SPF, DKIM, DMARC—Oh My! A Non-Techy Guide to Email Deliverability

If you’ve ever wanted to curl into a ball after hearing the words SPF, DKIM, or DMARC—same. But these settings can make or break your email deliverability, and I’m here to help you not ignore them.

In this episode, I break down the confusing world of email authentication in a super clear, non-techy way—so you can stop wondering why your emails keep landing in spam and actually feel confident about your setup.

Here’s what I cover:

• What DNS actually is (and why it matters for your emails)
• The difference between SPF, DKIM, and DMARC—no jargon, just clarity
• What Google and Yahoo’s new(ish) rules mean for your business
• Whether you should DIY your setup or call in some help

This is one of those behind-the-scenes tech pieces that, once handled, just makes everything smoother—and more professional.

If you're sending emails from your domain (newsletters, automations, or client comms), this episode is a must-listen.

Learn more about BizMagic or the BizMagic Podcast.

Transcript

Welcome back to another episode of the Biz Magic Podcast, your place for all things tech in your online business with solid. Of General Biz Chat two. My name is Patty Meyer and I am the CEO and founder of Biz Magic, where my team and I support entrepreneurs who are overwhelmed by the backend tech of their business.

We create, implement, and teach the tweaks that help our clients make a bigger impact with less stress. If you have your own website or a domain with your own email address, then you have likely heard some terms. If you've ever felt unsure about things like DNS records or email authentication settings, you are most definitely not alone.

These terms tend to show up when you're setting up a new email platform or sending newsletters from your domain, and they usually come. With some confusion and probably a lot of overwhelm and you might wanna shut down. These are all super normal. But here's the thing, understanding the basics of how email authentication works, even just at.

A high level can make a big difference in your business. It affects whether your emails reach your audience, how professional your communications appear, and how protected your domain is from spam or spoofing. So in the episode today, I'm gonna walk you through what D-N-S-S-P-F-D-K-I-M and DM A RC.

Actually mean why they matter and what you need to know to make confident decisions, whether you're managing things on your own or bringing in someone to help and when to know which of those directions to go. And I'm going to try to do this in a way that feels not overwhelming. So I'm not just gonna spew a bunch of information at you that is tech heavy.

Speak or anything like that, I'm going to try to make it as clean and understandable as possible. So let's start with DNS. DNS stands for domain name. System. At its core, it's the system that connects your domain. The thing that you bought, like your business.com or biz magic.co. It connects to all of the services you use online that use your domain, so it directs traffic to your website, your email inbox, and your email marketing platform.

When somebody says. You have to update your DNS records. They're talking about editing the information that tells the internet how to handle things related to your domain, so things like where to send your emails from or how to verify that you are the one sending the emails and that it's not. Some spammer, and so you'll usually access these settings wherever your domain is registered.

So that could be places like GoDaddy, name, cheap Site ground, Squarespace, or wherever you first purchased that domain. If you are unsure where that is, you can do a quick search for your domain name on a site that is called who is W-H-O-I-S, and that. Site can tell you, you can pull that up, pop in your domain, and it will tell you who your registrar is and that's the information you're looking for.

So if you go in there and you see the registrar is GoDaddy, there is a very good chance that that is where your domain is housed. Um, and so, you know, okay, I must have an account with GoDaddy. That's where I need to go look for it. Okay. So that's the foundation of sort of DNS. Now let's talk about the email specific records like S-P-F-D-K-M and DMAC.

These all became kind of a really big deal in the last couple of years when Google and Yahoo. Essentially said, you know what? There's a lot of spam, and I'm paraphrasing. There's a lot of spam floating around out there. And so in order for us to protect our users better, we want to make sure that all emails that come in have been authenticated and verified.

And so what that means is that. They're trying to avoid spam. So if they see an email coming from a custom domain like biz magic.co, they wanna make sure that biz magic.co is an authenticated domain, meaning somebody real owns it and isn't doing untowards thing and, and isn't doing things that are.

Unsavory with it. Okay, so what happened was, in order for that to happen, Google and Yahoo said, okay, by, I think it was like February of 2024, by February of 2024, you need to have made sure that you have authenticated your domain, meaning you have proven. That it is yours and that you are not spamming people.

And in order to do this, you would need to update your DNS records or edit those settings connected to your domain to say, Hey, it's me. I'm a real person. I'm not doing anything icky with it. Okay, so that's where we get into SPFD, KIM, and DAC. SPF or sender Policy Framework is a setting that tells receiving email servers.

So that's people that you are sending your emails to, which platforms are authorized to send emails on your behalf. So let's say you use Google Workspace for your inbox and kit for your newsletters. You'll wanna make sure your DNS records tell the internet that both. Kit and Google Workspace are valid sources for your email.

So in other words, if we're talking about my email address, patty@bmmagic.co me updating these records are telling the internet that it is okay for. Emails to be sent from patty@bizmagic.co, by Google Workspace and by kit. If they're not listed in the DNS records, email servers like Google and Yahoo might treat your message as suspicious.

