I’d like to help all the new Marketo customers with a critical step during the implementation phase: DKIM, SPF, and CNAME setup. It’s simple to do – if you know what it is you need to do.
Contact your IT, Web Team, or Network Admin to do these steps!
Email Reputation and Authentication: Why you need DKIM and SPF
As explained in the Email Reputation Chapter, DKIM and SPF are two DNS authentication methods used by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and hosts of other email providers as a first check for spam or spoofed email senders. Emails which fail SPF or DKIM checks are more likely to end up in the Spam box.
Why?
All DKIM and SPF records do is tell the internet (and the target email server) that you said it is ok for Marketo to send email on your behalf. It’s like a proxy on your Outlook Calendar. If this permission is missing from an email Marketo sends on your behalf, other servers will be skeptical it’s really from you.
CNAME and SubDomains Also Help Trust
When you first discussed marketing automation, you probably found out you could host your own landing pages on the new system. Your demo probably included a landing page demo where you saw “http://go.mydemo.com/page.html” and said “Wow, let’s have our own URL like that!”
And you can. In the instructions below, I go through how to select a sub-domain for your business as well as how to choose a Tracking Sub-Domain so your email links don’t look sketchy.
Detailed Instructions on Setup of DKIM, SPF, and CNAME for Marketers
What can you do right now? Take a look at these instructions to do it yourself or pass these to the IT guys to take care of it for you. It’s fast, easy, and builds trust with your audience.
Sub-Domain and Email DNS Setup in Marketo
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