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Achieving Compliance: Meeting Google and Yahoo's Email Sender Requirements in 2024

Starting February 2024, Google and Yahoo will require email senders to implement email authentication and adhere to new policies concerning consent and engagement. Failing to comply could result in your emails being delayed, blocked, or marked as spam. While these changes might seem sudden, they have long been considered essential for ensuring proper email delivery.

Table of Contents​

  1. Elevate Your Brand with a Branded Sending Domain
  2. Establish DMARC Email Authentication for Your Sending Domain
  3. Ensure Brand Consistency
  4. Avoid Pretending to Be Gmail in the "From" Headers
  5. Make It Easy to Unsubscribe
  6. Optimize Email Delivery: Keep Your Spam Rate Below 0.30%

Elevate Your Brand with a Branded Sending Domain​

Enhance your sender reputation and improve inbox branding by setting up a branded sending sub-domain. This practice will eliminate the "sent via msgsndr.com" disclaimer, leading to better deliverability. Starting in February, this becomes a requirement for bulk senders targeting Google and Yahoo users.

After enabling your branded sending sub-domain, a gradual warm-up of your sending infrastructure may be necessary over the next 2–4 weeks.

Need assistance? Check out our guide on setting up a branded sending sub-domain.

Establish DMARC Email Authentication for Your Sending Domain​

What is DMARC?​

DMARC, or Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance, is a standard that enhances SPF and DKIM. It instructs mailbox providers on handling emails that fail SPF, DKIM, or both, potentially preventing spoofing.

What Should You Do?​

If you don't have a DMARC record and are sending more than 5,000 emails per day, you should add one to your DNS.

Implementation Steps:

  1. Use a free DMARC checker like Dmarcian to check if you already have a DMARC record. Enter your root domain (e.g., yourdomain.com) and inspect.
    • If you receive a "Hooray! Your DMARC record is valid." message, you're all set.
    • Otherwise, proceed to step 2.
  2. Visit your DNS hosting provider to create a TXT DNS record.
  3. Choose TXT as the record type.
  4. Set the Host/Name value as: _DMARC
  5. In the Content/Points to field, enter: v=DMARC1; p=none;
  6. Save/submit and verify the DMARC record using Dmarcian. You can also check by sending yourself an email and inspecting the header.

Note: Google recommends gradually making your DMARC policy more restrictive. Refer to their Recommended DMARC Rollout Tutorial for guidance.

Ensure Brand Consistency​

Align your "from" address with your branded domain for a cohesive email identity. To comply with DMARC standards, your "from" address domain must match the root domain of your branded sending domain. For example, if your branded sending domain is "lc.msgsndr.com," use "hello@msgsndr.com" as your "from" address.

Double-check all "from" addresses in your emails and campaigns to ensure alignment.

Avoid Pretending to Be Gmail in the "From" Headers​

Why Does It Matter?​

Gmail and Yahoo are enforcing stricter DMARC policies. Pretending to send from Gmail or Yahoo could negatively impact your email deliverability.

Solution​

Simply avoid using Gmail or Yahoo addresses in the "From" field of your emails. For instance, don't send emails claiming to be from 'example@gmail.com' or 'example@yahoo.com'.

Make It Easy to Unsubscribe​

It's crucial to provide an easy way for recipients to unsubscribe from your emails. If someone wants to opt-out, they shouldn't struggle to find the unsubscribe button.

Streamlined Unsubscribing: One-Click Solution​

We automatically include a one-click unsubscribe link in the header of each email you send, except for 1:1 emails. This feature ensures compliance with the new requirements.

Before February, review your campaign templates and flow emails to ensure there's an unsubscribe link, typically in the footer. It doesn't have to be one-click, but it should be clear and easy to find.

Optimize Email Delivery: Keep Your Spam Rate Below 0.30%​

Ensure your emails are welcome by recipients. Just as you wouldn't want an uninvited guest, don't send emails without permission. Maintain spam complaints to less than 1 out of every 1,000 emails sent.

Monitor Yahoo spam complaints through Spam Reports. For Gmail, use Google Postmaster Tools to track spam complaints and ensure smooth email delivery.