Quote of the Month:
“Focus on that one thing you do and do it well.”
— Matt Salzberg, Founder and CEO, Blue Apron
What are the new email sending requirements and do they affect me and my business?
In a new effort to further protect their users’ inboxes, both Gmail and Yahoo! introduced a new set of requirements this month that email senders must meet in order for mail to be delivered as expected to all recipients on these 2 platforms.
While it was not initially apparent exactly which senders would be affected the most, we have already had to implement the fixes (or start to implement them) for several of our clients.
Below I link to explanations for some of the terms involved, for reference. In most cases, rather than trying to read and understand them fully, it might just be best to contact us in case you have been having any emails not reach their destination over the last several weeks or month – or if you are unsure if you are affected. We can explain it more easily and indicate if any further steps might be warranted.
Gmail and Yahoo’s new requirements primarily target large bulk senders, and if you’re diving into their requirements in detail, you’ll see that some of them will only apply to high-volume senders who send more than 5,000 emails a day.
If you’re a smaller sender or only send transactional email, you’re less likely to be impacted by the changes—but that doesn’t mean you can ignore them. NOTE: What’s required for large senders today will likely become a requirement for all senders in the future.
What is needed? – Part I
Set up SPF and DKIM email authentication for your domain. What does it mean? DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) and Sender Policy Framework (SPF) are the two foundational forms of email authentication. DKIM uses asymmetric encryption to sign and verify your email. Both of these are TXT records configured in DNS for a domain. They must be formatted correctly in order to work
What is needed? – Part II
Ensure that sending domains or IPs have valid reverse DNS records, also referred to as PTR records. For email platforms such as Microsoft 365, this may not make sense since their sending servers have multiple IP addresses, not just a single one.
What is needed? – Part III
Set up DMARC email authentication for your sending domain. What does it mean? DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) is a standard that builds on SPF and DKIM. DMARC communicates a policy to mailbox providers letting them know what they should do when they receive an email that fails SPF and DKIM check and might not be legitimate.
NOTE: To best setup the DMARC records properly, it should be done in STAGES to ensure optimum deliverability throughout the process and TO NOT MAKE THINGS WORSE WHILE TRYING TO MAKE THEM BETTER.
Let us know if any of this seems unclear or confusing. The industry did not seem to communicate it very effectively at the outset. Also realize that not all senders are affected.
For everyone, though, it may be a good idea to implement these DNS records at some point since the requirements will become more strict and could apply to more senders over time.
