What is DMARC and how does it affect sending from AWeber?
In the past few years, some popular email providers such as Yahoo! and AOL have made an important change to their email authentication settings; they have updated their DMARC record. Other ISPs, including Bigpond and Telstra, have also updated their DMARC record.
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) is used by many major organizations and ISPs to help stop email abuse. While using DMARC is great at reducing email abuse, changes to DMARC have a widespread impact on a service's users.
Why you should use email addresses from your own domain as your From Address
If you use an email address from a mailbox provider that has either a DMARC reject or quarantine policy, any email campaigns you send via AWeber will be sent from an alternate email address, as described below.
This is not an AWeber-specific issue, as DMARC changes impact anyone using the affected address. For example, if you were to use a different email service provider to send your emails, they will also need to change the from address or your emails will be at risk of not getting delivered.
How AWeber will fix your From Address
If you are using an email address as your from address from a mailbox provider that has either a DMARC reject or quarantine policy, AWeber will automatically rewrite the address on your outgoing emails to pass DMARC checks, which increases your chances of getting into the inbox.
For example, if you use:
testerjones@yahoo.com
It will be rewritten as:
testerjones=yahoo.com@send.aweber.com
Note: Your Reply-To address will still be shown as testerjones@yahoo.com.
This rewriting process is automatic and is generally transparent to your subscribers. If you don't want your address to be rewritten, simply change your from address to an email on your own domain (making sure you also set up Custom DKIM if you have a DMARC reject or quarantine policy), or to an email on a mailbox provider which does not have a DMARC reject or quarantine policy.
If you do not mind this rewriting, you may use your address as-is. Your subscribers will see testerjones=yahoo.com@send.aweber.com as the From Address in their inbox. Note that it is not as good from a branding perspective, however, as using an email address on your own domain.
Are my subscribers addresses affected?
These changes do not affect subscribers with email addresses at DMARC reject or quarantine mailbox providers, and this does not prevent them from being added to your mailing list or receiving your emails.
Why have these DMARC changes been made?
Free email providers have always worked hard to reduce the amount of spam that appears to be from their networks. They made the DMARC reject policy change to prevent malicious users from sending spam using their domain, and that change also impacted legitimate users like yourself.