Attention email marketers: upcoming changes and guidelines from Google and Yahoo.
Note: Marketing Cloud Engagement users refer to this post.
The email marketing landscape is constantly evolving, and it's crucial to stay compliant to ensure your messages reach your audience's inboxes.
Here are some recent announcements from major mailbox providers Gmail and Yahoo, along with our recommendations to position you and your company for long-term success in your email campaigns:
In this post we'll be covering
1. Gmail Inactive Account Policy Change
2. Sender Domain Authentication
3. One-Click Unsubscribe
4. Maintaining less than 0.3% spam output
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Gmail Inactive Account Policy Change
Gmail announced per their Inactive Google Account Policy stating in December 2023, Gmail will begin proactively disabling and deleting accounts inactive for two years.
What does this mean? Messages sent to inboxes of deleted accounts will soon hard bounce. This will lead to increased bounce rates and this will negatively impact your sender reputation.
Our suggestion: proactively remove or unsubscribe unengaged subscribers to improve ROI and focus on highly-engaged subscribers who are more likely to convert.
Read our articles:
- Marketing Cloud - Inactive Google Account Policy Update
- Manage inactive accounts in Marketing Cloud Account Engagement
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Sender Domain Authentication
Joint statements by Gmail and Yahoo emphasize the importance of domain authentication for security and user protection of their users.
What does this mean? It is possible that some customers may be sending from domains that are not authenticated for use on our platform (e.g. corporate domain use, registered domains, etc.), and this may cause deliverability rates to drop significantly in 2024.
Our Suggestion: Configure both email sending domain validation key and DKIM for your email sending domain(s) prior to February 2024 (as per Gmail's enforcement dates). While DMARC works with Account Engagement out-of-the-box, we encourage you to review your policy to ensure it suits your needs.
Read our articles:
- Bulk Sender Guidelines for Marketing Cloud Account Engagement to prepare for 2024 email platform changes
- Add and Verify a Domain for Email Sending
- Implement DKIM Authentication for Account Engagement Email
- DNS configuration tips and tricks for Account Engagement
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One-Click Unsubscribe
Joint statements by Gmail and Yahoo stress the need for easy and timely unsubscribing.
What does this mean? All unsubscribes should be processed within a two day timeframe and senders are encouraged to make that process a single click.
Our suggestion: We have always been a trust-centric, permission-first company. All Account Engagement emails contain a list-unsubscribe header that is automatically added for our customers, which provides a one-click unsubscribe option for the recipient server and fulfills the Gmail/Yahoo requirement.
You can continue to use the two-click unsubscribe method mentioned here for the unsubscribe page, as that does not impact the one-click unsubscribe we automatically insert into the email headers. You can continue to use a one-click or two-click unsubscribe page (linked to from the email body) depending on your company's preferences.
Read about unsubscribes in our articles:
- Bulk Sender Guidelines for Marketing Cloud Account Engagement to prepare for 2024 email platform changes
- List-Unsubscribe Header in Account Engagement Emails
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Maintaining less than 0.3% spam output
Gmail’s existing bulk sender rules advise senders to keep spam output below 0.3 percent.
What does this mean? While not clearly stated as an enforced complaint rate at this time, 0.3% or less spam output is a recommended best practice to help maintain sender reputation.
Our Suggestion: focus on engaged subscriber segments (avoiding subscribers who haven't opened/clicked in 6+ months) and relevant content to what subscribers have opted in to receive. This will help keep complaints to a minimum and maximize ROI.
Read about managing SPAM rates in our articles:
- Bulk Sender Guidelines for Marketing Cloud Account Engagement to prepare for 2024 email platform changes
- What Is Spam?
- Database Hygiene Tips
- Identify and Suppress Unengaged Prospects
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Actually, I think I see it now...the message in the results specifically says "RFC 8058 unsubscription requires a https URL in List-Unsubscribe" but the header in the email being analyzed uses an HTTP URL. I believe this mismatch is causing the failure.
Ultimately, the URL used for the unsubscribe link should be controlled by the primary tracker domain in the account. As such, this suggests you are not using an SSL enabled domain. I recommend reviewing your Tracker Domain settings to make sure that SSL is enabled and set as the default protocol. More on this here:
-- https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.pardot_admin_tracker_domain_ssl_enable.htm&type=5
-- https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.pardot_admin_tracker_domain_default_https.htm&type=5
I hope that helps!
