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In the latter half of 2023, Gmail and Yahoo, two of the largest Mailbox Providers (MBP), published compliance requirements for email senders and additional requirements for bulk senders.
These requirements have been around for years if not decades. But as of 2024, MBPs will start rejecting emails due to non-compliance. Enforcement began for Yahoo and Gmail in February 2024 and April 2024, respectively. June 2024 was the deadline for list unsubscribes.
Mailbox providers always optimize their systems to provide customers with the best email experience. The new compliance requirements are an extension of this, ensuring that customers always have access to a safe, private email experience.
For MBPs, this also means a renewed focus on reducing spam by separating legitimate and spammy emails. MBPs use specific authentications to identify third-party domains forging your domain, and your email compliance plays a huge role here.
Another update from MBPs is the “one-click unsubscribe” option. This option gives customers an easy way to opt out of your email campaigns if necessary. This way, they don’t have to look for the “report spam” button. This is a win-win for the customer and your brand as well since your brand’s domain reputation will not take a hit from unnecessary spam reports.
Even if you do get spam reports, you must ensure that your spam complaints fall below the threshold of 0.3%. If your brand constantly receives spam complaints above this threshold, your domain reputation will take a hit, and your emails won’t land in the inbox.
The latest email compliance requirements for 2024 are listed below:
Follow these seven simple steps to check your email compliance levels:
Learn more about testing your email settings/domain settings here.
Apart from implementing the above, to remain compliant, you must also ensure the unsubscribe requests are honored within 2 days, and spam complaints remain below 0.3%.
Remember, opt-outs are per brand. If you send non-transactional emails from multiple vendors (for example, during migration, you would send emails from two vendors), you must ensure your opt-outs and spam complaints are in sync between all systems.
If you’re using MoEngage Email, you don’t need to worry about authenticating domains or configuring forward and reverse DNS for IPs — this is done as an automated mandate. If you’re looking for spam complaint rates, you can access your campaign analytics. For Google spam complaints, you can also check the Google Postmaster.
MoEngage also offers the in-house List-Unsubscribe solution. The self-managed List Unsubscribe option allows you to customize it to include your branded domain and URL and use a unique identifier to identify the customers.
Neither Gmail nor Yahoo have specifically quoted the impact of non-compliance on your brand. It’s been left open-ended. However, depending on which particular aspect has been non-compliant (authentications v/s forward and reverse DNS for IPs v/s one-click unsubscribe v/s spam complaints), one or all of these three can happen:
As these mechanisms are in place to identify legitimate senders from spam, non-compliance for an extended period could result in you being marked as a spammer. In this case, it will be challenging to recover your reputation. The recovery will also need to meet all the compliance requirements.
You can also look directly through Yahoo’s and Google’s FAQs for more information.
Don’t have MoEngage yet? Talk to us.
Sadikshya is a Email Deliverability geek with almost ten years of experience. She enjoys resolving deliverability issues and finding the optimal balance between marketing goals and best practices. When she isn't working, she's either traveling or planning for next trip.
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