

How can I activate EasyDMARC for my domain?

After you have purchased EasyDMARC for your domain, you will need to activate the DMARC record before the tool starts protecting your email and generating reports. In case you buy EasyDMARC together with a new domain, or if you activate the product for an existing domain and decide to use our nameservers, Openprovider will automatically activate the tool for you. We will add the DMARC CNAME record to your domain, while you can sit back and wait for the first data to come in.

In case you decide to not use our nameservers, you will need to manually add a CNAME or TXT record to your domain’s DNS zone. Out of these two options, we strongly recommend adding a CNAME record. This option allows you to easily manage your settings from the EasyDMARC control panel. Adding a TXT record takes more manual work, but you may prefer adding a TXT record in some cases.

You can find detailed instructions on setting up the CNAME or TXT record in this helpful guide.

As soon as the DMARC or TXT record has been added to your domain’s DNS zone (either automatically or manually), EasyDMARC will start gathering data. You will be able to access the first data within 72 hours after you have finished setting up the tool. In general, it will take 4-6 weeks before the tool will have gathered enough relevant information for you to start tailoring it to your needs and basing decisions in your email strategy on the results.

What are DMARC policies and how do they work?

A DMARC policy allows you to indicate that your outgoing email messages are compliant with SPF and DKIM, and to tell receiving email clients what to do with unauthenticated emails that appear to come from your domain. You can set up DMARC with three different policies: monitoring (p=none), quarantine (p=quarantine), and reject (p=reject).

The monitoring policy is the entry-level DMARC policy. If you have this policy enabled, DMARC will simply monitor your sending sources without taking action in regard to illegitimate emails. Unauthorized emails from your domain can therefore still end up in your contacts’ inboxes. However, you are able to analyze the data and find out who or what is sending these emails from your domain.

The quarantine policy is the next “step” on the ladder. This policy will automatically redirect unauthorized messages from your domain to the receivers’ spam boxes.

Finally, enabling the reject policy will tell receiving email clients to prevent all messages that come from unauthorized sources from being delivered. In this case, unauthorized messages from your domain will not even end up in spam boxes. They will simply never arrive in your contacts’ mailboxes.

When you are starting out with EasyDMARC, we recommend you start with the monitoring policy. Many beginners jump straight to the reject policy. Of course, no one wants any spam that comes from their domain to end up in their customers’ mailboxes. However, in most cases, this policy will also reject legitimate and important emails from your side, as you have likely not configured your email well when you are starting out. We, therefore, recommend starting with the monitoring and quarantine policies and slowly working your way up to reject, while carefully analyzing the data that you receive through EasyDMARC’s dashboard.

How do EasyDMARC’s aggregate and failure reports work?

When you publish a DMARC record in your DNS (using EasyDMARC or not), every email service provider that supports DMARC (such as Yahoo and Google) will automatically send out reports containing critical information about your emails. These reports contain valuable information about your outgoing emails, such as information about the servers they come from and whether they were authenticated by you or not. All reports are sent in the form of compressed flat XML text.

EasyDMARC takes all of these reports and turns them into one aggregate, easily readable, and clickable data set. These reports will tell you more about the number of emails sent, the servers they come from, and your DMARC policy and alignment settings and how you can improve them. Aggregate reports update once a day by default. If you wish to, you can adjust the interval to your own preferences in the EasyDMARC control panel.

Besides these aggregate reports, you can also enable the option to receive failure reports from EasyDMARC. These reports contain edited copies of emails that failed authentication checks by email service providers. You can use failure reports to find out more about why these emails were rejected, and how you can prevent this from happening in the future. However, for beginning EasyDMARC users, we recommend starting out with just monitoring and acting upon aggregate reports.

On top of that, DMARC failure reports are not supported by major internet providers due to privacy reasons, while aggregate reports are. Due to these restrictions, you may end up not receiving many failure reports either way.

How is EasyDMARC billed, and how can I cancel my subscription?

EasyDMARC is billed monthly. Prices are $6.46/month for Openprovider Members and $8.99/month for non-Members. Billing is done automatically, as long as you have a sufficient account balance. You can cancel your EasyDMARC subscription through the domain overview page or the EasyDMARC control panel. If you cancel your subscription, you immediately lose access to the EasyDMARC control panel. You will not be refunded for the remaining days that were left in your subscription cycle.

Do remember that, if you delete or transfer a domain away from Openprovider, the EasyDMARC subscription for this domain will remain active. You will need to cancel this subscription manually.

A complete guide to setting up and using EasyDMARC

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