Are you ready for the February 2024 email Sender requirements?
In 2 days time the new email marketing rules hit all bulk senders.
Gmail and Yahoo decided that to improve their customer's experiences with their email clients, they needed to cut down on spam and unwanted emails.
To do this, they are bringing in some requirements that must be adhered to if you are a bulk sender. I’ve broken down the points in a simple and easy way, but if you fancy a longer read to help you get to sleep, Head over to Google and Yahoo’s blog.
What is a bulk sender?
Google has defined a bulk sender as a business or person who sends more than 5000 emails in 24hrs.
Yahoo has not specified what a bulk sender is under these new requirements.
It’s not ideal that Yahoo hasn’t specified so if you are hovering around the 5000 a day or aren’t a million miles from it. I would suggest you go right ahead and carry out all the requirements for a bulk sender to cover yourself. Another advantage is it gives you room to grow without having to quickly sort out back end settings because you’ve become a bulk sender over night.
What do you need to do to be compliant post February 2024.
- Email validation – SPF, DKIM, DMARC
- Double opt-in
- Sunsetting subs who haven’t opened an email in 6 months
- Adding one-click unsubscribe – needs to be done by June 1st 2024
- Honour unsubscribe requests within 2 days
- Keep complaints to a minimum
SPF, DKIM and DMARC
As a copywriter, I’m not going to go too deep on this. My main reason for looking into this is that these policies will affect your deliverability, and that’s important when you want your email to be read (a big part of what I do). So I will keep this short.
SPF
Sender Policy Framework identifies all the mail servers and domains that are authorised to send email on behalf of your domain. In your CRM you should have an option to authenticate your domain and it will give you a SPF record that you can enter into your Domain settings.
DKIM
Is a type of security for the receiving mail servers. DKIM allows them to verify that the email actually came from the sender and not someone impersonating them. Again this is another entry you can get from your CRM and copy the text into you Domain settings.
DMARC
Domain Messaging Authentication Reporting & Conformance. Try saying that after a few pints.
Essentially, it is designed to protect a company’s domain from being used to spam end users with phishing attempts and spoofing.
This is another txt record you need to put into your Domain settings and it should be in your CRM to copy across.
I use Convertkit as my CRM and all these records were supplied by them. I simply just had to input them into my domain settings and sync it all up. All CRMs should be ready for this change over so if you have any CRM-specific questions I recommend you contact their help desk.
What else is changing with Email?
Spam reports
You now need to keep spam reports below 0.1%. This is down from the previous standard of 0.3%. To achieve this you need to ensure your content is good and is actually wanted by the people you are sending it too. If you already take good care and pride in your email list. You don’t need to worry about this. If you haven’t given your list much care then certainly keep an eye on your spam level and work on list hygiene.
One-click unsubscribes
The option to unsubscribe in one click is now something that must be offered. CRM’s will take care of this in the background so this isn’t something to worry about but it’s something to be aware of. Unsubscribe links will not be visible in the inbox and not just at the bottom of the email you’ve sent.
No more sending from gmail.com or yahoo.com
Some businesses out there don’t use a domain for the email and so use a free option like gmail or yahoo. As of February 1st, you can no longer use these types of email addresses to send marketing emails to your subscribers.
My view on this is that you should never be using a gmail.com or a yahoo.com address. If you're in business, then you have to be professional and have your own email domain.
Double opt in
Nice an easy one. When someone signs up to your list. They get an email to confirm their subscription. Check your settings to ensure you have a double opt in. It seems a pain but it helps you by stopping bots from signing up to your list and damaging your reputation.
Unsubscribes and Sunsetting Subs who haven’t opened emails for 6 months
When you receive an unsubscribe, it must be honoured. Don’t let your ego get in the way and try and win back that person. Let them go. They weren’t going to buy from you anyway, and the knock-on effect is an improvement in your deliverability metrics.
Further to this its now a requirement for you to sunset those that haven’t opened emails for 6 months. By sunset, it means kick them off your list. With this, you just need to search those people within your CRM and then delete them. Again, this is something that will improve your deliverability like the above. So don’t get upset about it.
That wraps up my whistle stop tour of email requirements landing this February. Stay on the lookout for more and avoid yourself ever getting lost in the cold wilderness.
