What is Email Authentication Failure Reporting?

Understanding Email Authentication: The Foundation

Before we dive into failure reporting, let’s quickly review email authentication. It’s a set of methods that verify an email is truly from the sender it claims to be from. Think of it as an ID check for your emails.

A Quick Refresher: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC

Three main standards work together for email authentication:

SPF (Sender Policy Framework)

SPF allows domain owners to specify which mail servers (IP addresses) are authorized to send email on behalf of their domain. When an email arrives, the receiving server checks the sender’s IP against the SPF record published in the domain’s DNS. If the IP isn’t listed, the email might be flagged as suspicious.

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail)

DKIM adds a digital signature to outgoing emails. This signature is created using a private key held by the sender. Receiving servers use a public key, published in the sender’s DNS, to verify this signature. A valid signature proves the email hasn’t been tampered with in transit and originated from the claimed domain.

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance)

DMARC is the policy layer that builds upon SPF and DKIM. It tells receiving email servers what to do if an email fails SPF or DKIM checks (or both). More importantly for this topic, DMARC enables reporting. It allows domain owners to get feedback on how their emails are being authenticated and to identify potential abuse of their domain. For DMARC to work effectively, an email must not only pass SPF or DKIM but also “align.” This means the domain used in the From: header must match the domain validated by SPF or DKIM.

Why Authentication Matters

Proper email authentication is crucial for several reasons:

• Prevents Spoofing and Phishing: It makes it much harder for attackers to impersonate your domain and send fraudulent emails to your customers or employees.
• Improves Deliverability: Mailbox providers like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo! favor emails that are properly authenticated. Good authentication boosts your sender reputation, increasing the chances your emails land in the inbox.
• Protects Brand Reputation: By preventing unauthorized use of your domain, you protect your brand’s image and maintain customer trust.

What is Email Authentication Failure Reporting? The Core Concept

Now, let’s focus on the reporting aspect. This feedback mechanism is primarily facilitated by DMARC. It gives you insight into how emails claiming to be from your domain are performing against authentication checks.

DMARC Reports: Your Eyes and Ears

When you publish a DMARC record for your domain, you can request that receiving mail servers send you reports about emails they see using your domain. There are two main types of DMARC reports:

Aggregate Reports (RUA)

• What they are: These are XML files that provide a summary of email authentication results for your domain. They don’t contain the content of the emails themselves.
• What they contain:
  • The IP address of the sending server.
  • The volume of emails from that IP claiming to be from your domain.
  • The results of SPF and DKIM checks (pass or fail).
  • The DMARC policy applied by the receiver.
  • Information on SPF and DKIM alignment.
• Frequency: Mailbox providers typically send these reports daily.

Aggregate reports are essential for understanding your overall email traffic, identifying legitimate sending sources, and spotting authentication problems.

Forensic Reports (RUF)

• What they are: These are individual, redacted copies of emails that failed DMARC authentication. They provide more detailed information about specific failing messages.
• What they contain: This can include email headers, subject lines, and sometimes other metadata about the specific email that failed. Sensitive information is usually redacted for privacy.
• When they are sent: You can configure your DMARC record to request these reports when specific types of failures occur (e.g., if an email fails both SPF and DKIM, and alignment checks).
• Privacy Concerns: Due to the potential for containing personally identifiable information (PII), even in redacted form, RUF reports raise privacy concerns. Many domain owners opt not to receive them, or use them very carefully. Also, not all mailbox providers send RUF reports.

Forensic reports can be useful for diagnosing specific spoofing incidents or complex authentication issues. However, most organizations rely more heavily on aggregate (RUA) reports.

How Reporting Works

The magic behind receiving these reports lies in your DMARC DNS record. Within this TXT record, you specify email addresses using tags like rua (for aggregate reports) and ruf (for forensic reports).

Example: rua=mailto:[email protected]

When a participating mailbox provider (like Gmail or Yahoo) processes an email claiming to be from your domain, it performs the DMARC check. It then compiles the data and sends an aggregate report (and forensic, if configured and applicable) to the email address(es) you listed in your DMARC record.

Why is Failure Reporting So Important? The Benefits Unpacked

Receiving and analyzing DMARC reports offers significant advantages. It’s not just about technical compliance; it’s about gaining crucial intelligence.

Gaining Visibility into Your Email Ecosystem

Many organizations are surprised to discover how many different services are sending email on behalf of their domain. DMARC reports show you:

• All IP addresses and services sending email using your domain.
• This includes your own mail servers, third-party marketing platforms, transactional email services, help desk software, and sometimes, unfortunately, unauthorized senders.

This visibility is the first step to taking control of your email identity.

Identifying Authentication Issues

Even legitimate emails can fail authentication if SPF or DKIM is misconfigured. Reports help you:

• Pinpoint sources of legitimate email that are failing SPF or DKIM checks. Perhaps you added a new marketing tool but forgot to update your SPF record.
• Detect SPF or DKIM alignment problems. An email might pass SPF, but if the domain in the From: header doesn’t align with the SPF-validated domain, DMARC can still fail. Reports highlight these issues.

