Welcome to DMARCwise! To start, you’ll need to add a domain.

In the dashboard:

  • Click the Add domain button.
  • Type your domain name in the dialog.
  • Confirm.

Using the correct domain name

Here are some tips to make sure you add the correct domain:

  • If your website is, say, https://dmarcwise.io you will likely want to add the dmarcwise.io domain (“apex” domain).
  • This will be the domain where you’ll add the DMARC policy as a DNS record, so make sure you are able to manage the DNS zone for that domain.
  • Even if you add the apex domain, you will still be able to monitor email sent from subdomains, e.g. mail.dmarcwise.io, within the same domain in DMARCwise.
  • DMARC allows to specify a different policy for subdomains, so you will be able to have different behaviors depending on whether mail was sent from the apex domain or on a subdomain.
  • Your website may be accessible with the www subdomain (e.g. https://www.dmarcwise.io): make sure you don’t use that prefix when adding the domain in DMARCwise.

Once you add a domain, you will need to complete the setup by creating (or updating) a DNS record on the domain.

These are the details of the DNS record you’ll need to create:

  • Record type: TXT
  • Name: _dmarc (or _dmarc.{your domain})

The value of the record is different for every domain so it will be provided in the dashboard.

If you already had a DMARC record, we’ll try to keep everything that was in it and only change the rua tag, adding an email address URI so that DMARC reports are delivered to DMARCwise.

How do I add the DNS record?

This really depends on the DNS provider that you’re using, which is often provided by the company where you buy and renew the domain (the “registrar”).

Here are some tips:

  • Find out whether you’re using the DNS server provided by your domain registrar or an external service (like Cloudflare, Vercel, etc.).
  • Look for the page where you manage DNS records, it may be called “DNS records” or “DNS management”.
  • If you already have a _dmarc record, find it and update its value.
  • If you don’t already have _dmarc record, create a new record:
    • Choose TXT as the record type.
    • Type _dmarc as the name for the record.
    • If you’re asked about a TTL, any value will do (e.g. 1h is fine).
    • Insert the value provided by DMARCwise and confirm.

If you’re unsure about something or you get stuck, feel free to contact us.

Back to the dashboard.

Click the Validate button.

If it tells you to try again later, well, try again later. DNS records are cached, so you sometimes need to wait a few minutes (or hours) for DMARCwise to be able to see the updated record.

You can also leave the dashboard and we’ll check automatically in the background. You’ll receive an email from us as soon as we detect the DNS record.

While you wait for the first DMARC reports, you can proceed with Running a diagnosis.