How to Set Up DMARC for Klaviyo: Email Authentication Guide

Klaviyo is the go-to email marketing platform for e-commerce brands, especially those running on Shopify. If you send campaigns, automations, or transactional emails through Klaviyo using your own domain, you need DMARC in place to protect your sender reputation and ensure your messages reach the inbox. Our DMARC for e-commerce guide covers the full authentication picture for online stores.

This guide covers how to set up DMARC specifically for Klaviyo users, including how Klaviyo handles SPF and DKIM, why DMARC errors happen, and what to do about them.

Why Klaviyo Users Need DMARC

Klaviyo sets up SPF and DKIM for your dedicated sending domain as part of its domain authentication process. That is a great start, but SPF and DKIM alone do not tell receiving mail servers what to do when a message fails authentication. DMARC fills that gap.

Without DMARC, anyone can send email pretending to be from your domain, and receiving mail servers have no policy to follow when those fraudulent messages fail SPF and DKIM. With DMARC, you publish a clear instruction: monitor, quarantine, or reject messages that fail authentication.

For e-commerce brands, this matters because:

• Brand protection. Spoofed emails using your domain can trick your customers into phishing scams. DMARC stops this.
• Deliverability. Major inbox providers like Gmail and Yahoo now require DMARC for bulk senders. Without it, your Klaviyo campaigns may land in spam.
• Trust signals. A domain with full authentication (SPF + DKIM + DMARC) is treated more favorably by inbox algorithms.

How Klaviyo Handles SPF and DKIM

When you set up a dedicated sending domain in Klaviyo, the platform walks you through adding DNS records for authentication. Here is what Klaviyo configures:

DKIM signing. Klaviyo provides CNAME records that you add to your DNS. These allow Klaviyo to sign outgoing messages with DKIM using your domain. When a receiving server checks the DKIM signature, it sees your domain — not Klaviyo's — which is exactly what DMARC needs for alignment.

SPF via Klaviyo's infrastructure. Klaviyo sends email through its own mail servers. The SPF check for these messages evaluates Klaviyo's sending IP addresses against the SPF record of the envelope sender domain. Klaviyo typically handles the envelope sender through their infrastructure, so SPF alignment depends on your specific configuration.

The key takeaway: DKIM is the primary alignment mechanism for Klaviyo users. When DKIM is properly configured with your domain's selector and Klaviyo signs messages using it, your emails will pass DMARC through DKIM alignment. This is reliable and survives email forwarding.

Setting Up Your DMARC Record

With Klaviyo's SPF and DKIM authentication in place, adding a DMARC record is the final step.

Troubleshooting Common Klaviyo DMARC Errors

DMARC Error in Klaviyo Email Authentication

The most common cause of DMARC errors with Klaviyo is a mismatch between your From domain and your authenticated sending domain. Here is what to check:

Your From address domain must match your authenticated domain. If your Klaviyo dedicated sending domain is yourdomain.com, your From address should be something like hello@yourdomain.com or team@yourdomain.com. If you send from marketing@otherdomain.com but your DMARC record is on yourdomain.com, alignment fails.

Subdomain alignment matters. If your Klaviyo sending domain is send.yourdomain.com but your From address uses yourdomain.com, this can work with relaxed DMARC alignment (the default adkim=r setting). Relaxed alignment allows subdomains to match the parent domain. Strict alignment (adkim=s) would fail in this case.

Messages Failing DKIM

If your DMARC reports show DKIM failures for Klaviyo-sent messages, check:

• DNS records are still in place. Verify that the CNAME records Klaviyo provided for DKIM are still published in your DNS. Sometimes DNS changes or migrations accidentally remove them.
• The dedicated sending domain is verified. Go to Klaviyo's domain settings and confirm the DKIM status is green/verified.
• You are using the dedicated domain, not shared. Messages sent through Klaviyo's shared infrastructure will not align with your domain's DMARC record.

Other Services Also Sending as Your Domain

Many e-commerce brands use more than just Klaviyo. You might also send email through Shopify (order notifications), a helpdesk like Gorgias or Zendesk, or a transactional service like Postmark. Each of these services needs its own SPF and DKIM configuration to pass DMARC.

Review your DMARC aggregate reports to identify every IP address and service sending email as your domain. If any legitimate service is failing, configure its authentication before tightening your DMARC policy.

Recommended DMARC Record for E-Commerce Brands

For Shopify stores and e-commerce brands using Klaviyo, we recommend this progression:

Start here (monitoring):

v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc-reports@yourdomain.com; pct=100;

After two weeks of clean reports (soft enforcement):

v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:dmarc-reports@yourdomain.com; pct=25;

After reaching full quarantine with no issues (full enforcement):

v=DMARC1; p=reject; rua=mailto:dmarc-reports@yourdomain.com; pct=100;

The gradual progression is especially important for e-commerce because you likely have multiple services sending email as your domain. Rushing to p=reject before all services are authenticated can block order confirmations, shipping notifications, or customer support replies. For help deciding when to quarantine versus reject, see our DMARC quarantine vs reject comparison.

Ensuring Alignment Between Klaviyo and Your From Domain

The most important thing for Klaviyo DMARC success is domain alignment. Your Klaviyo dedicated sending domain, your From address, and your DMARC record should all reference the same domain (or a parent/subdomain relationship under relaxed alignment).

Here is a working example:

• DMARC record: Published at _dmarc.yourdomain.com
• Klaviyo dedicated sending domain: yourdomain.com (with DKIM CNAME records in DNS)
• From address in Klaviyo: hello@yourdomain.com
• DKIM alignment: Passes because Klaviyo signs with yourdomain.com and the From domain matches

If any of these three pieces use a different domain, alignment breaks and DMARC fails.

Monitor Your DMARC Record

You've created your DMARC record — now make sure it keeps working. The Email Deliverability Suite watches your SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and MX records daily and alerts you when something breaks.