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Email persists as one of the most popular forms of marketing communication. However, with its widespread use comes the issue of spam and fraudulent emails.
Legislation like the PECR, GDPR and the CCPA have been introduced over the years, to try and help tackle the tide of unwanted emails. ESPs (email service providers) provide spam protection and ways to report or block spammers. There’s also a raft of organisations to which you can report fraudulent emails, like phishing attempts.
Despite this, people are still inundated with bulk emails that they didn’t sign up for, and don’t want.
In order to combat this problem, Google and Yahoo have introduced new email authentication requirements for bulk email senders. These requirements aim to improve email security and protect users from receiving unwanted and potentially harmful emails. In this article, we’ll discuss the new email authentication requirements, how they will affect bulk email senders, and any actions you may need to take.
Email authentication requirements are a set of guidelines and protocols that aim to verify the identity of the sender, and to ensure that the email is not fraudulent or spammy. These requirements are put in place to protect users from receiving malicious emails and to improve overall email security and quality.
With the rise of spam and fraudulent emails, it has become increasingly important to verify the authenticity of email senders. Email verification not only protects users from receiving unwanted emails, but they also help to build trust between the sender and the recipient. This is especially important for businesses that rely on email marketing to reach their customers.
You can read what Google and Yahoo have published regarding these new requirements. But they are summarised below.
Starting in 2024, bulk email senders (anyone sending upwards of 5,000 emails to Gmail and Yahoo emails addresses) will be required to ensure they have implemented authentication protocols such as:
SPF (Sender Policy Framework) – SPF (not the sunscreen kind) is a record that specifies which servers are authorised to send emails on your behalf.
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) – DMARC is an email verification protocol that verifies the authenticity of the sender’s domain.
DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) – DKIM helps to protect against spoofing using a digital signature that ESPs can verify.
These protocols work together to ensure that the email is coming from a legitimate source and has not been tampered with.
As should already be the case with marketing emails, Google and Yahoo have stated that users should be able to easily unsubscribe from receiving further emails. This unsubscribe process should not be complicated and should not take a long time to take effect.
This means 1 click unsubscribes, and Yahoo specifies 2 days as the time in which unsubscribes should be honoured.
Many marketing email senders currently require you to take multiple steps to stop receiving their emails, and I have seen many unsubscribe messages that claim that it will take up to 2 weeks for an unsubscribe request to be processed.
Finally, Google and Yahoo have said that they will start to more effectively enforce clear spam thresholds. This is to reduce the number of people receiving unsolicited emails and will be measured using user reporting of spam emails.
If you don’t want to be impacted, ensure that your marketing lists are regularly cleaned and that you are emailing those who have opted in to receive your email communications.
Bulk email senders will need to make sure that their emails are compliant with these new requirements in order to avoid being marked as spam. This means that they will need to properly authenticate their emails using SPF, DMARC and DKIM, include a simple 1 click unsubscribe in their emails, and ensure they are sending to people who actually want to receive their emails.
Failure to do so may result in their emails being blocked or sent to the recipient’s spam folder.
In order to prepare for these new requirements, marketers should ensure that their company implements SPF, DMARC and DKIM protocols as soon as possible.
This will likely need to be managed by the IT department within a business, but they will also need to contact whoever manages their web hosting, if this isn’t managed in house. This is so that DNS records can be updated with the SPF, DKIM and DMARC records.
They should also regularly verify their email lists and remove any inactive or invalid email addresses. This will not only help with compliance but also improve the overall effectiveness of their email marketing campaigns.
Email authentication requirements are an important step towards improving email security and protecting users from spam and fraudulent emails. It is good to see large ESPs like Google and Yahoo introducing these new protections.
Bulk email senders should start implementing these requirements as soon as possible to ensure compliance and maintain a good reputation with their customers. By taking the necessary steps to authenticate their emails, bulk email senders can continue to effectively reach their target audience and build trust with their customers. Have you started implementing these requirements? Let us know in the comments.
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