How to pitch DMARC to CTOs and CIOs as a business decision?
Matthew Whittaker
Co-founder & CTO, Suped
Published 13 Jun 2025
Updated 19 Aug 2025
7 min read
For many, DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) often feels like a purely technical implementation, a task for the IT department to tick off. However, when you're speaking to a CTO or CIO, it's crucial to elevate the conversation beyond technical jargon and position DMARC as a strategic business decision. These leaders are focused on overarching business goals, risk mitigation, compliance, and return on investment.
My perspective on DMARC has evolved, from viewing it as a technical necessity to recognizing its profound impact on an organization's reputation and security posture. It's not just about stopping spoofed emails, but about safeguarding your brand, customer trust, and even revenue streams.
When approaching executives, the key is to translate technical benefits into tangible business outcomes. Let's explore how to articulate the value of DMARC in terms they understand and prioritize.
CTOs and CIOs operate at a strategic level, focusing on the big picture rather than the minutiae of individual systems. Their primary concerns revolve around business enablement, operational efficiency, cybersecurity risk, and regulatory compliance. When you present DMARC, it needs to align directly with these priorities.
They want to know: How does this technology solve a business problem? What is the ROI? What are the risks if we don't implement it? How does it affect our reputation or legal standing? According to Gartner's peer community, effective CIOs and CTOs are those who are change agents driving business outcomes, not just managing technology. DMARC needs to be presented as a tool that enables positive business change and mitigates significant risk.
A robust DMARC policy demonstrates, at an organizational level, that you are proactive about preventing fraudulent emails from being relayed using your domain. This isn't just an IT best practice, it's a statement about your company's commitment to security and trustworthiness to your customers, partners, and employees. For many businesses, particularly those in regulated industries, DMARC moves from a nice-to-have to a must-have for compliance and insurance purposes.
The hidden costs of inaction
Before delving into the benefits of DMARC, it's essential to highlight the significant risks and potential costs associated with not having it. These are the pain points that resonate most strongly with leadership. A lack of DMARC opens the door to email spoofing and phishing attacks that can have severe repercussions.
Consider the impact on brand reputation. If a customer receives a fraudulent email seemingly from your domain, their trust in your brand erodes. This can lead to decreased customer loyalty, reduced sales, and negative public perception. For an e-commerce site, this might mean customers receiving fake shipping notifications that appear to be from your company, leading to confusion and distrust. This is a crucial business risk.
Beyond reputation, there are significant financial and legal ramifications. Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks, where criminals spoof executive emails to trick employees into making fraudulent payments, result in billions of dollars in losses annually. Without DMARC, your organization is more vulnerable to these types of attacks, which can lead to direct financial loss, costly investigations, and potential legal liabilities.
Without DMARC
Reputation Damage: Increased risk of brand tarnishment due to phishing and spoofing attacks. Customers lose trust when they receive malicious emails that appear to originate from your domain.
Financial Loss: Higher susceptibility to Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams, leading to direct monetary losses, legal fees, and recovery costs. Fraudulent invoices or payment requests are common.
Compliance Gaps: Failure to meet increasingly stringent data protection and cybersecurity regulations, leading to potential fines and legal repercussions. Specific industries may have strict email security requirements.
Reduced Deliverability: Emails may be flagged as spam by recipient servers, impacting legitimate communication and marketing efforts, even if your domain isn't directly blacklisted (or blocklisted).
With DMARC
Brand Integrity: Protects your domain from unauthorized use, maintaining customer trust and strengthening your brand's credibility in the digital sphere.
Cybersecurity Fortification: Significantly reduces vulnerability to phishing and BEC, safeguarding financial assets and sensitive data.
Regulatory Compliance: Helps meet industry standards and regulatory requirements, minimizing legal exposure and demonstrating due diligence in security practices.
Improved Deliverability: Enhances your sending reputation with ISPs, ensuring that legitimate emails reach the inbox more reliably, improving overall email deliverability. Read more on DMARC and email deliverability.
Framing DMARC as a strategic investment
Once you've established the risks, pivot to DMARC as a solution that offers strategic advantages. It's not just about stopping bad things from happening, but enabling good things for the business.
DMARC works by giving domain owners control over what happens to emails that fail authentication (SPF or DKIM) and appear to come from their domain. A DMARC record, published in your DNS, provides instructions to receiving mail servers on how to handle these emails. An example of a DMARC record might look like this:
This record instructs receiving servers to quarantine (send to spam) emails that fail DMARC authentication and provides email addresses to send aggregate and forensic reports. These reports are invaluable for identifying legitimate sending sources and uncovering malicious activity. You can also generate your own DMARC record.
