As of February 1, 2024, email sending best practices are now requirements.
Remember a few years ago how SSL (https://) used to be recommended for your website, then Google decided it was a requirement? Yeah, it’s like that, but for email.
If you send email to Gmail/Google Workspace users (let’s be honest – that’s everyone), then you need to meet the following requirements:
- Only send email newsletters from your branded domain (don’t send newsletters from [email protected]: send from [email protected]). You should definitely be doing this anyway.
- Prevent email impersonation by setting up SPF or DKIM email authentication for your domain. These are DNS records added to yourbusiness.com, which we’ve already taken care of if you’re a client on a Managed Hosting Plan. Read the guidelines at the links below to learn more about these records.
- Maintain a low spam report rate of under 0.1% (that’s fewer than 1 spam report per 1,000 emails), and never exceed more than 0.3% (3 spam reports per 1,000 emails). So also what you were (hopefully) already doing.
If you’re on a cyclone press Managed Hosting Plan and/or we originally set up your email account, we’ve already taken care of adding these records for you.
Here are a few handy links to announcements from several of the big companies (plus MailPoet, which is the email marketing software we offer to our clients for free).
Announcement Links:
- Google – Email Sender Guidelines
- How Intuit Mailchimp Customers Can Prepare for Gmail and Yahoo’s New Sender Requirements
- Mailpoet – Navigating Google’s and Yahoo’s New Sender Requirements: What Email Marketers Need to Know
- Yahoo – More Secure, Less Spam: Enforcing Email Standards for a Better Experience
Need Help?
If you have specific questions about this (or anything else website-related) please reach out and we’re happy to answer your questions.
