Important service announcement: Google & Yahoo’s email changes

Google & Yahoo’s email changes: What you need to know

This is a Grip service announcement to let you know that some of the biggest email providers are updating their spam policies. This could impact your events’ email deliverability and we wanted to make you aware.

What is happening

Both Google and Yahoo are implementing email policy updates effective from February 1st, 2024. These updates aim to reduce spam and spoofing and will impact what email Google and Yahoo will accept and deliver to their users’ inboxes.

The changes primarily affect bulk email senders, which are defined as any email sender/domain that sends 5,000 or more messages to personal accounts within a 24-hour period (however, this 5,000 limit is a movable target, it can be lower or higher).

In addition, from 1st April 2024 Google will reject a portion of senders' email outright. For instance, if 25% of a sender’s email volume is non-compliant, then a percentage of that will be rejected. That percentage will increase over time (details TBC by email providers).

What you should do

Here are the key changes to Google and Yahoo’s email guidelines and what action you should take:

1. Email authentication
   You must use SPF, DKIM, and DMARC (this is key) to authenticate your emails and prove they’re coming from a legitimate source. Google and Yahoo will now require that SPF, DKIM, and DMARC be in place for all bulk senders. If not, deliverability will be affected. Google and Yahoo strongly encourage a DMARC policy setup on each domain that includes a p=none as well as a rua=<customer's feedback receiving address> email address to receive feedback on email authentication. These are expected to become stricter over time. Customers will have to set up DMARC on their own DNS service. Customers are also strongly encouraged to have an event specific email domain that is not used in their day-to-day emailing needs.
2. Easy unsubscribes
   It now needs to be as easy as possible to unsubscribe from bulk emails, which Google defines as supporting one-click unsubscribes in email headers. Also, all unsubscribes must be honored within two days. Grip already handles this on your behalf for event emails sent from our platform.
3. Spam complaints
   Both Google and Yahoo are cracking down on spam, with advanced algorithms to identify and block spam. Senders with spam complaints averaging 0.3% or higher will start experiencing issues with deliverability, but you should always aim to maintain spam levels at 0.1% or below to ensure your emails are landing in inboxes. Both providers have set up monitoring tools to help senders monitor this score themselves.

What next

These updates are now considered email deliverability best practices and more email providers will likely roll out similar, or even more stringent, requirements in due time.

Grip recommends you conduct your own research and take action to ensure your event email deliverability remains high.

—--------------------

Further reading

• Google’s Announcement:
  https://blog.google/products/gmail/gmail-security-authentication-spam-protection/
• Yahoo’s Announcement: https://blog.postmaster.yahooinc.com/post/730172167494483968/more-secure-less-spam
• Google’s DMARC setup guide: https://support.google.com/a/answer/10032169?hl=en&fl=1&sjid=692868592096981899-NA
• Google’s Spam monitoring dashboard:
  https://postmaster.google.com/
• Yahoo’s Spam monitoring dashboard:
  https://senders.yahooinc.com/