This Blog post was last updated on Aug 5, 2024.
Google and Yahoo are going to make an update to Gmail and Yahoo Mail that will affect email marketing.
This update will happen on Gmail on Feb 2024. Yahoo Mail's update will happen in the beginning of the next year on 2024.
They want bulk email senders which includes businesses and email marketers to follow these requirements.
If you don’t follow these rules, your emails probably won’t be allowed to get to subscribers that use Yahoo Mail and Gmail or be sent to SPAM.
They want email marketing senders to:
- Authenticate their sending domain with DKIM or SPF
- not use a free email domain for email marketing.
- "Ensure that sending domains or IPs have valid forward and reverse DNS records, also referred to as PTR records. Learn more"
- Stay below a spam-rate threshold
Google recommends you to stay under 0.03% spam threshold in Postmaster Tools. I’m not sure for yahoo.
- If a subscriber asks to be unsubscribed, they must be unsubscribed within two days.
- Have a one-click unsubscribe option
With a one-click unsubscribe option, They don't want:
No confirmation button to confirm unsubscription
No entering your email into a form box to unsubscribe.
Don’t make your subscriber only go to their manage preferences page to unsubscribe
You should check to see if your email marketing tool does provide a one click unsubscribe option.
If your email marketing tool (ESP) only does not give a one click unsubscribe option you should contact your email marketing tool's team about this update for them to make changes.
You could also just see if they made a statement about this update, so you don't have to contact them.
If you need to find a email marketing tool that provides a one-click unsubscribe links; I have a blog post that Lists What Email Marketing Tools (ESPs) have one-click unsubscribe links. <-click this link.
I understand the confirmation is useful incase some unsubscribed on accident, I recommend that the confirmation button is replaced with the option to unsubscribe if the person unsubscribed on accident.
You could also change to a different email marketing tool if they don't update it on time.
If you send 5,000+ emails in one day you need a DMARC record. It is best to go to a company that will set up your DMARC record instead of setting it up all by yourself. Google has more requirements for these people. Click this sentence to learn those requirements.
I also remember some people said something about a domain page needed for your domain to be authenticated for it to work for the update.
If you don't have your own domain, Constant Contact, Mailchimp, and Podia do offer free sender domains you can use for only email marketing. On Constant Contact, you have to opt-in somewhere on the software to use the free domain, “@shared1.ccsend.com”. You will be sharing those free sender domains with other users. Since this domains are shared with other people, these shared sender domain’s deliverability and reputation can be at risk because a few people can send spam emails with the domain. Which then ruins your delivery rates.
Please share this news with your audience and customers.
Here are articles for more information:
https://blog.google/products/gmail/gmail-security-authentication-spam-protection/
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126
https://www.mailerlite.com/blog/new-requirements-from-google-and-yahoo
https://blog.postmaster.yahooinc.com/post/730172167494483968/more-secure-less-spam
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