• Log In
  • Sign Up
  • Contact Us
PowerDMARC
  • Features
    • PowerDMARC
    • Hosted DKIM
    • PowerSPF
    • PowerBIMI
    • PowerMTA-STS
    • PowerTLS-RPT
    • PowerAlerts
  • Services
    • Deployment Services
    • Managed Services
    • Support Services
    • Service Benefits
  • Pricing
  • Power Toolbox
  • Partners
    • Reseller Program
    • MSSP Program
    • Technology Partners
    • Industry Partners
    • Find a partner
    • Become a Partner
  • Resources
    • DMARC: What is it and How does it Work?
    • Datasheets
    • Case Studies
    • DMARC in Your Country
    • DMARC by Industry
    • Support
    • Blog
    • DMARC Training
  • About
    • Our company
    • Clients
    • Contact us
    • Book a demo
    • Events
  • Menu Menu

How to Plan a Smooth Transition From DMARC None to DMARC Reject?

Blogs
How to plan a smooth transition from DMARC none to DMARC reject

If your domain is already compliant with DMARC, you still have to ensure that SPF, DKIM, and DMARC protocols are appropriately configured, and that a suitable 7 is enforced. ‘Reject’ is the strictest policy when it comes to email security, but it may cause email deliverability issues for genuine messages as well. 

If you don’t use a reporting system to monitor authentication, it will take months for you to find out that some of your legitimate emails didn’t make it to recipients’ mailboxes at all. This can severely impact your conversation with clients and prospects while also nullifying email marketing efforts. 

Experts advise setting the policy of your DMARC implementation to None at the initial stage as it lets you start getting reports without risking your emails being rejected or marked as spam. 

But when is the right time to switch your policy, and how to do it the right way? Well, read the blog to get all the answers. 

DMARC Policies

You can set your DMARC record to one of the three policies. 

None

None policy, also called Monitoring Only Policy, instructs Internet Service Providers to deliver reports to the email address mentioned in your record’s RUA or RUF tag. The policy doesn’t harm your email deliverability at all, as it only shares deep insights into your email channel. 

When you set your record to the None, no action is taken against emails failing authentication checks. This means they are neither marked as spam nor rejected outrightly.

Quarantine

Quarantine policy delivers reports and instructs ISPs to mark all emails failing authentication as spam or otherwise lodges them in your quarantine folder instead of your email inbox. Emails passing authentication are delivered normally to recipients’ primary inboxes.

Reject

The Reject policy instructs ISPs to outrightly reject the entry of all emails failing authentication checks. Emails passing authentication are delivered normally to recipients’ primary inboxes. The downside of the Reject policy is that sometimes legitimate emails also get rejected, harming conversations with clients and prospects on multiple levels.  

When is the Right Time to Set DMARC Policy to Reject?

You need to monitor your email-sending domain’s performance and activities before resetting the policy. Channel insights enable you to configure your record properly for an effective and non-erroneous email authentication process.

The ideal time to switch to the Reject is once all the sources are authorized and their DMARC compliance has reached around 100%. This practice ensures a good deliverability rate for genuine emails. 

You can also set your policy for DMARC to apply only to a pre-specified percentage of emails sent from your domain. All you need to do is add a percentage tag (pct) to the DMARC record, and this will minimize the risk of poor email deliverability. In addition, a ‘pct’ tag increases the possibility of successful delivery of genuine emails sent from your domain.

How to Plan a Smooth Transition  From DMARC None to DMARC Reject?

Follow this step-by-step guide to enforce the strictest DMARC policy.

Step 1: Start DMARC Monitoring

The best course of action to safely transit from the None to Reject policy is using DMARC monitoring services with PowerDMARC. You can choose to receive two types of DMARC reports-

Aggregate Reports (RUA)

You receive aggregate reports daily with detailed insight into your domain’s traffic. It consists of a list of IP addresses that have attempted to send emails through your domain.

Forensic Reports (RUF)

Forensic reports are sent right after an email from your domain fails to be delivered. A RUF report always includes original message headers and may consist of original messages as well.  

Stay on the None policy during the initial monitoring stage to understand your mail flow without impacting its performance. 

Step 2: DMARC Report Analysis

While using the None policy, configure your email-sending domain’s SPF and DKIM records for optimum email security. Meanwhile, also focus on carefully monitoring all the reports you receive as they inform you which DKIM selectors are used and which senders are sending emails from your domain. The reports also tell the percentage of emails passing and failing authentication checks. 

Also, remember to be within the 10 DNS lookup limit. If it’s a problem for you to remove mechanisms, use the SPF flattening approach to instantly mitigate the SPF PermError and stay under SPF 10 lookup limit.

Don’t skip using a different DKIM selector for each sender, and only include selectors in use. Apart from this, keep your DKIM keys secured and change them regularly.

Step 3: Switch to Quarantine

After properly configuring SPF and DKIM, you can shift to the Quarantine policy from the none policy. On enforcing it, recipients’ mailboxes will redirect all unauthenticated emails sent from your domain to spam folders. 

