When your cold emails don’t reach the inbox, your DMARC policy (or the lack of it) may be the hidden cause. DMARC helps authenticate your emails, protect your domain from malicious actors, and boost your email deliverability rates. When you don’t have DMARC in place, both mailbox providers and recipients are less likely to trust your emails. The result? Low email deliverability, low engagement, and low ROI.
However, even when you do have DMARC in place, improper configuration could tank your reply rates. Let’s explore what the best policy for implementing DMARC for cold emails is — none, quarantine, or reject?
Key Takeaways
- The wrong cold email DMARC setup can completely ruin your email deliverability and overall marketing campaign.
- The choice between the “none, “quarantine,” and “reject” policies is a crucial one for the success of your cold email outreach campaign.
- The best DMARC policy for cold outreach may vary based on your needs and priorities.
- p=none may be a good starting point, whereas p=reject should mostly be avoided in cold email campaigns.
- p=quarantine is often the optimal choice.
DMARC Basics for Cold Email Senders
DMARC stands for “Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance.” It is a popular email authentication protocol..
DMARC builds on top of SPF and DKIM to check for the authenticity of outbound emails. If the email passes either SPF or DKIM (with domain alignment), DMARC passes for the email. After the checking process, it then proceeds to enforce the domain owner’s policy for those emails that fail these checks. But what do the policies mean?
- None: This policy is the most relaxed of all; it simply monitors email traffic and sends reports without any enforcement
- Quarantine: This one tries to balance kindness with strictness. It sends emails that fail DMARC to spam/junk folders, but doesn’t block them completely.
- Reject: This is the strict boss; it blocks emails failing DMARC outright.
Cold email campaigns are at especially high risk when it comes to DMARC issues.
Shared IPs
Cold emails are often sent from a shared IP. If that’s the case for you, get ready to witness low deliverability rates. This is not because you’ve done something wrong. It’s because the other senders who use the same shared IP may have done something wrong that will also impact you.
Let’s say sender X, who uses the same IP as you, regularly sends spam. Even if you yourself don’t send spam and follow the best practices, you might still be flagged as a suspicious sender and even be blacklisted. It’s like being that innocent guy who has criminal friends…
Domain Reputation
If you are sending cold email campaigns, you should know that they have higher bounce rates and spam complaints. This can lead to poor domain reputation, which can result in your emails landing in spam.
Complex Sending Setups
Are you using cold email tools, third-party platforms, and marketing automation services? Well, these can bring misalignments between your sending domain and authentication records. The result? DMARC failures and a high likelihood of ending up in spam.
Cold Email Challenges & DMARC’s Role
Implementing DMARC for cold emails can help you fix some of the most common cold email challenges.
Common Challenges
Here are some of the main cold email challenges faced by senders.
1. Spam Filters
Spam filters are very likely to flag your emails if:
- There is no proper authentication setup for your emails
- You have a poor sender reputation
- Your domain is in a DNS or IP Blocklist
- Your domain has been impersonated or spoofed several times in the past
As a result, your intended recipients might never see your messages. Let’s be honest, who checks spam? And those who do, more often than not, don’t really open or read the spam messages.
2. Failing to Meet ESP Requirements (Gmail/Outlook/Yahoo)
If your emails are unauthenticated, email service providers see that as a major red flag.
- Google’s & Yahoo’s Requirements: Google and Yahoo require SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to be configured correctly for bulk senders. The minimum recommended DMARC policy is p=none with alignment between the “From:” address and authentication domains.
- Microsoft’s Guidelines: Microsoft requires SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to be configured for high-volume senders. This applies to those sending 5000+ emails per day to Outlook, Live, and Hotmail domain addresses.
How to Fix Cold Email Challenges
To maximize deliverability and avoid these issues, use a custom domain and ensure SPF and DKIM alignment:
Custom Domain
Always use a dedicated domain for cold outreach. Ideally, this should be a domain different from your main business domain. This keeps your main business domain’s reputation safe, cold email failures won’t hurt it, and its current reputation won’t impact your cold email success.
