Update: Gmail & Yahoo!'s email authentication policy changes

A new set of email authentication requirements and spam prevention policies has been announced by Google and Yahoo!. These new policies will go into effect on February 20, 2024.

It is likely that these changes will have an impact on the success of future email marketing campaigns. For B2B marketers to remain compliant, it is crucial to understand how these policies work and what they need to do in order to adhere to them. If you are a small and medium size business owner or marketer, and you run email marketing campaigns or plan to run them in 2024, DO NOT skip this episode!

What will change?

The guidelines are pretty straightforward and clear in terms of what needs to change for businesses and marketers to continue running their email marketing campaigns without any hiccups.

1. Send bulk emails through your own custom domain as against using a Gmail or Yahoo! email ID.

2. Make sure your emails are authenticated by complying to globally accepted standards - Sender Policy Framework or SPF; DomainKeys Identified Mail or DKIM; and Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance or DMARC.

3. Keep spam complaints to below 0.3%.

4. Allow easy one-click unsubscribe and honour unsubscribe requests within 2 days.

In essence, Google and Yahoo! have taken the long standing best practices in email marketing and turned them into a requirement. Before we understand how these requirements might impact the email marketing campaigns, let's take a quick walkthrough these technical requirements first.

A quick walkthrough the technical requirements

Sender Policy Framework or SPF is an authentication method that ensures the mail server that is sending the email is authorized to originate mail from the sender's domain. Basically, SPF defines which IP addresses can be used to send emails from your domain.

The DomainKeys Identified Mail or DKIM standard was created for the same purpose as SPF: to prevent spammers from impersonating you. In other words, it allows the recipient's server to check if the sender was really you or not when you sign your emails. It is possible to do this with two keys: a private and a public key.

Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance or DMARC is a protocol that protects the domain from being spoofed. A domain policy is added to accomplish this. Three policies are available - none, quarantine, and reject. DMARC checks SPF and/or DKIM, if both fail, then based on the policy, message is accepted (none), quarantined or routed to spam (quarantine), or rejected (reject).

What does these Gmail & Yahoo!'s email authentication policy changes mean for businesses and marketers?

With this basic understanding of the technical requirements of Gmail & Yahoo!'s email authentication policy changes, it is safe to assume that all senders will be affected. And, for all the right reasons. What would turning these best practices into requirements or policies mean for businesses and marketers?

1. Enhanced email security reduces the likelihood of phishing attacks and unauthorized account access. As a result, users are provided with a safer environment.

2. Businesses and marketers heavily rely on email communication for outreach and promotion. Authentication policy changes may affect email deliverability if they are not properly implemented. It is essential that businesses update their email authentication methods in order to prevent spam.

3. DKIM was proposed as a standard in 2011. Followed by SPF in 2014 and DMARC in 2015. While compliance to these standards is quite common place, maintaining a positive sender reputation requires that marketers and businesses comply with these authentication standards.

4. DMARC reports help businesses monitor and analyze their email delivery performance. Marketers and businesses may need to pay closer attention to these reports.

5. Businesses and marketers must adapt to these new email policies quickly, if not already. Collaboration between IT and email marketing teams would be important to understand and implement any necessary changes to remain compliant.

How to adapt to these policy changes?

All this might sound a bit too complex to understand and implement. In reality, it's not. As I said before, these standards have been around for a while and quite likely your email server is already compliant.

In case your business does not comply yet, here are a few simple steps that can help you quickly adapt to these policy changes:

1. Get a custom domain. Start sending emails from your own domain name instead of using Gmail and Yahoo!.

2. Implement DKIM, SPF, and DMARC requirements to authenticate your emails. By sending emails from a verified server, you will be able to protect your brand and build trust.

3. Keep a close eye on your email list. By maintaining a clean and engaged email list, spam complaints will remain well below 0.3%.

4. Provide one-click unsubscribes and ensure that unsubscribe requests are dealt with within 48 hours.

As we enter the 2024 world, email marketing will continue to remain the preferred channel for brand awareness and lead generation. According to Mailmodo, email marketing remained as one of the best marketing channels, giving an ROI of $42 for every $1 spent in 2023.

Compliance to email authentication standards that can help improve email deliverability, build trust with customers, and maintain a positive online reputation is barely an investment.

Privacy and data protection norms like GDPR and CAN-SPAM will continue to evolve and implement varying degrees of stringent requirements. Compliance to these email authentication standards can help business and marketers adapt to changing regulations going forward.