La Poste, one of France’s top email service providers, has just raised the bar for email security. Starting September 2025, all emails sent to Laposte.net addresses must fully pass SPF, DKIM, and DMARC checks. This is not just a recommendation or a gentle nudge. It is now a strict rule without any exceptions. Whether it is a marketing email, a transactional alert from your app, or a regular business-to-business message, failing to meet these authentication standards means your email will land straight in the spam folder.
This change is not happening in isolation. It reflects a growing global movement towards stricter email security rules. Organizations around the world are increasingly tightening their controls to stop phishing and spoofing attacks dead in their tracks. For CISOs and marketing teams, it is time to reassess their email strategy and ensure that their authentication practices are fully aligned with these new realities.
Laposte.net shows where the industry is headed
In today’s digital world, securing emails is no longer just an extra step. It has become a basic requirement for every organization that wants to stay safe and compliant. With cyber threats evolving rapidly, email security measures must keep pace or risk becoming a weak link in data protection.
Recently, Laposte.net introduced stricter email authentication rules. But this is not an isolated move. It reflects a larger global trend where regulations and industry practices are tightening their focus on how emails are sent and verified. Regulators around the world, like those behind GDPR in Europe and CCPA in the US, have long aimed to protect personal data. Now, their attention is shifting toward ensuring that email systems are designed to be secure.
The reason is simple. Most phishing scams, email spoofing, and business email compromise attacks happen because companies neglect proper email authentication or misconfigure it. These security gaps are an open invitation to cybercriminals, leading to serious consequences like ransomware attacks, data theft, and heavy compliance penalties.
Laposte.net’s new policy is a clear sign that the era of lax email security is ending. Businesses can no longer treat email protection as optional. The time to act is now, before vulnerabilities are exploited on a larger scale.
How can marketing teams seamlessly comply with Laposte.net’s new requirements?
For marketing teams, email is one of the most powerful channels to engage customers, drive conversions, and build brand awareness. But with La Poste.net’s new email authentication requirements, achieving smooth email deliverability goes beyond just ticking technical checkboxes like deploying SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. It’s about setting up a reliable, headache-free system that ensures your marketing emails land in the inbox—not in spam folders or get blocked entirely.
Here’s how marketing teams can go beyond the basics and stay compliant while focusing on what matters most: effective campaigns and strong customer relationships.
Build and maintain an accurate sender inventory
One of the main reasons why email authentication doesn’t perform its job well is that domain owners haven’t provided clarity on who is authorized to send emails from their domain. Marketing tools often utilize various tools, such as email service providers, CRM platforms, and third-party vendors, to send campaigns, transactional emails, or newsletters. These services eventually send emails on behalf of your domain.
What threat actors prefer the most are dormant or inactive domains with no email security; these act as blind spots that allow phishing attacks to slip through.
That’s why it’s important for marketing teams to work with IT or security teams to maintain a clear and up-to-date inventory of all sending sources. Automated tools that scan your domain’s DNS and detect authorized and unknown sources make this process easier. Such tools map out your entire sending ecosystem, helping you avoid surprises when emails suddenly stop delivering due to authentication failures.
Optimize SPF records with flattening and alignment
SPF is essential, but it comes with practical limits. For example, DNS lookup limits can cause your SPF record to break if too many external services are involved. This is common in marketing setups that utilize multiple third-party tools.
SPF flattening helps by replacing multiple ‘include’ statements with a single list of IP addresses. This makes your record more stable and reliable, though it does require ongoing maintenance as services change IP addresses.
Alignment is another key factor. Marketing teams must ensure that the sending IP address is aligned with the domain in the “From” address. This avoids gaps attackers could exploit, especially when multiple services send emails on your behalf. A misaligned SPF or DKIM setting can lead to legitimate emails being marked suspicious.
Rotate DKIM keys strategically
DKIM lets the recipient’s inbox know if the content of the email has been altered in transit. This process involves a pair of cryptographically secured public and private keys. However, for large organizations that run multiple campaigns across various services, managing these DKIM keys can get tricky. Therefore, there are certain best practices that they need to follow to limit the risk of a key getting compromised.
The process should be carefully planned. First, publish new keys in DNS while still keeping the old ones active. Once the new keys are validated, the old ones can be removed. Many marketing teams utilize automated tools to manage this process seamlessly, thereby reducing manual errors and ensuring a continuous email flow.
Adopt a phased DMARC policy rollout
Jumping straight to the strictest DMARC policy, that is p=reject, is tempting but dangerous. It’s instead suggested that marketing teams should adopt a gradual, data-driven approach. Here’s the approach you can follow-
- Start with p=none: Collect DMARC reports to understand who is sending emails on your behalf and identify misconfigurations.
- Move to quarantine: Flag suspicious emails as spam while continuing to monitor aggregate and forensic reports closely.
- Finally, apply p=reject: Once you are sure that all legitimate senders are properly aligned, apply the strictest policy.
This slow and phased approach ensures your critical marketing messages continue to reach customers while keeping phishing attempts in check.
By following this advice and staying updated with changes in email authentication, marketing teams can achieve seamless results. This doesn’t just protect the technical side of email, but also enhances brand reputation, instills customer trust, and optimizes campaign effectiveness.