Such a quick and easy workaround to isolate risks!
SPF/DKIM Alignment
SPF/DKIM alignment means the domain used to authenticate your email matches the one in the “From” address. DMARC requires this match. Without it, even authenticated emails can fail DMARC and end up in spam, especially when using third-party tools.
DMARC Policies Compared (Data-Driven Advice)
But what is the best DMARC policy for cold outreach? Here’s a concise yet comprehensive breakdown of each.
p=none
This policy is best for new domains, warming up, and testing deliverability. While it provides no spoofing protection, it can be a safe and effective first step toward gradual enforcement.
As relaxed as it is, p=none will still help provide you with insights into authentication issues through reports, without impacting deliverability or causing operational disturbances.
p=quarantine
This one is particularly effective for established senders that have aligned authentication. You can view p=quarantine as an intermediate step after monitoring. It’s the guy in the corridor, on your way from room “none” to room “reject” on the opposite side.
The main problem with p=quarantine is that it still leaves room for risk as receivers may click on suspicious links when reviewing spam emails. This is where p=reject comes into play.
p=reject
The p=reject DMARC policy offers the highest level of protection against spoofing and impersonation by instructing email receivers to reject all messages that fail DMARC authentication.
While it is the ultimate goal for domain owners seeking maximum security, it must be implemented carefully. If legitimate email sources are not properly authenticated with SPF and DKIM, p=reject can unintentionally block valid messages, impacting your own email deliverability.
Only move to p=reject when you’re confident that all authorized sources are fully aligned and passing DMARC checks.
Step-by-Step DMARC Strategy for Cold Email
So, what’s the best DMARC policy for cold email outreach? Here’s a strategic answer for an effective cold email DMARC setup.
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Sign up with PowerDMARC
Log in or sign up with PowerDMARC for free and register your domain name. You can get started with our setup wizard to start implementing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for your domain.
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Start Creating Your Email Authentication Records
Use our PowerToolbox to start creating your DNS records. It’s automatic and easy, helping you create error-free and accurate records in seconds!
- Start by creating an SPF record and authorizing all your sending sources
- Then create a DKIM key pair
- Lastly, create a DMARC record for your domain. Start with a p=none policy and enable DMARC reports by configuring your rua tag:
v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:reports@example.com
Slowly move to p=quaranrtine:
v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:reports@example.com
Finally, configure p=reject when you are confident with your setup:
v=DMARC1; p=reject; rua=mailto:reports@example.com
Note that in all stages, we recommend continuously monitoring your reports. PowerDMARC simplifies reporting with the help of a DMARC report analyzer. It makes complex data easy to read and analyze, helping you stay on top of deliverability issues.
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Add the Records to Your DNS
PowerDMARC’s hosted services make this step easy with an auto-DNS publishing feature. However, this can be done manually as well by accessing your DNS management console.
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Follow Email Sending Best Practices
Finally, follow additional best practices to increase cold email deliverability like:
- Including a one-click unsubscribe link or button
- Curating emails that will be of value to recipients
- Maintaining a low spam rate of under 0.3%
Common Mistakes
Here are some common mistakes domain owners make (with the relevant fixes for the perfect cold email DMARC setup).
Using p=reject Too Soon
Some domain owners who lack the necessary knowledge immediately jump to p=reject. Most often, they aren’t aware of the possible consequences. Once they find out, it’s too late, and the success of their cold email outreach campaign is at stake.
Always start with monitoring mode. Remember, if you reject too soon, you might be rejected!
SPF/DKIM Misalignment
SPF/DKIM misalignment is a more common issue than you can imagine. People often overlook this and end up with authentication and deliverability failures.
Ignoring DMARC Reports
DMARC reports can give you comprehensive and useful insights into your email authentication and deliverability status. They can help you detect any issues before it’s too late and address them accordingly.
Summing Up
Cold emails are particularly susceptible to DMARC issues. Using the right policy for DMARC for cold emails can help you avoid the spam folder and boost your ROI.
Use the right DMARC monitoring service to track your policy’s impact before enforcing stricter rules.
