Google and Yahoo announced in early October that from February they will impose stricter requirements on senders who send a lot of email. If you do not comply, your emails are more likely to end up in spam, or they may be rejected altogether. For businesses that depend on newsletters, promotions and automated email sequences, that is a serious risk.
The good news is that most of the requirements are manageable. They come down to technical set-up, convenience for the recipient and a clean list. In this article you can read what is changing, what a number of technical terms mean and which steps you can take now.
What has been announced
Gmail and Yahoo Mail are big. Many of your customers and prospects have an address with one of them. Both providers want less spam and phishing in the inbox, so they are tightening the rules for anyone who sends email in bulk.
Google talks about bulk senders. By this it means senders who send more than 5,000 emails to Gmail addresses in a single day. Please note that if you have ever reached that threshold, you will continue to be treated as a bulk sender from then on. Yahoo applies similar principles.
Even if you send fewer emails, it is sensible to keep up. Mailbox providers are paying ever closer attention to the quality of senders. What applies to large senders now often quickly becomes the norm for everyone. Use the new rules as a checklist for all of your email marketing.
Authentication: SPF, DKIM and DMARC
The first requirement is that you can prove an email genuinely comes from you. This is called authentication. You arrange it with three settings in the DNS of your domain. DNS is the phone book of the internet, which records which settings belong to your domain name.
- SPF is a list of servers and services that are allowed to send email on behalf of your domain. Think of your mail server and your newsletter tool.
- DKIM adds a digital signature to every email. The recipient uses it to check that the email has not been altered in transit and genuinely comes from your domain.
- DMARC tells the recipient what to do if SPF or DKIM fails. You can choose, for example, to ignore the email, quarantine it or reject it. You can also receive reports on who is sending email on your behalf.
With DMARC, it is wise to start gently. Begin with a policy that only monitors and does not block anything yet. Review the reports for a few weeks. Once you can see that all legitimate senders are set up correctly, you can tighten the policy step by step.
Also pay attention to the sender address. If you send mailings from a free address, such as a Gmail address, this will not work well. Use an address on your own domain. In addition, make sure the domain in the sender address matches the domain you use in SPF and DKIM. This is called alignment. Your email tool will usually have instructions for linking your own domain.
One-click unsubscribe and low spam complaint rates
The second requirement concerns unsubscribing. A recipient must be able to unsubscribe with a single click. This is not only about a link at the bottom of the email. It also covers a button that Gmail or Yahoo displays at the top of the email itself. That button relies on a technical unsubscribe header in the email, known as the List-Unsubscribe header.
You must also process an unsubscribe request quickly. Google mentions a maximum of two days. The requirement applies to marketing email. An order confirmation or a password reset is not covered.
The third requirement concerns spam complaints. This is the share of recipients who mark your email as spam. Google cites a threshold of 0.3 per cent and recommends staying well below it. You can monitor this in Google Postmaster Tools, a free tool from Google that lets you view the reputation of your domain.
Why does this matter so much? Every spam complaint is a negative signal. People who do not want your email would rather press the spam button than look for an unsubscribe link. So make unsubscribing easy. An unsubscribe costs you one contact. A spam complaint costs you deliverability with everyone.
Clean up your list
A good list is your best defence. The more people who want to read your email, the better your reputation. At Gmail and Yahoo, you will see this reflected in the inbox.
A few rules of thumb help:
- Only email people who have given their consent.
- Stop sending to addresses that have not opened or clicked anything for roughly a year. First try to re-engage them one last time.
- Remove addresses that repeatedly bounce back with an error message. This is known as a hard bounce.
- Never buy or rent an email list.
- Have new subscribers confirm their address.
This may feel contradictory. A smaller list appears to mean less reach. In practice, it works the other way round. You send fewer emails, but to the right people. As a result, your opens and clicks rise and the number of spam complaints falls. Your deliverability improves.
A common scenario: an online shop has a list of tens of thousands of addresses, built up over several years. A large share of them stopped opening emails long ago. Every month the same newsletter goes to everyone. There is an unsubscribe link, but it sits in small print at the bottom. Some recipients then opt for the spam button. As a result, Gmail increasingly places the emails in the spam folder, even for loyal customers. The shop sees its email revenue fall and cannot understand why. The solution is not to send more. The solution is a clean list, a clear unsubscribe option and a solid technical foundation.
Your steps at a glance
You do not have to do everything at once. Work through it in this order:
- Take stock of your senders. Which systems send email on behalf of your domain? Think of your newsletter tool, web shop, CRM, accounting package and contact form.
- Check SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Ask your hosting provider or IT partner to review the settings. Make sure every sender is included.
- Send from your own domain. Do not use a free address as the sender.
- Check the unsubscribe header. Many email tools add it automatically. Check whether it is switched on for you and whether it really works with one click.
- Set up Google Postmaster Tools. This shows you how Gmail assesses your domain and how high your spam rate is.
- Clean up your list. Remove bounces and inactive addresses and adjust your sign-up process.
- Send test emails. Send to a Gmail and a Yahoo address. Check whether the email lands in the inbox and whether the unsubscribe button is visible.
Do this well before February. Technical changes to DNS can take a while, and sometimes a mistake comes to light. You will want time to put it right.
Frequently asked questions
Does this apply to me if I only have a small list?
The strictest requirements apply to anyone sending more than 5,000 emails a day to Gmail addresses. But smaller senders also benefit from a good set-up. Authentication and a clean list improve your deliverability, whatever the size of your list.
What happens if I am not ready in time?
Your emails then risk landing in the spam folder or being rejected. You will often see this in lower open rates and less revenue from email. Recovering from a poor reputation usually takes more time than getting things right in advance.
Can I set this up myself?
You can often do the basics yourself using the guide from your email tool. For DNS changes you need access to your domain management. If you are unsure, have a specialist check it. A mistake in SPF or DMARC can actually lead to rejected email.
Book a free 30-minute introductory call
Would you like to know whether your email set-up is ready for February? Adventio Marketing in Amersfoort will gladly look at it with you. In a free 30-minute introductory call, we will discuss your current situation, your technical settings and your list. You will receive practical tips you can act on straight away. Get in touch and book a time that suits you.
