The world of email is set for a shake-up in 2024, as two of the biggest email providers Gmail and Yahoo are to finally crack down on spam email.

For users of Gmail or Yahoo, you don’t have to do anything, as these changes are actually designed to offer you a better user experience.

However, for any email marketers who have Gmail or Yahoo users on their lists - you do need to be aware of the upcoming 2024 updates and make changes before then. The exception being if you already happen to be compliant with all of the new requirements for both platforms.

Whether you do your email marketing through EcoSend or any other email platform, here are the changes to Gmail and Yahoo that you need to know about.

Why Are Gmail & Yahoo Changing? 

In short, the reason why Gmail and Yahoo are making changes is due to the huge issue surrounding spam along with other undesirable email activity.

Some 300 billion emails are sent every day. According to Statista, around 81% of all emails sent are classed as spam.

Spam email is a huge problem, not least because spam clogs up our inbox.

Beyond being annoying, any mail sent to us without consent, not from a genuine sender or without good reason may have malicious intent. One example is phishing, which is the most common type of cybercrime.

Gmail and Yahoo both state similar reasoning for the changes to their platforms:

✅ - For outgoing emails to be authenticated 

✅ - To ensure email recipients will receive less spam email

✅ - To make it easier for users to be able to unsubscribe 

As every email sent also has a carbon footprint (up to 26g of CO2 depending on the size of the message) reducing spam also has a hidden benefit. That is, lower carbon emissions directly as a result of fewer emails being sent.

💡 Read more: Spam Emails Aren’t Just Annoying — They’re Killing The Planet

What Happens If Email Marketers Don’t Comply? 

Your email deliverability rates could fall and your email campaigns could automatically be marked as spam by Gmail or Yahoo servers.

If this happens your email ROI will likely lower, depending on how many Gmail or Yahoo users you have on your list. A lower email ROI may then impact on your business profits, depending on how valuable email is to your business. (On average, email delivers a $42 ROI for every $1 spent).

With many anti-spam policies also falling under the CAN-SPAM Act, your business could face hefty fines for ignoring basic email sender requirements. This means the consequences could stretch well beyond the need to be able to keep sending email campaigns to Gmail or Yahoo users. 

Gmail

Gmail has approximately 1.8 billion users. 

The simple truth is that Google is doing its bit to reduce spam on its email platform. 

Many people use Gmail for personal email accounts. Furthermore, many educational or work-based emails can also run on Gmail, even if the email domain is custom to that organisation rather than ending in ’gmail.com’.

Therefore, the Gmail changes will likely impact most email lists on a larger scale than is initially apparent.

On a separate note, Google is also removing third-party cookies in 2024. Although not directly related to the anti-spam announcement, it is another effort at improving privacy for users. 

For Email Marketers: Adapting To Gmail’s New Email Protocols 

Starting February 1, 2024, senders who send more than 5,000 messages per day to Gmail accounts must comply with the following:

• SPF and DKIM email authentication will be required for your domain

• Valid forward and reverse DNS records will be required for sending domains or IPs

• Spam rates need to stay below 0.3% as reported in Postmaster Tools

• You must use ARC headers if you regularly forward email including from your mailing lists or inbound gateways

• You must have DMARC email authentication set up for your sending domain 

• Aim to send all emails from the same IP address. If multiple IP addresses must be used, then a separate IP address should be used for each email type

Additional Bad Habits To Avoid When Sending Email To Gmail Accounts:

• Keep the content of your message consistent, i.e. don’t include promotional material within a sales receipt

• Don’t impersonate other people or companies (spoofing)

• Internal messages should not be marked as spam, as this could affect your domain’s overall reputation

• Never send email campaigns to anyone who didn’t expressly agree to hear from you

• Avoid automatic checkboxes on opt-in forms to ensure users actively consent to signing up to your mailing list

Yahoo

Yahoo Mail has approximately 230 million users. 

In its announcement, Yahoo makes it clear that email marketers should ‘send emails customers want’. They also refer senders to review the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group (M3AAWG) Sender Best Common Practices.

Specifically, Yahoo wants to clamp down on the use of email scraper tools or other ways of purchasing email lists.

Interestingly, they also go as far as to state they don’t want email marketers to send daily emails to users if users think they have only subscribed to a weekly or monthly mailing list. Therefore, email marketers also need to pay close attention to send frequency.

Similar to Google, Yahoo also requests that any email list subscription forms on websites do not use automatic opt-in checkboxes.

For Email Marketers: Adapting To Yahoo’s New Email Protocols 

Marcel Becker, Sr Director Product Management at Yahoo announced the changes. In terms of when the changes come into force, Marcel gave a looser time frame than Google, stating sometime in 'the first quarter of 2024’.

Unlike Gmail, Yahoo makes it clear that these changes are in response to the failure of bulk senders to so far comply with the platform’s best practices. This has resulted in 'malicious actors to exploit their resources without detection'.

With the aim of decluttering the inbox of its users, improving the quality of messages received and also to ‘fight abuse’, Yahoo is seriously raising the standards expected of anyone who sends emails to its users.

Yahoo requires that as of Q1 2024, email senders:

• Authenticate their email using SPF, DKIM and DMARC

• Allow for ease unsubscription -  ideally using a one-click unsubscribe feature

• Only send emails to users with their agreement, and also, emails which provide relevancy. New enforcement measures will see a spam threshold being set to monitor this requirement

The required steps by email marketers are briefer than Google’s list, though senders to Yahoo addresses may want to cross-check both lists to maximise the deliverability rate of their campaigns. 

EcoSend - Grab Your Free Trial Of Our Eco-Friendly (& Fully Compliant!) Email Marketing Platform ✉️ 👀

Do you do any kind of email marketing as a business or organisation, including to bulk recipients?

Your choice of email platform could affect your deliverability rate, depending on how compliant your platform is with a range of anti-spam laws and best practices. These also apply to email platforms!

EcoSend is a GDPR-friendly email marketing platform. As well as keeping up to speed with all things email best practices, EcoSend is also better for the planet.

Sign up for your free trial of EcoSend to get started. Or, you can also arrange for a free product demo with our sales team.

Have any questions about switching to EcoSend? Drop us a message and we’ll be right with you.