DMARC Report Received from Pardot: What You Need to Know
February 17, 2025 | 3 min read
Understanding DMARC Reports from Pardot
Pardot, a powerful B2B marketing automation platform from Salesforce, enables businesses to create and manage email marketing campaigns, lead nurturing, and personalized customer interactions. Ensuring that emails sent through Pardot are properly authenticated is critical to maintaining email deliverability and protecting your domain from spoofing and phishing attacks. DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) reports from Pardot provide essential insights into how recipient servers handle your emails based on SPF and DKIM checks, helping you protect your domain and improve your email marketing performance.
Key Components of Pardot DMARC Reports:
1. Source IP Address: Shows the IP address used by Pardot to send your emails. Monitoring this allows you to confirm that your emails originate from Pardot’s authorized IPs, preventing unauthorized use of your domain.
2. DKIM Alignment Results: Indicates whether the DKIM signature in your emails aligns with the domain specified in the “From” header. Pardot supports DKIM signing, and proper alignment is crucial for passing DMARC checks and maintaining strong email authentication.
3. SPF Alignment Results: Verifies whether the sending IP address from Pardot is authorized by your domain’s SPF record to send emails. Ensuring SPF alignment helps prevent unauthorized IPs from sending emails on your behalf and protects your brand from spoofing.
4. Disposition: Provides information on how the recipient server treated the email (e.g., delivered, quarantined, or rejected), based on your DMARC policy settings.
5. Message Count: Displays the number of emails sent from a specific IP, allowing you to track Pardot email volume and detect any suspicious or unauthorized activity.
Automating DMARC Parsing for Pardot
Manually parsing DMARC XML reports from Pardot can be time-consuming, particularly if you manage large-scale marketing campaigns. Automating this process with tools like Skysnag simplifies DMARC management and allows you to quickly respond to authentication issues that may impact deliverability or security.
– Data Aggregation Across Providers: If you use Pardot alongside other email services, Skysnag aggregates DMARC reports from all providers into one unified view. This makes it easier to manage email authentication across multiple platforms and ensure a comprehensive security strategy.
– Visualizing Key Metrics: Skysnag converts raw DMARC XML data from Pardot into intuitive visual dashboards that display important metrics such as DKIM/SPF pass rates, unauthorized email attempts, and the most active sending IPs. This allows you to quickly assess email performance and take action when necessary.
– Automated Incident Response: With real-time alerts from Skysnag, you are immediately notified when Pardot emails fail DMARC checks (e.g., SPF or DKIM misalignment). This enables you to take quick corrective actions, such as updating DNS records or blocking suspicious IPs, to maintain proper email authentication.
– Forensic Reporting: Some DMARC reports offer forensic data, such as full email headers from failed messages. For Pardot users, these detailed insights are invaluable for troubleshooting why certain emails are not passing authentication checks and improving email security.
Ensuring Proper DMARC Alignment for Pardot
To ensure that emails sent through Pardot are delivered successfully and pass DMARC checks, it is crucial that both DKIM and SPF are aligned with the domain used in the “From” header. Misalignment can lead to emails being quarantined or rejected by recipient servers, even if other checks pass. Ensuring proper alignment protects your domain from being spoofed and helps improve your email marketing campaign’s deliverability.
Skysnag’s Custom Solutions for Pardot:
– DKIM Key Management: Skysnag ensures that your DKIM keys for Pardot emails are correctly aligned and up-to-date. If there are any DKIM misalignments or outdated keys, Skysnag will notify you, enabling you to resolve the issue quickly and maintain DMARC compliance.
– SPF Flattening: Using multiple services in conjunction with Pardot can result in complex SPF records that may exceed DNS lookup limits. Skysnag automates SPF flattening, optimizing your SPF record to ensure that it stays within the DNS lookup limits and prevents authentication failures.
– Policy Recommendations: Based on patterns observed in your Pardot DMARC reports, Skysnag can recommend adjustments to your DMARC policy, such as transitioning from “none” to stricter policies like “quarantine” or “reject.” This helps protect your domain from phishing and spoofing attacks while ensuring that legitimate emails are delivered.
By automating DMARC parsing and offering tailored solutions for Pardot users, tools like Skysnag help ensure that your emails are properly authenticated, securely delivered, and protected from unauthorized use, while enhancing your domain’s reputation and email campaign performance.
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