It’s been almost 12 months since Gmail and Yahoo made one of the biggest changes to email deliverability in recent years with the introduction of new sender requirements. These changes made processes once considered “best practices” mandatory, such as bulk senders adopting stronger authentication, simplifying the unsubscribe process, and maintaining lower spam complaint rates.
With the one-year anniversary of the new sender requirements approaching, it’s the perfect opportunity to review and reflect on how these changes have shaped the email landscape and what email marketers should begin to focus on moving forward.
Requirements recap – why Gmail and Yahoo implemented the changes
Email deliverability is built on trust. Senders need to trust that their emails are reaching inboxes, Mailbox Providers need to trust that the messages they deliver are legitimate, and recipients need to trust that the emails landing in their inbox are from real businesses they’ve chosen to engage with.
As mentioned above, industry experts have promoted and encouraged deliverability best practices to strengthen this trust, but adoption has varied. By shifting these recommendations from "best practices" to "requirements," Gmail and Yahoo ensure that all bulk senders now follow the key fundamentals, which are designed to improve the subscriber inbox experience. These requirements include:
- Authenticate sending domains
- Make unsubscribing easier
- Maintaining a spam complaint threshold below 0.3%
Gmail has been an advocate for safer sending practices for some time, with its robust filtering systems blocking more than 99.9% of spam, phishing, and malware, protecting users from nearly 15 billion unwanted messages daily. So enforcing these changes was a natural next step in its ongoing effort to make email safer and more reliable.
While Gmail and Yahoo initially drove these changes, they are now being adopted across the industry, with other mailbox providers beginning to implement similar requirements. This shift signals a broader trend toward stronger email authentication and a more user-friendly experience for recipients.
How the requirements benefit senders and recipients
The 2024 new sender requirements have created a win-win situation for both senders and recipients by helping create a stronger, more secure email ecosystem with the following 3 key goals.
1. Greater confidence in email authenticity
It is now mandatory for senders to authenticate their emails using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. This helps reduce domain spoofing, where a fake website or email address pretends to be legitimate, as well as phishing attempts to steal valuable personal information. Senders benefit from stronger brand protection, while recipients can trust that emails are coming from verified sources.
2. A better experience for email subscribers
Unsubscribing is now as simple as a single click, giving subscribers more control over the emails they receive. For senders, this helps maintain a healthy and engaged subscriber list, therefore improving overall performance and deliverability, and lowering spam rates.
3. A safer inbox environment
By enforcing spam complaint rate thresholds, Gmail and Yahoo have reduced the volume of unwanted messages hitting inboxes. This encourages senders to focus on permission-based, high-quality email marketing that not only aligns with the sender’s goals but is welcomed by their audience.
The impact on bulk senders
For many senders, these changes have meant levelling up their email programs to meet the new standards by:
- Authenticating domains: Businesses have to ensure emails are sent from a verified domain and have SPF, DKIM, and DMARC correctly configured.
- Enhancing the opt-out experience: ESPs, including Campaign Monitor and Emma, updated their platforms to meet the one-click unsubscribe requirement, helping senders maintain more active and engaged subscriber lists.
- Strengthening security with TLS: Transport Layer Security (TLS) became the standard for email transmission, ensuring that messages are encrypted in transit, and we implemented it for all our customers.
These updates have had a measurable impact, with Google reporting a 75% reduction in unauthenticated messages landing in Gmail inboxes, making it easier for legitimate emails to be delivered while filtering out bad actors.
Here at Campaign Monitor, we’re proud to say that over 90% of email volume is successfully passing both DKIM and DMARC authentication, reflecting a major shift towards more secure and trusted email practices, and contributes to maintaining an average delivery rate of 99% – some of the highest in the email marketing industry.
What senders should focus on next
While meeting the requirements is a solid foundation, maintaining strong deliverability is more than just authentication. Senders should continually review and refine their strategies to keep their email programs performing at their best:
- Maintain authentication and strengthen security – If you have a DMARC policy set to p=none, consider moving towards p=quarantine for better domain protection. Before making changes, ensure all your mail streams are properly authenticated. Setting up DMARC reporting will help you monitor unauthenticated emails sent from your domain that could impact the deliverability of those unauthenticated emails.
- Respect the inbox and prioritise engagement – Authentication alone does not guarantee inbox placement. Consumer Mailbox providers weigh engagement heavily, so focus on sending wanted, permission-based emails that provide value to your subscribers.
- Monitor deliverability metrics – Keep an eye on key performance indicators like open rates, click-through rates, spam complaints, unsubscribe rates and bounce rates. Reviewing these by mailbox provider can help you understand where adjustments may be needed.
- Manage inactive subscribers – Regularly review your list to remove disengaged contacts. A re-engagement campaign can help win back inactive subscribers, but if they remain unresponsive, it’s better to remove them from your list altogether to protect your Sender Reputation.
Looking Ahead
Next month, we will be diving into "The Email Growth Cycle: Growing, Nurturing, and Pruning" – a compliance-focused look at list health and organic subscriber growth. Just like a garden, an email program thrives when you prune out dead plants to make room for nurturing fresh and new growth.
Deliverability isn’t set and forget – it’s an ongoing process, and staying ahead of the ever-constant changes is key to long-term success. By focusing on trust, engagement, and continuous improvement, senders can ensure their email programs remain strong.