Gmail & Yahoo tighten rules: the implications for your email marketing
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Starting in February 2024, Gmail (Google) and Yahoo will tighten their rules for incoming email, according to an update from both parties from two weeks ago. In a new attempt to combat spam, Gmail and Yahoo are introducing 3 rules that are certainly also of interest to the email marketers among us.
Gmail’s product update states that the following three rules will be applied from February next year:
There must be an easy way to unsubscribe from emails.
There will be a maximum number of ‘spam’ emails that you can deliver to an email address.
Only authenticated emails will be allowed through.
An easy way to unsubscribe
According to the parties, it is essential that their users can unsubscribe from emails with one click. A long-cherished dream of many recipients, but probably also the nightmare of the marketers who have made the unsubscribe process a little more complex.
Gmail and Yahoo both require that large senders give their recipients with Gmail accounts (both personal and through Google Workspace) and Yahoo accounts the ability to unsubscribe from commercial emails with one click. And that they process unsubscribe requests within two days.
As a sender, this means that you will have to standardize and perhaps also automate. Make the unsubscribe process as simple as possible. Are you still processing list of portugal consumer email unsubscribes manually? Then it is wise to see if you can unsubscribe an e-mail address from your newsletter or e-mail campaigns using forms or some automation.
Deliver a maximum number of ‘spam’ emails
The second tightening up is the Gmail & Yahoo update that introduces a stricter policy on the number of emails to be delivered to an address per day, combined advertising? make sure you don’t break the law with the amount of ‘spam’ in between: what they call the spam rate threshold .
The spam rate threshold does little more than make official what has long been a Google recommendation. Google advises senders not to exceed a 0.3% spam rate to avoid delivery problems in general.
That ratio is a widely shared best practice , so it alb directory also applies to emails to Outlook, Apple Mail, and the like. But Gmail and Yahoo now state that this will be a clear cutoff starting in February 2024.
Spambox – source freepik, edited by Tom Blijleven.
An example of my own spam box.
“But I don’t send spam at all”
Of course, spam does not stop at the obvious attempts by hackers and scammers to extract your credit card details or to collect your login details. It also includes emails that the recipient has no need for and has not signed up for, or has forgotten. A well-maintained delivery list was already important, but in view of this development it is even more important.
Only authenticated emails
The most important development in this story is that Gmail and Yahoo are going to be stricter on the security measures that you take as a sender. SPF, DKIM and DMARC are required from February if you are a large sender: more than 5000 e-mails per day.
So if you send about 150,000 emails or more per month, you fall into that category.