Prepare Your Email Campaign for Changes in Gmail and Yahoo/AOL Policies

Starting from February 2024 two major mailbox providers will enforce technical requirements in their mass mailing policies. Since Gmail and Yahoo/AOL cover a significant market share you should check whether you have to make improvements by this date. 

In order to remain compliant with the updated policies it will soon be necessary to: 

1. Configure DMARC record for the sending domain 

2. Use List-Unsubscribe header in email messages 

3. Keep complaint level below the 0,30% ratio 

4. Establish TLS connection for emailing campaigns 

Here are the key recommendations to meet the basic requirements: 

1) It is sufficient to create a basic version of the DMARC record with the enforcement policy set to "None" (remember that in order for DMARC to work properly it is a prerequisite to publish either SPF or DKIM records).

2) It should be a one-click solution to allow mailbox users to unsubscribe easily. 

3) Gmail offers a free monitoring solution called Postmaster Tools (https://postmaster.google.com/) whilst Yahoo offers a paid monitoring solution called Email Deliverability & Performance Feeds (https://senders.yahooinc.com/email-deliverability-performance-feeds) and they also share ARF reports via a free Feedback Loop automation (https://senders.yahooinc.com/complaint-feedback-loop).

4) Transmitting messages must be secured with TLS encryption.

It is worth to note that points No.2 and 4 have long been directly supported by ExpertSender and our clients do not have to make any changes on their end.  When it comes to DMARC record we are in the revision process of the existing configurations belonging to our client accounts and will reach out to everyone who is in need of adjustments. 

Finally, to facilitate the monitoring process of complaint levels we are working to feed Postmaster Tools data to our platform and make it available for our clients early this year. 

More details can be found here: 

Google - https://blog.google/products/gmail/gmail-security-authentication-spam-protection/ 

Yahoo - https://blog.postmaster.yahooinc.com/post/730172167494483968/more-secure-less-spam