Even if they're legitimate, without having SPF in place, your emails are more likely to be flagged as spam end up in people's spam boxes or be blocked entirely. Next we have the DKIM and that is domain keys identified mail, and that's a system that verifies that your email hasn't been altered between the time it was sent and when it was received.

So it adds a kind of digital signature to your messages. And while you won't. See this happening behind the scenes. Having DKM in place gives your email more credibility and helps it avoid being filtered out as spam. So in other words, I've sent an email out and there's nobody that has intercepted that email.

And done something to it to add spam to it. Again, it's just a way to tell people who are receiving your email, Hey, this is clean, this is free of spam. And then finally, there's D-M-A-R-C-D-M-A-R-C, which stands for domain based message authentication reporting, and. Conformance. So DMAC builds on SPF and DKIM and allows you to set a policy that tells receiving servers what to do if something doesn't check out.

So again, if I'm sending an email out to somebody who has Yahoo, it's telling Yahoo what to do. If an email I've sent fails the SPF or DKIM authentication, so you can set it to simply monitor and report issues, which is a really good place to start. You can choose more strict policies later, like sending suspicious emails to spam or blocking them entirely.

This can get a little more advanced, so you probably don't really need to deal with this as much. But D-M-A-R-C also helps protect your domain from being spoofed, which is when someone tries to send emails that look like they're coming from you. But aren't. So even though it sounds technical, it's ultimately just about protecting your brand and building trust with your audience, because I'm sure many of us have received an email from ourselves it looks like, but then when you actually look at it, it's not from us and it's from something else.

So the big question now is, do you need to do all of this yourself? First of all, the question of do you need to do this is absolutely yes. If you have not already, you'll have probably received messages about this if you haven't done this by now. But in case you've just purchased a domain and an email address associated with that, or you've just set up an email marketing platform, these are important things to think about.

So should you do all of this yourself? The answer really depends on how comfortable you are working with your own. Domain settings. If your email platform provides step-by-step instructions, and most of them do, you might feel confident enough to follow along and get it done. So that's especially true if everything you use, like your domain, your website, your email marketing platform is under one roof.

Or if you've had some experience with setting up stuff like this in the past, but if you log into your DNS settings and feel. Terrified or overwhelmed or unsure, or if your email isn't delivering reliably. And you're not sure why, this is probably a really great time to bring in support. You don't need a full-time IT person for this.

This is often something, a tech va, a website manager, an email strategist, that they can take care of that in less than an hour, and the cost of that hour is usually pretty well worth it to avoid missed client emails, low deliverability or issues with your email marketing, and a lot of times a host of your domain.

Would be happy to update your DNS records for you so you can always reach out to the chat and say you have GoDaddy support, or Blue Host or SiteGround, whatever it is that you have your domain and your email through. You can reach out to them and ask them if they will help you with your DNS records and most of them will do that for free.

So that's pretty much what I kind of wanna share with you today. I really wanna make sure you take away from this episode that number one, you don't need to be a tech expert to run a professional business. But understanding these things and not feeling as afraid of them really can help you make better decisions.

Number two SPF and DKM are essential. If you're using a custom domain and sending emails through platforms like Kit or ActiveCampaign, you should have these in place. D-M-A-R-C is a smart next step, even if you start with simple monitor only policy while you get everything else squared away. But again, it's not required.

The requirement is having SPF and DKM. If all of this feels too much, that is okay. It's okay to ask for help. This is the kind of foundational setup that pays off over time, and you don't have to figure it out alone if you're thinking that you're not even sure what is already set up for your domain.

That's a great place to start. You can reach out to your email platform support or domain registrar and ask what records are currently in place. From there, you can decide whether you wanna try updating them yourself or bring someone in to do a quick audit and setup. Either way, do not ignore this. This is one of those invisible parts of your business that supports.

Everything else, especially when it comes to how you show up in your client's inbox. So that's it for today. I, I hope that this helped take some of the stress and the mystery out of kind of these tech terms that we hear a lot, and it gave you a little more clarity and confidence around. How to handle them.

Of course, if you ever need help, I don't tend to do this one off. Um, if you know me and I really like you a lot, maybe I'll help you out. You can. Feel free to reach out to me, you know how to find me. I'm patty@bmmagic.co that is authenticated and verified. And, and, uh, you can find me on my website at Biz Magic.

Dot co. I'm trying to show up a little bit more on Instagram. You can find me there at Biz Magic Co. And of course, if you've enjoyed this, please share it. I think this is something that is a really helpful and important topic, so don't be afraid to share it far and wide and take a breath. If this felt overwhelming, listen to it a second time.

Take some notes. Don't let the words scare you. You got this. You're doing awesome, and that's what I got for you. Till next time, thank you for listening to another episode of the Biz Magic Podcast. Like most small businesses and podcasts, we rely heavily on word of mouth. So if you like what you heard today or in any episode, please share with your friends and colleagues.

And rate, subscribe and comment on your favorite podcast platform. Till next time, cheers to your magical biz success.