Detecting Spoofing and Phishing Attacks

This is a major security benefit. DMARC reports allow you to:

• See unauthorized use of your domain in near real-time. If someone is trying to spoof your domain to send phishing emails, it will show up in the reports as failing authentication.
• Take faster action to mitigate these attacks, such as working with blocklist providers or warning your customers.

Improving Email Deliverability

By identifying and fixing authentication issues for your legitimate email streams, you directly improve your sender reputation. This, in turn:

• Increases the likelihood that your emails reach the inbox rather than the spam folder.
• Makes it safer to eventually move to a stricter DMARC policy (p=quarantine or p=reject), which further tells mailbox providers to block unauthenticated mail. This stronger stance can significantly improve how receivers perceive your legitimate, authenticated mail.

Protecting Your Brand Reputation

When phishers or spammers successfully use your domain, it erodes customer trust and damages your brand. Preventing this abuse through DMARC enforcement, guided by reports, is crucial for maintaining a positive brand image.

Making Informed DMARC Policy Decisions

DMARC policies can be set to p=none (monitor only), p=quarantine (send suspicious emails to spam), or p=reject (block suspicious emails outright). It’s essential to start with p=none and use the reports to understand your email traffic. Once you’re confident all your legitimate email is authenticating correctly, you can gradually move to p=quarantine and then p=reject. The reports provide the data needed to make these policy changes confidently without disrupting legitimate email flow.

Setting Up Email Authentication Failure Reporting: A Practical Guide

Ready to start receiving these valuable reports? Here’s how to set it up.

Prerequisites: SPF and DKIM Setup

Before you can effectively use DMARC reporting, you must have SPF and DKIM records correctly configured for your domain and for all your legitimate sending services. DMARC relies on the signals from SPF and DKIM. If these aren’t in place, DMARC (and its reports) won’t provide meaningful data.

Creating Your DMARC Record

You enable reporting by creating a specific TXT record in your domain’s DNS settings. This is your DMARC record.

Key DMARC Tags for Reporting

Here are the essential tags you’ll use in your DMARC record, particularly for reporting:

• v=DMARC1: Specifies the DMARC version. This is always DMARC1.
• p=: Defines the policy for emails that fail DMARC checks. Start with p=none. This “monitor mode” tells receivers to report data but not to quarantine or reject messages based on DMARC yet. This allows you to gather data without impacting email flow.
• rua=mailto:[email protected]: This tag specifies the email address(es) where aggregate (RUA) reports should be sent. Replace [email protected] with a real email address you control. You can list multiple addresses separated by commas.
• ruf=mailto:[email protected]: (Optional) This tag specifies the email address(es) for forensic (RUF) reports. If you use this, ensure you understand the privacy implications.
• pct=100: This tag indicates the percentage of failing messages to which the DMARC policy should be applied. When starting with p=none for reporting, setting pct=100 is common to get data on all messages.
• fo=: (Optional, for RUF reports) This tag specifies failure reporting options. For example, fo=1 requests RUF reports if an email fails both SPF and DKIM alignment checks.

Publishing the DMARC Record in DNS

You need to add this DMARC record as a TXT record in your domain’s DNS zone. The hostname for this TXT record should be _dmarc.

Example DMARC Record (for monitoring and RUA reports): Hostname: _dmarc.yourdomain.com Type: TXT Value: v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:[email protected]; pct=100;

(Replace yourdomain.com and the email address with your actual information.)

Choosing Where to Send Reports

• Dedicated Email Address: You can create a new email address specifically for receiving DMARC reports (e.g., [email protected]). Be prepared for a high volume of XML files.
• Third-Party DMARC Report Processing Services: Because raw DMARC reports are hard to read, many businesses use specialized third-party services. You point your rua tag to an address provided by the service, and they parse the reports, presenting the data in user-friendly dashboards and charts.

Interpreting and Using Failure Reports: Making Sense of the Data

Once reports start arriving, the next challenge is understanding them and taking action.

The Challenge of Raw XML Reports

As mentioned, aggregate (RUA) reports are in XML format. They are not designed for easy human reading. A single XML file can be dense, and you’ll receive many of them daily from various reporters. Manually sifting through these is impractical for most people.

Using DMARC Reporting Services/Analyzers

This is where DMARC reporting services (also called DMARC analyzers or monitoring tools) become incredibly helpful. These services:

• Parse the XML reports automatically.
• Aggregate data from all reporters.
• Present the information in visual dashboards, charts, and tables.
• Allow you to filter data by source, date range, and authentication status.
• Often provide alerts for new sending sources or spikes in failures.

Using such a service transforms raw data into actionable intelligence, making it much easier to identify trends, spot legitimate senders, and detect abuse.

What to Look For in Your Reports

Whether you’re using a service or trying to parse reports manually, focus on these key areas:

Legitimate Sending Sources Failing Authentication

• Identify all the services and IP addresses that are sending email on behalf of your domain. This includes your own mail servers, marketing platforms, transactional email providers (like SendGrid, Amazon SES, Postmark), CRMs, helpdesks, accounting software, etc.
• For each legitimate source, check if its emails are passing SPF and DKIM, and, crucially, if they are aligning with your From: domain.