To check if it’s the right time to shift to the Quarantine policy, you need to see what percentage of emails are failing authentication. Switch your policy only when a small percentage of promotional emails fail authentication. The preparedness to enforce the Quarantine policy can vary from domain to domain.

Moreover, take benefit of the percentage tag and start by setting the pct tag to 5 or 10%. This would mean that only 5 to 10% of the unauthenticated emails will be redirected to spam. Then, you can gradually raise the percentage. 

Step 4: Finally, Switch to Reject 

When you’ve completely switched to the Quarantine policy, and only a few emails are being marked as spam, you can switch to the Reject policy. It won’t hamper email flow and deliverability, if appropriately enforced. Remember that the Reject policy outrightly blocks the entry of unauthenticated emails from recipients’ inboxes. 

If your important conversations still land in the spam folders, you aren’t ready to switch to the reject policy. Instead, make a smooth transition by enforcing it for a small percentage, just as you did in Quarantine. When you’re sure that most of your important messages are reaching the intended recipients’ inboxes, you can transit to 100 percent enforcement.  

Is Reject Policy Always the Most Efficient Choice?

Irrespective of how carefully you authenticate your records, only a few domain owners achieve 100% DMARC compliance on all the valid sources. 100% of the Reject policy enforcement might result in the non-deliverability of some important messages as well. But on the brighter side, it fully protects you against impersonation, phishing, and abuse.

dmarc none to dmarc reject

  • About
  • Latest Posts
Ahona Rudra
Digital Marketing & Content Writer Manager at PowerDMARC
Ahona works as a Digital Marketing and Content Writer Manager at PowerDMARC. She is a passionate writer, blogger, and marketing specialist in cybersecurity and information technology.
Latest posts by Ahona Rudra (see all)
  • Cyber Security in Banking: Top Threats and Best Ways to Prevent Them - September 25, 2023
  • How to Check if Your Email Sources are Reliable? - September 25, 2023
  • How to Protect Your Passwords from AI - September 20, 2023
May 26, 2023/by Ahona Rudra
Tags: dmarc none to dmarc reject, email authentication journey
Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on WhatsApp
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share by Mail

Secure Your Email

Stop Email Spoofing and Improve Email Deliverability

15-day Free trial!


Categories

  • Blogs
  • News
  • Press Releases

Latest Blogs

  • Cyber-Security-in-Banking.-Top-Threats-and-Best-Ways-to-Prevent-Them
    Cyber Security in Banking: Top Threats and Best Ways to Prevent ThemSeptember 25, 2023 - 10:47 am
  • How to check if your email sources are reliable
    How to Check if Your Email Sources are Reliable?September 25, 2023 - 10:40 am
  • How-to-protect-your-Password-from-AI
    How to Protect Your Passwords from AISeptember 20, 2023 - 1:12 pm
  • What are Identity-based attacks and how to stop them_
    What are Identity-based Attacks and How to Stop Them?September 20, 2023 - 1:03 pm
logo footer powerdmarc
SOC2 GDPR PowerDMARC GDPR comliant crown commercial service
global cyber alliance certified powerdmarc csa

Knowledge

What is Email Authentication?
What is DMARC?
What is DMARC Policy?
What is SPF?
What is DKIM?
What is BIMI?
What is MTA-STS?
What is TLS-RPT?
What is RUA?
What is RUF?
AntiSpam vs DMARC
DMARC Alignment
DMARC Compliance
DMARC Enforcement
BIMI Implementation Guide
Permerror
MTA-STS & TLS-RPT Implementation Guide

Tools

Free DMARC Record Generator
Free DMARC Record Checker
Free SPF Record Generator
Free SPF Record Lookup
Free DKIM Record Generator
Free DKIM Record Lookup
Free BIMI Record Generator
Free BIMI Record Lookup
Free FCrDNS Record Lookup
Free TLS-RPT Record Checker
Free MTA-STS Record Checker
Free TLS-RPT Record Generator

Product

Product Tour
Features
PowerSPF
PowerBIMI
PowerMTA-STS
PowerTLS-RPT
PowerAlerts
API Documentation
Managed Services
Email Spoofing Protection
Brand Protection
Anti Phishing
DMARC for Office365
DMARC for Google Mail GSuite
DMARC for Zimbra
Free DMARC Training

Try Us

Contact Us
Free Trial
Book Demo
Partnership
Pricing
FAQ
Support
Blog
Events
Feature Request
Change Log
System Status

  • Français
  • Dansk
  • Nederlands
  • Deutsch
  • Русский
  • Polski
  • Español
  • Italiano
  • 日本語
  • 中文 (简体)
  • Português
  • Norsk
  • Svenska
  • 한국어
© PowerDMARC is a registered trademark.
  • Twitter
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Contact us
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Security Policy
  • Compliance
  • GDPR Notice
  • Sitemap
How to Check Your Domain’s Health?How to Check Domain HealthTop 5 Cybersecurity Managed Services in 2023Top 5 Cybersecurity Managed Services in 2023
Scroll to top