Table of Contents
Background
Email Armageddon could arrive for email marketing on February 1, 2024, both Gmail (Google) and Yahoo are implementing policies that will impact the delivery of your emails to your subscribers. Both companies have been warning marketers for many months. This means you have to have an authenticated email address that you send emails from, an easy way for your users to unsubscribe, and a low spam reporting count.
Where to Start
The first thing is to check the email address that you send your campaigns from. If it ends in @yourdomainname.com, then you are on the right track. If your sending email to your subscribers from a free email account, then you have some work to do! First, head on over to the folks at RedSift and follow the instructions to send them a test email to analyze.
Be sure to send a test campaign from your email marketing service. The best thing to do is to create a test campaign, then send them a preview. Don’t send this test campaign to your subscribers!
Scroll down and look at the results. Don’t panic if you see yellow or red. This is a paid service, but gives you enough information to evaluate your email situation. Look for Green checks on DMARC, SPF, TLS, and IP Address Reputation. (More on this later.) Make sure you have a valid unsubscribe link in your test message. If you get a Red rating, be sure to copy the details and contact your email provider’s support team. You don’t have to worry about BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification). BIMI is a young standard and right now it costs over $1,000/year to get certified.
Additional Test Sites
Here is a list of additional test sites that you can check your email domain/
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC - Oh My!
So, what is with this alphabet soup? Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an email authentication standard that helps prevent spammers from sending messages that appear to come from a spoofed domain. It also helps to ensure that emails are delivered correctly – without being delivered to a recipient’s spam box
DMARC stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance . It is an email authentication protocol that helps prevent spammers, phishers, and other unauthorized parties from sending emails on behalf of a domain they do not own
Avoiding Email Armageddon
By keeping your domain records compliant and using a reputable email sending service, you should be able to avoid trouble. That won’t stop some folks from marking your emails as spam. Just in case, be sure to enroll in Google Postmaster and Yahoo Complaint Feedback Loop in case you need to deal with malicious spam complaints.
Your email marketing is part of your intellectual property and should be protected as such. If you do run into email armageddon, give us a shout and we will try to help you out!
