gmail
Recently, smart folks just discovered that Gmail is stripping out background image CSS from email content. This is new, and very annoying. Over on the Parcel blog, Mark Robbins explains the situation and provides some ideas for working around the issue.Is a design issue a deliverability issue? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It certainly can lead to display issues and even accessibility problems. And it can be painful, even if it doesn’t stop mail from getting to the inbox. So, I figured it can’t hurt to share stuff like this.[ H/T: Parcel Newsletter ]
As mentioned before, Google is now going to retire accounts gone inactive for at least two years. Indeed, Google just today sent me an email notice explaining this in some detail, which I thought would be handy to share here. For Google, of course, the focus of this messaging is their individual users. For you, reading about this on a deliverability blog, the focus is what senders should know and do about this — how should it guide you with regard to sending mail to Gmail subscribers.That guidance ultimately is nothing new: As I’ve said before, don’t treat subscriber addresses as though they last forever. Even before this change, there were good reasons to do this — to periodically sunset (inactivate) addresses that don’t respond. This new change just reinforces that guidance. Addresses will eventually bounce — and then who knows, maybe at some point in the future Google could
A friend asked recently why they’re not receiving feedback loop complaint data back from Gmail subscribers. After all, she pointed out, Gmail does indeed have a Feedback Loop, does it not? What’s up with that?If you’re lucky, your sending platform is already configured to ingest and utilize data from ISP Feedback Loops (and most are). If that’s the case, you’re likely seeing complaints logged (and complainers unsubscribed) as a result of “this is spam” reports from various MBPs (mailbox providers) and ISPs (internet service providers). Yahoo, Microsoft and Comcast are perhaps the largest providers that offer these complaint feedback loops, and if you head over to Validity’s “Feedback Loop Service” website, you can see the whole list of 20+ ISPs and MBPs that participate in a Validity-managed “universal” feedback loop service. If you check that list on the Validity website, you’ll notice that there are three mailbox providers missing: Microsoft, Yahoo
Double opt-in (also called “confirmed opt-in”) can help to prevent list hygiene problems, but some people are dead set against it. I’m not going to change their minds. I’m not even going to try to. But I’ve seen some changes at Gmail lately that lead me to think that I’m doing the world a disservice if I don’t at least warn you: If you’re a small newsletter publisher or small marketing sender, if you’re anyone using an SMB-focused or shared resource focused email sending platform, you’re putting yourself at risk by not employing double opt-in.Recently, a number of us in the email deliverability space started to hear that a bunch of smaller email senders, ones that were otherwise doing just fine yesterday, were suddenly finding their mail going to the spam folder in Gmail mailboxes today. Diving into it, this was all specific to a certain email provider, and was
Google is saying that as early as December 2023, they’re going to start retiring inactive accounts. Meaning, if you haven’t signed into your Google account in at least two years, Google could shut down that account, meaning you’d be saying goodbye to that Gmail email address.This means that eventually, bounce rates to gmail.com addresses will start to go up. This itself isn’t a bad thing, but it does give Google another way to compare good senders and bad senders — if you’re sending mail that has a higher bounce rate than others, you’re less likely to be a good sender, and this could end up contributing to a poorer sender reputation (and deliverability issues). This was the case with other ISPs in years past, though it’s unclear to me exactly how commonly this is part of the reputation equation today.THAT all means that it’s important that you monitor for hard
Google seems to have put Gmail’s BIMI logo checking (and the new blue checkmark) on hold temporarily starting perhaps on Monday, June 5th, while they roll out a fix to address an exploit that was allowing bad guys to spoof authentication on mail sent from certain platforms into Gmail mailboxes.I’ve got multiple examples in my own inbox: Last week’s mail from that sender shows a BIMI logo and blue checkmark (still, even today, when checking), but Monday or Tuesday’s email from that same sender shows no such logo and no blue checkmark. Others have confirmed to me that they see something similar; some exactly the same, some not. Fellow email nerd Hagop Khatchoian notes that he was only seeing a BIMI pause when dual DKIM signatures are in play. I also note that daily emails from Amazon seem to show no pause in Amazon’s BIMI logo display (with checkmark).This appears to
Everybody’s all abuzz about the new Mac desktop-specific email client made just for Gmail. Various folks that have tried it seem to be raving about how great it is. I manage so many mailboxes that I don’t know that I want to get into an email client that supports on Gmail, but if you’re a heavy user of Gmail, and a Mac user, and want a better desktop mail client, maybe Mimestream is right for you. Here’s a review from The Verge.
There are enough BIMI questions floating out there nowadays, that I thought it’d be good timing to put together a BIMI mini-FAQ. If you did not already know, BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) is a way to attach a logo to your email sending domain and with recent Gmail developments (not to mention, Apple support), it’s poised to become rather a big thing. And assuming you did know what BIMI was, let’s jump right into the FAQ:What’s that new blue checkmark thing at Gmail? How do I get that?Gmail recently announced that for senders who implement BIMI, they’ll show a little blue checkmark next to the sender’s email address, showing that the sender has been validated. You’ll get that by implementing BIMI (with a VMC). Read more about that here.What’s a VMC again and where do I get one of those?VMC means “Verified Mark Certificate” and it’s a certification you
These last few years have been something, huh? Something had to give and, in my case, that something was blogging. There were a number of reasons I stopped writing here, many of them personal, some of them more global. I will admit, I was (and still am a little) burned out as it seemed I was saying and writing the same things I’d been saying and writing for more than a decade. Taking time off has helped a little bit, as much to focus on what I really want to talk about. It helps, too, there are a lot more deliverability resources out there than when I started. I don’t have to say it all, there are other voices (and perspectives!) that are adding to the collective understanding of delivery. That’s taken some of my (admittedly internal) pressure off from having to write about specific things to explain, educate and
Hey, look at that! Gmail is starting to show a blue checkmark next to the sender name when the sender’s domain passes BIMI checks. And they provide helpful pop-up info when you mouse over the blue checkmark. This rolls out starting today (May 3, 2023) so if you don’t see it today, you will likely see it soon. Read more about it here. It’s yet another reason that it’s time to jump on the BIMI train!