Are you ready for Gmail and Yahoo’s New Email Sender Requirements?

Gmail and Yahoo - the email service providers responsible for more than 40% of the market share - have recently implemented new requirements to enhance user security, privacy, and overall email experience. With cyber threats and phishing attacks becoming increasingly sophisticated, these industry titans have taken action by mandating new measures that will begin taking effect on February 1, 2024. 

If you're a business using email as part of your marketing plan, wrapping your head around the new requirements may seem daunting. But rest assured, if you've followed best practices, you're likely already in compliance. Read on to ensure your email efforts continue unencumbered, and learn the nuts and bolts of these new measures and what they entail. Here's what you need to know: 

Who do these requirements apply to?

You're already in the clear if your email lists have yet to reach the thousands. The new rules imposed by Gmail and Yahoo are aimed at bulk senders, defined as those sending 5,000 emails or more per day.

What are the new requirements? 

1. Email Authentication: This new rule is simple yet so effective. Recipients of emails must know who the email was sent from and, therefore, require some form of authentication from the sender. Last year, Gmail began requiring that emails sent to Gmail recipients have some form of authentication, which resulted in a 75% decrease in spam and junk mail delivered to Gmail addresses. With that level of impact, it was a no-brainer to expand this requirement industry-wide. 

2. Enable easy unsubscribes: Sometimes, unsubscribing from a list can feel like a confusing maze of clicks, toggles, and questionnaires. Gmail and Yahoo are stopping the confusion by requiring large senders to give email recipients the ability to unsubscribe from commercial email in one click. The icing on the unsubscribe cake is that unsubscription requests must also be processed within two days. 

3. An all-new spam threshold: Gmail offers many tools that keep unwanted messages out of your inbox. To add another spam-busting barrier to the mix, the new requirements enforce  a clear spam rate threshold that senders must stay under to ensure recipients aren't receiving unwanted messages. Gmail is blazing a new trail with this requirement, claiming it's an industry-first.

Are you compliant?

Major Email Service Providers (think Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Mailmodo, etc.) should have updates in place before the February deadline to help users stay compliant. Check your martech stack for services that offer email as a secondary service for updates heeding the new requirements. 

ShortStack - the industry leader in building contests and giveaways - for example, offers supplemental email tools to complement its audience-engaging campaigns. ShortStack's email tools were already following industry best practices, but they have also made updates to help users easily comply with the new February 1st requirements. Some of these updates include convenient links for using a 'From' email that passes SPF, DKIM and DMARC. 

ShortStack offers a means to do this by integrating with the popular email service Sendgrid, for bulk senders looking to use a custom domain. 

Conclusion

The recent email requirements introduced by Gmail and Yahoo reflect a collective commitment to enhancing user security, privacy, and overall email experience. Although learning and adhering to a new set of rules may seem like a chore, it's essential, as marketers, to recognize the overall importance of these efforts. These changes protect users from threats such as phishing attacks and unauthorized access and contribute to the broader goal of creating a trustworthy and secure email ecosystem.

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