How Do Upcoming Gmail and Yahoo Email Deliverability Changes Affect You?

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Google and Yahoo have recently announced new updates related to Email deliverability with the intention to tackle SPAM. They have also released revised guidelines for brands. You can read Google’s guidelines here and Yahoo’s guidelines here.

Starting February 2024, these guidelines will be enforced upon by Google and Yahoo to ensure your emails are not spammy and get delivered to your customer’s inbox.

We have compiled a summary of the changes that you need to make for your Email marketing campaigns to remain compliant.

Summarizing The New Guidelines And Update

1. Ensure Appropriate Email Authentication and Infrastructure Setup

• DKIM and SPF records are required for all email senders. Additionally, if  your daily sending volume is greater than 5,000 emails, you will also need to set up a DMARC policy for each of your sending domains. Click here to learn more about how these records help you.
• Ensuring your DMARC checks pass. This essentially translates to your “from” addresses belonging to the domains for which DKIM and SPF setup is done properly.
• Valid forward and reverse DNS/PTR records are required for your email sending domains and IPs.
  

  If you are using MoEngage’s Email Delivery system: ✅ As a part of your onboarding onto MoEngage Email, our team has shared and verified all of the DKIM, SPF, DMARC and A records. If all of your “from addresses” belong to the domains that MoEngage set up for you, you don’t need to do anything. ⚠️ If you have added any “from address” from your end, please review the email headers and reach out to your CSM if authentications are failing. To do so, you can send a test email to your gmail address and check if your authentication is up to date based on the screenshot below.   ✅ PTR records for all of the IPs assigned to your account would’ve been done as part of the onboarding and doesn’t require any action from your side.

NOTE: If you use your own ESP (SG/SES/Custom SMTP connector, or more), please contact your ESP support/account team to assist you with the readiness and compliance for these changes.

2. Provide Easy Unsubscription Options For Your Recipients

The availability of a clear and visible option to unsubscribe, a single click unsubscription at that, and honoring such requests within 2 days of request would be required.

Irrespective of whether you’re on MoEngage Email Delivery or are using your own ESP (SG/SES/Custom SMTP connector etc.), check your configuration by following the below steps:

• Login into your dashboard and navigate to the settings module.
• Choose the Email connector, under Email settings-> Connector & view the value of the field “Unsubscribe settings”

NOTE: If you are on MoEngage or Sendgrid unsubscribe tracking, the reachability gets updated in real time. If you are managing your own unsubscribe lists, make sure to pass the events back to MoEngage in real time.

3. Control SPAM Rates

Ensure that SPAM rate is below 0.10% and avoid ever reaching a SPAM rate of 0.30% or higher.

You can do this by:

• Ensuring opt-in and sending periodic emails to confirm consent.
• Automatically suppressing unengaged users.
• Keeping the sending patterns dynamic based on the customer’s interest.

You can also go through the Gmail and Yahoo blog posts for more details. In case of any questions, do reach out to your CSM for guidance.

We highly recommend you to start aligning your Email delivery system to adhere to the aforementioned guidelines to ensure maximum inbox placement and effectiveness of your Email engagement strategy.

If you have any questions or you need any help, do reach out to your MoEngage Account Manager and we would be more than happy to assist you!