Last month Drew McManus posted on ArtsHacker warning about changes that Yahoo and Gmail are implementing this month that will shunt a greater number of emails to spam folders unless you take steps to mitigate the issue.
Any users in your database and mailing lists with addresses ending in @gmail.com or @yahoo.com require the following:
SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) authentication: if you don’t already have
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Keep Spam Rate Under 0.3%: Maintain a pristine reputation, experts recommend aiming for below 0.1%! 0.1%-0.3% is the warning zone: hover in that range too long and you still risk having your messages blocked.
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Double-Check Your DNS: Confirm your digital addresses match your domain, like matching your website and email platforms.
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If your organization sends more than 5,000 messages per day, you’ll encounter some additional requirements:
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If your organization gets flagged, it means ALL of your messages, regardless the source, coming from an email address with your primary domain will get blocked by Google and Yahoo with no potential to reverse the decision.
Obviously, I chopped out a lot. Drew provides a fair bit of additional detail, but if you don’t know what SPF and DKIM are already, I am not sure his explanation will help. I looked those terms up and still didn’t know if we were compliant or not.
Fortunately, my marketing team was on it. When I forwarded the post link to them, they let me know our bulk email service provider has been warning about this for awhile and they had made the appropriate adjustments. Unfortunately, I was so relieved I forgot that I wanted to post about this issue a couple weeks ago to let more folks know.
Definitely take the time to read Drew’s post and investigate whether you need to take action to avoid problems, including cleaning up your lists and revamping your emailing practices.
New (And Critical) Email Deliverability Changes For Gmail & Yahoo