DMARC in the Spotlight: Navigating the Latest Gmail & Yahoo Email Updates
In October 2023, both Gmail and Yahoo announced that the rules for sending emails will be tightened from February 2024. Recipients of your emails must be able to unsubscribe easily and you must have all email authentication in order. For large senders in particular, it is now really time to set up your DMARC policy.
More attention to safety
As you would expect, both email providers want their customers to find their inboxes hassle-free and enjoyable to use. Spending half your time deleting spam emails, or wading through an obscure unsubscribe process does not meet this need.
Our customers know that an unsubscribe link is mandatory in all commercial communications and that a click on such a link must also be sufficient for a successful unsubscribe. In addition, most of us have a working SPF record. Things get a little more difficult when it comes to the authentication techniques DKIM and DMARC. And the latter technology in particular is far from being commonplace. But Spotler customers are currently receiving targeted support in this regard.
With these updates, it is becoming increasingly important for organizations to have email authentication in order. To help our customers set up a DMARC record, our Partner Spotler offers support in the form of help center articles that you, as a marketer or communications specialist, can forward directly to your IT colleague.
Go to the Spotler Mail+ Help Center
Go to the Spotler Flowmailer Help Center
Extra attention to DMARC
First, the existing standards: SPF and DKIM. With SPF you show that the email that readers receive from you was actually sent by you. With DKIM you can also check the message itself.
If something goes wrong with these two, you use DMARC to indicate how such an email should be handled. For example, you can ask the receiving server whether they want to quarantine the email or reject the email. You publish the rules for this in a DMARC policy in your own DNS record.
If you want to check what’s going on with your own domain, enter your URL into DMARC Advisor.
Update primarily for major senders
Gmail and Yahoo initially ask senders of large amounts of e-mail whether they have SPF, DKIM and DMARC in order. The key numbers are 5,000 messages per day or 150,000 messages per month. If you are sending this many or more, then there are additional standards you will need to meet. If you want to know more about this, Spotler is hosting a webinar on January 17th, which will lay out all the steps you need to take.
As you approach this, it’s important to remember that this update is being implemented to ensure a positive inbox experience. “Keeping email more secure, user friendly and spam-free requires constant collaboration and vigilance from the entire email community”, according to Gmail’s update. As marketers who understand how impactful email campaigns can be, we should celebrate measures which filter out spam from inboxes, allowing our useful, targeted content room to be seen.
If you would like to know more about the Spotler Email Sending Guidelines, authentication techniques and email delivery, please feel free to contact us.