One compelling 'carrot' to get marketing and C-level buy-in is BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification). BIMI allows your brand logo to appear next to your emails in supporting inboxes, like Gmail. This visual trust signal boosts engagement and brand recognition. Crucially, BIMI requires a DMARC policy at enforcement (quarantine or reject). This alignment makes DMARC a marketing-friendly initiative, proving that it's not just a security measure, but also a tool for aligning email goals with revenue objectives.
Addressing implementation and ROI
While the benefits are clear, CTOs and CIOs also appreciate realism. Acknowledge that DMARC implementation is not a trivial task. It requires cross-departmental buy-in and a methodical approach, often taking 12-18 months for a medium-sized company to fully deploy to an enforcement policy like quarantine or reject.
The implementation process essentially forces an audit of all email-sending sources within the organization. This can be challenging as email can originate from various departments and third-party services (CRMs, marketing platforms, invoicing systems, HR tools, etc.). However, this challenge is also a key benefit: it provides unprecedented visibility and control over your organization's entire email ecosystem. This visibility is essential for understanding your email domain reputation.
To demonstrate ROI, focus on the quantifiable reductions in risk and potential savings. For instance, preventing a single BEC attack could offset the cost of DMARC implementation many times over. The improvement in email deliverability for legitimate emails can lead to higher engagement rates for marketing campaigns and critical transactional emails. Consider the real costs of DMARC implementation and maintenance.
Moreover, highlight that the initial investment isn't just for a technical solution, but for a long-term compliance project that strengthens the organization's overall cybersecurity posture. It's about building a resilient email infrastructure that protects all forms of communication, from one-to-one employee emails to system-generated invoices and password resets.
Views from the trenches
Best practices
Start with a DMARC policy of p=none (monitoring mode) to gain visibility into your email ecosystem without impacting deliverability.
Involve key stakeholders from IT, marketing, legal, and compliance early in the DMARC implementation process.
Use DMARC reports to identify all legitimate sending sources and configure SPF and DKIM correctly for each.
Gradually move to p=quarantine and then p=reject policies, monitoring DMARC reports closely at each stage.
Leverage DMARC as a foundation for implementing BIMI to enhance brand visibility and trust in the inbox.
Common pitfalls
Attempting to go straight to p=reject without thorough preparation and identifying all legitimate sending sources.
Underestimating the time and resources required for full DMARC deployment across a complex organization.
Failing to get company-wide buy-in, leading to resistance from departments whose email sending might be affected.
Neglecting ongoing DMARC monitoring and reporting, missing critical insights into spoofing attempts or legitimate failures.
Focusing solely on the technical aspects without communicating the business value to executive leadership.
Expert tips
DMARC is a journey, not a destination. Plan for continuous monitoring and adjustment of your policies.
The data from DMARC reports provides invaluable intelligence for improving your overall email program.
Emphasize the preventative nature of DMARC: it stops attacks before they cause harm, saving money and reputation.
Look for DMARC solutions that offer user-friendly reporting and management interfaces.
Consider engaging DMARC experts if internal resources are limited or the email infrastructure is particularly complex.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks says that a proper DMARC policy demonstrates an organizational commitment to preventing fraudulent emails from your domain.
2023-01-15 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks says that using BIMI can be a significant motivator for companies, as it allows their logo to appear in supporting inboxes.
2023-02-20 - Email Geeks
Securing executive buy-in for DMARC
Pitching DMARC to your CTO and CIO means shifting the dialogue from technical specifications to strategic business value. Frame it as an essential investment in cybersecurity, brand reputation, and regulatory compliance, with clear benefits that outweigh the implementation challenges. By focusing on risk mitigation, operational insights, and potential revenue gains, you can secure the executive buy-in necessary for a successful DMARC deployment.
Remember, DMARC is not just about email authentication; it’s about protecting your organization’s digital identity and ensuring the integrity of all email communications.
Gmail. This visual trust signal boosts engagement and brand recognition. Crucially, BIMI requires a DMARC policy at enforcement (quarantine or reject). This alignment makes DMARC a marketing-friendly initiative, proving that it's not just a security measure, but also a tool for aligning email goals with revenue objectives.