Unauthorized Senders/Potential Abuse

• Look for any sending sources (IPs or domains) that you don’t recognize. This could indicate phishing attempts or other unauthorized uses of your domain.

SPF and DKIM Alignment Issues

• Understand that an email can pass SPF or DKIM checks but still fail DMARC if the domain used for those checks doesn’t align with the domain in the visible From: header. Reports will show you this “disposition.” For example, if a third-party service sends email for you using their own domain for SPF/DKIM, it won’t align with your From: domain, and DMARC will treat it as a failure unless DMARC is specifically configured for relaxed alignment (which is less secure).

Volume and Trends Over Time

• Monitor the volume of email from different sources.
• Look for sudden spikes in failures or new, unexpected sending sources.

Taking Action Based on Reports

Your reports are a roadmap for action:

1. Identify all legitimate senders.
2. For each legitimate sender failing authentication or alignment:
   • Update your SPF record to include their sending IPs/domains (if they use SPF for you).
   • Ensure they are DKIM signing emails with a key that aligns with your domain. You may need to configure this within their platform or ask them to do so.
3. For unauthorized senders: These are the sources your DMARC policy (once set to quarantine or reject) will block.
4. Gradually move to stricter DMARC policies: Once you see in your reports that all your legitimate mail is authenticating correctly and aligning, you can confidently change your DMARC policy from p=none to p=quarantine (e.g., p=quarantine; pct=10; then gradually increase pct), and eventually to p=reject.

Using a well-integrated sending solution can simplify parts of this. For example, a platform like Send by Elementor typically handles DKIM signing for emails sent through its system, often using a key that aligns with your domain (if configured properly via CNAME records). They also provide clear instructions for SPF. This means emails sent via Send by Elementor should show up as authenticated and aligned in your DMARC reports, allowing you to focus on identifying and fixing other third-party senders or internal systems.

Failure Reporting for WordPress & WooCommerce Users

If you run a WordPress site, especially with WooCommerce, you have several potential email sources. DMARC reporting is vital for managing them.

Common Email Sources from WordPress Sites

Your WordPress installation can send emails from various places:

• WordPress Core: Password resets, new user notifications, comment notifications.
• WooCommerce: Order confirmations, shipping updates, account-related emails, and more.
• Form Plugins: Contact form submissions, notifications from form entries.
• Security Plugins: Alerts and notifications.
• Membership Plugins: Communication with members.
• Other plugins that send email notifications.

Ensuring Your WordPress/WooCommerce Emails Authenticate Correctly

By default, WordPress uses the PHP mail() function, which often sends email via your web server’s local mail agent. These emails might:

• Not be DKIM signed.
• Originate from your web server’s IP, which might not be in your domain’s SPF record, or might have a poor reputation if it’s a shared server.

To ensure these emails authenticate correctly:

• Use an SMTP Plugin or Integrated Sending Solution: Configure WordPress to send emails via a professional SMTP service (like SendGrid, Amazon SES, Mailgun, etc.) using an SMTP plugin. Alternatively, an integrated communication toolkit might handle this. This allows emails to be properly DKIM signed by the sending service and routed through IPs that you can authorize in your SPF record.

For users who leverage Send by Elementor for their marketing communications, and potentially for transactional emails if that functionality is supported and configured, these emails are designed to be sent with proper authentication. DMARC reports then become exceptionally useful for pinpointing other emails sent from your WordPress site (e.g., by plugins not using your configured SMTP service) that aren’t authenticating correctly.

Identifying Plugin-Sent Emails in Reports

DMARC reports can help you uncover “shadow IT” email sources from within your WordPress site. If a plugin is sending email directly from your web server and bypassing your configured SMTP or dedicated sending service, these emails might show up in your reports as failing authentication. This allows you to identify the plugin and reconfigure it to use your authenticated email channel.

Conclusion: Empowering Your Email Strategy with Insight

Email authentication failure reporting, primarily through DMARC, is no longer a niche technical detail; it’s a cornerstone of a modern email strategy. It provides invaluable insight into your email ecosystem, empowering you to enhance security, improve deliverability, and protect your brand.

The journey typically starts with monitoring (p=none) to understand who is sending on your behalf and how their emails are authenticating. Armed with this knowledge from reports, you can then systematically fix issues with legitimate senders and confidently move towards DMARC enforcement policies (p=quarantine or p=reject) to block fraudulent use of your domain.

For web creators and businesses using WordPress, especially those with e-commerce functionality via WooCommerce, DMARC reporting is a powerful tool. While platforms like Send by Elementor play a crucial role by ensuring emails sent through their system adhere to authentication best practices, DMARC reports give you the complete picture. This comprehensive visibility is essential for managing all email sources associated with your domain. By actively using this feedback, you create a more secure, reliable, and effective email strategy, ultimately enhancing client trust and maximizing the impact of your communications.