Gmail and Yahoo!'s New Sender Requirements

Since the new requirements went into effect on  on April 1, 2024, both Gmail and Yahoo! Mail now enforce stricter standards on email senders who send more than 5,000 messages per day (and yes, even if you only send one email a month to a large number of recipients, you will also be impacted).

These new standards require senders to implement DMARC, pass SPF/DKIM Authentication tests, actively monitor spam complaint rates, and ensure your messages have a One-Click Unsubscribe link present. Not sure how that impacts you? We'll break down all of the new requirements in the below content and also tell you what you need to do to keep your messages from getting rejected as a result of these new changes.

1. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records are now required

Since the new rules went into enforcement on April 1, 2024, your domain now needs to have all three (3) DNS records correctly set up in order to not risk getting your messages rejected or marked as spam. You might already be familiar with SPF and should already have it set up (though, it could easily be misconfigured and cause you problems). The other two records (DKIM and DMARC) might sound foreign to you.

Gmail and Yahoo! have quietly been using DKIM and DMARC to grade emails for some time, treating senders with them in a more favorable way than those without. Now that this new requirement has been fully rolled out, you'll need to ensure both your SPF and DKIM are able to pass authentication tests and that you have published a valid DMARC record. This means that:

Your Sending Domain Must:

Your Email Message Must:

Don't have these set up yet? Need help? Delivery Center by MxToolbox will get you in compliance with all of these new requirements from Gmail and Yahoo! Mail.

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2. Spam Rates Must be Below 0.3%

Yes, that's right, you're not reading that wrong, 0.3%. If the percentage of emails that are flagged automatically or reported by recipients is 0.3% or higher of your emails sent to Gmail or Yahoo recipients, Gmail and Yahoo will reject your emails or mark them as spam. This is a big change in the way Gmail and Yahoo are looking to curb spammy, poor, and un-engaging emails. With this change, monitoring your reported spam volumes and spam rates is going to be critical to ensure you get your emails delivered to the inbox. That means you're going to need to keep an eye on your spam rates from Gmail Postmaster and Yahoo's Feedback Loop. 

Those names sound new or foreign to you? If so, they're Gmail and Yahoo's spam reporting services that will provide you with insight into if you're staying below that 0.3% spam rate. Not to worry though, as part of MxToolbox's Delivery Center product, we make it easy to get you set up with both Gmail Postmaster and Yahoo Feedback Loop and view your current spam rates and get alerted if we see an increase in them.

Start Monitoring your Spam Rate

3. One-Click Unsubscribe

In addition to the requirements to have DMARC/SPF/DKIM and to keep spam complaint rates below <0.3%, the other big requirement out of Gmail and Yahoo! Mail is that all emails MUST make unsubscribing a One-Click Process. So, what does this mean? It means all bulk senders need to:

In layman's terms, those new requirements mean that your emails must allow recipients the ability to unsubscribe from that email in just one click.

Conveniently, our Inbox Placement Feature, which is part of Delivery Center, will help you make sure all of your emails contain those two critical unsubscribe requirements and if your messages don't, we'll let you know and get you fixed up.

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Meet Gmail and Yahoo!'s standards with Delivery Center

With Delivery Center by MxToolbox, you'll meet and surpass all of the new requirements from Gmail and Yahoo. Delivery Center will:

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