best practices
I’ve seen a bunch of folks panic about some phrasing in Google’s Email sender guidelines. Buried deep in the Message formatting section Google say: Don’t use HTML and CSS to hide content in your messages. Hiding content might cause messages to be marked as spam. Read literally that might cause you to wonder about your use of CSS display:none to switch between different content on desktop and mobile. But that’s not what Google are concerned about – they’re targeting spammers who load up their mail with hidden text (“hashbusters“) in an attempt to make the content of the mail look like one thing to spam filters and a completely different thing to the human recipient. And a variety of similar deceptive behaviour intended to avoid spam filters, or avoid the spam folder or the promotions tab. (This is common behaviour amongst bottom of the barrel spammers. If you see someone
I thought it would be fun to take a moment and look back at a prior webinar. This presentation that Tonya Gordon and I put together for Klaviyo users in early 2023 was one the most popular webinar I put together for my then-employer. Klaviyo users seem to hunger to learn more about deliverability and best practices, and I think the guidance here is still accurate and will help put folks on a solid deliverability footing. In the webinar, Tonya and I break down the difference between delivery and deliverability, how to put your best deliverability foot forward (it starts with your authenticated domain name), how to measure and monitor for deliverability issues, and much much more! Google and Yahoo’s new sender requirements had yet to be announced when we presented this webinar; thus we did not touch on them. Klaviyo has put together a Yahoo/Google compliance guide here; and
The worst thing about the yahoogle requirements has been their use of the term “one-click unsubscribe”. It’s an overloaded term that’s being used here to mean RFC 8058 in-app unsubscription. That’s a completely different thing to what one-click unsubscription has been used to mean for decades, often in the context of complying with legal requirements around unsubscription. It’s confusing. So here’s the simple explanation. To comply with everyone’s unsubscription requirements you need to do two things. First thing You need to have a clear link visible in the body of your message that allows users to unsubscribe. It’s the link you already have in the footer of your message: When the user clicks on it they should go to a web page. That web page must have a clear, conspicuous button that the user can click to unsubscribe. It cannot require them to provide any other information. That page can
Salesforce Pardot (aka “Marketing Cloud Account Engagement”) is a B2B-focused marketing automation tool meant to help companies nurture leads and build engaged email relationships with their subscribers. If you’re a Pardot user and wondering how do I set myself up for deliverability success? And how do I know ongoing if I’m having deliverability challenges or not? Then this content is perfect for you. In this fifteen minute recorded webinar, I’ll walk you through the deliverability basics when it comes to the Salesforce Pardot platform. Find the recording on Youtube or embedded below, and thanks for watching! For ease of navigation, below I have included all of the different links I referenced in the recorded webinar. Happy surfing! Configure DKIM authentication in Pardot. “Warm up” your IP and domain in Pardot. More on 2024 Yahoo and Gmail sender requirements. Opt-in performs better. Should I use a purchased email list? Pardot Reporting
With over nine years experience at Google, Neil Kumaran has worked across multiple teams, but always focused on things close to my heart – risk mitigation, security, safety and anti-abuse. It is thus timely that he was willing to sit down and chat with me about the upcoming new Gmail sender requirements, the initial phase of which is set to begin in February. I think it’s easy for most (good) email senders to comply. I do grant, though, that there are some number of email senders who may not be technically savvy enough to know how to implement technologies like DKIM and DMARC on their own, and that work remains to be done to help educate the world about these new requirements. Hopefully discussions like this will help. And keep an eye on Spam Resource for more help and guidance. And with no further ado, on to the interview. Hey
Here is everything you need to know (I think? I hope?) about how to comply with the new sender requirements announced by Google and Yahoo, applying to Gmail and Yahoo mail, coming into force in early 2024. You can read more about it all here (and over at Yahoo or Google), but it boils down to a handful of things that were previously best practice recommendations for deliverability excellence, which are now requirements that these two mailbox providers are saying that senders must implement. Those that don’t implement these requirements risk being blocked and unable to send mail to Yahoo Mail and Gmail subscribers. Here are the ten steps you need to take, that if you follow these all the way through, you’ll be fully compliant with the new requirements. Stop sending newsletter/marketing/bulk mail as Gmail or Yahoo. For your 1:1 email messaging where you respond to emails from your
Here’s a directory of many different email service provider (ESP) links to their various guides explaining what their clients have to do to be fully compliant with the new 2024 Yahoo / Google sender requirements. Wondering how different platforms are guiding their customers? Or are you a customer of a given platform and you’re looking to find their guidance? Here you go. AWeber Beehiiv BenchmarkEmail Braze Brevo Constant Contact ConvertKit GetResponse HubSpot Klaviyo Mailchimp MailerLite MessageBird Sender Sendgrid Socketlabs There are lots more ESP/CRM platforms out there. Did I miss yours? Drop me a line via the usual means or leave a comment below with details, and I’ll update this list as I’m able.
As you well know, Gmail and Yahoo Mail are now requiring that all senders start to publish a DMARC record, if they weren’t publishing one already. Hopefully you watched the webinar with LB Blair and myself (I’ll link to the recording here as soon as it is available) where we talk at length about DMARC and what you need to know to start to be able to “speak DMARC” as needed. But if you didn’t watch that? And don’t have the time to dive into making yourself a DMARC export? What’s the five minute version of all of this, how do you get up and running quickly without having to stop and worry about RFCs and options. “Just tell me what I need to know to get it done.” Okay, I got you. Here we go. Before you proceed with this, you need to ensure that you’ve implemented DKIM authentication for
Yes, it’s another yahoogle best practices post. Google divide their requirements for senders into those sending more than 5,000 messages a day, and those sending less. Yahoo divide their requirements into “All Senders” and “Bulk Senders”, and explicitly don’t define that via a volume threshold: “A bulk sender is classified as an email sender sending a significant volume of mail. We will not specify a volume threshold.”. So … do you need to count how many messages you send, to see if Google thinks you’re a bulk sender or not? No. Definitely not. Google state a threshold just so they don’t have to argue about the definition of “bulk sender”, I’m sure. In practice they’ll be using the same definition as bulk sender as Yahoo – we know it when we see it. But the real distinction isn’t volume – it’s whether you’re professional, grown-up sender or a hobbyist. If
Yes, it’s another yahoogle best practices post. Google divide their requirements for senders into those sending more than 5,000 messages a day, and those sending less. Yahoo divide their requirements into “All Senders” and “Bulk Senders”, and explicitly don’t define that via a volume threshold: “A bulk sender is classified as an email sender sending a significant volume of mail. We will not specify a volume threshold.”. So … do you need to count how many messages you send, to see if Google thinks you’re a bulk sender or not? No. Definitely not. Google state a threshold just so they don’t have to argue about the definition of “bulk sender”, I’m sure. In practice they’ll be using the same definition as bulk sender as Yahoo – we know it when we see it. But the real distinction isn’t volume – it’s whether you’re professional, grown-up sender or a hobbyist. If