Editing Email Authentication (section)

=== DMARC ===
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) is a standard that builds on top of SPF and DKIM. It allows the domain owner to create a policy that tells mailbox providers (such as Google or Microsoft) what to do if the email fails SPF and DKIM checks.

When you set up a sending domain with ActiveCampaign, we will help you set up a basic DMARC record as a bare minimum. You can think of this simple DMARC record as a placeholder and it will have no impact on the messages you send, but it will satisfy Gmail and Yahoo’s requirement for a basic DMARC record. If you want to further secure your domain with DMARC, we recommend that you consider our partner product DMARC Digests.

DMARC supports three main policy configurations:
* "None": Indicates that emails should be treated normally if DMARC fails. It is equivalent to not having a DMARC record, although you can still use DMARC's reporting features.
* "Quarantine": Indicates that emails should be delivered to the spam folder if the DMARC check fails.
* "Reject": Indicates that emails should be bounced (not delivered to the recipient) if the DMARC check fails.

Using a DMARC policy of "Quarantine" or "Reject" will require a proper DKIM record setup for your sending domain, or else all your mail from ActiveCampaign will fail the DMARC test. This will filter it to the spam folder ("Quarantine") or block it entirely ("Reject"). Ensure you set up DKIM for all your sending domains before setting up a strict DMARC record. When you set up a sending domain with ActiveCampaign, this will take care of DKIM.

Some of the many benefits of setting up DMARC include:
* DMARC records prevent someone from spoofing your domain.
* DMARC is necessary for setting up BIMI. Check out this detailed BIMI guide from our Postmark team.
* DMARC is a requirement for basic delivery to many email providers like Gmail and Yahoo.

Our friends at Postmark have a great deep dive into DMARC: [https://postmarkapp.com/guides/dmarc What it is and why do you need it?].