If you’re looking to improve your YNOT Mail delivery rates (aka “deliverability”) to Gmail inboxes, you’re in the right place. Please check back often, we’ll be updating this section routinely as new and supplemental information arrives.
| IMPORTANT: Google has issued Rules that all senders MUST comply with in order to get avoid penalization, which likely will include your emails not getting delivered. Compliance with these rules is a shared responsibility. We document each of these Rules below, and tell you when something is Your Responsibility (these are denoted by the bold RED color font) versus when it’s something that YNOT Mail handles for your automatically. We do what we can to make compliance with Google Rules automatic when possible, however some items involve DNS settings and use of best practices, and these will require your cooperation. |
Google Rules & Bulk Email Sender Requirements
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The following items are now marked as required by Google, meaning if you fail in any of these required steps your ability to get your emails into the inboxes of your Gmail-based subscribers will be impacted.
| Google announced new requirements that started February 2024. |
How can you assure that your YNOT Mail account will be in compliance for best Gmail delivery results?
Google Rule #1: Authenticate Your Mail #
Since you’re sending bulk emails with your account, Google needs you to use three standard email authentication methods with respect to your sending email domains. Those are SPF, DKIM and DMARC, which all help email providers like Google verify that incoming emails claiming to be coming from users at your domain name are in fact authorized to send emails from your domain name.
Your Responsibility #1: Setup SPF authentication records.
How: By updating your domain name’s DNS records. Read more here about SPF setup with YNOT Mail.
Our Comments: Setting up SPF (Sender Policy Framework) for your sending domain is an important step in email authentication. It helps to prevent spammers from successfully sending messages with forged “From” addresses using your domain, and it lets providers like Google know that YNOT Mail servers are authorized to send emails from your domain name on your behalf.
Your Responsibility #2: Setup DKIM authentication records.
How: We’ll provide you with what you need, just contact us when ready. Read more here about DKIM setup with YNOT Mail.
Our Comments: DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is an email authentication method like SPF, but it’s designed not just to help prevent email spoofing, but also to ensure that the message content is not altered in transit. It allows the sender to attach a digital signature to emails, which recipient servers can verify using a public key published in the sender’s DNS records. This verification process helps to establish the email’s authenticity and improve overall email security and trustworthiness.
Your Responsibility #3: Publish a valid DMARC policy for your sending domains.
How: This involves updating DNS records, but should only be done once SPF and DKIM are setup. Read more here about DMARC setup with YNOT Mail.
Our Comments: DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) is yet another email authentication protocol, and this one also utilizes both SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) to determine the authenticity of an email message. It adds new ways for domain owners to protect their domain from unauthorized use, commonly known as email spoofing, by instructing email receivers on how to handle unauthenticated emails – either by quarantining, rejecting, or allowing them – and it also provides reports on email delivery status.
Google Rule #2: Support easy unsubscribes #
This one’s straightforward: if a Gmail user doesn’t want to receive your marketing emails, then Google doesn’t want you to send them your marketing emails. Unwanted emails make the inbox experience less pleasant, and email account providers like Google lose money dealing with massive volumes of unwanted email on their servers and moving through their networks.
So now they’re no longer asking you, they’re telling you: make it easy for people to unsubscribe to your email lists anytime they want, with as little hassle as possible.
This also helps you. While nobody wants to lose subscribers, you don’t want unwilling subscribers receiving your emails for a number of reasons. They’ll just cost you money with no conversions, generate spam complaints and lower your overall delivery rates — costing you even more money from lost business. Luckily it’s extremely easy to comply with Rule #2 if you’re using YNOT Mail.
Your Requirement #4: Add unsubscribe links to your emails.
How: When creating an email in YNOT Mail, copy/paste the below code and include it in your design.
%%unsubscribelink%%
Our Comments: When you include this tag in your email template or campaign content, YNOT Mail automatically converts it into a unique unsubscribe link for each recipient when the email is sent. This ensures that each recipient has a straightforward way to opt out of receiving further emails, which is not only a best practice but also a legal requirement in many places.
Here’s an example of how you might include it in your email HTML:
<p>If you no longer wish to receive our emails, you can unsubscribe at any time by clicking <a href="%%unsubscribelink%%">here</a>.</p>| You should test your email before sending it to your entire list to ensure that the unsubscribe link is working as-intended. For this, don’t use the “Preview Your Email Campaign” option that’s built into the Campaign Editor, it won’t generate the unsubscribe link. Instead, create a list specifically for testing purposes, for example one with only your own email addresses on it. You can then send the campaign first to your test list. |
It’s crucial to respect the unsubscribe requests from your recipients promptly and efficiently.
Google Rule #3: Keep Spam Complaint Rates Low #
This one’s straight forward in theory, but to achieve it you need to use practices that limit the number of spam complaints your mailings generate. What’s a low enough spam rate for Google? They want your spam rates to be below 0.10%, and for you to strive to never pass 0.30%.
Practically speaking, what does that mean? It means that out of all the emails you send through YNOT Mail, less than 0.1% should be marked by either recipients or the email service provider as spam, and absolutely shouldn’t pass 0.3%. Keeping your spam rates low suggests that the majority of the emails you’ve sent are well-received, relevant, and compliant with email best practices and standards. A low spam rate is crucial for maintaining a good sender reputation with Google and ensuring high email deliverability rates.
Your Requirement #5: Keep your spam complaints low.
How: Be aware of best practices and use them on all your email campaigns.
Our Comments: There’s no specific to-do items here, other than read up on best practices when sending email campaigns. Make sure you don’t use bought lists, that you opt-in subscribers, email regularly, and make sure your subscribers know emails are from you. If you want to delve into this topic in a thorough way, check out the Sender Best Common Practices document produced by the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group.
Google Rule #4: Valid DNS Records #
There must be valid forward and reverse DNS records for all IPs that send your email. This one’s easy, YNOT Mail takes care of compliance with this rule for you, so you can focus your time elsewhere.
That’s all, so you can move on to Rule #5 below, or read on for some details on why proper reverse DNS is important when sending mass email campaigns.
Importance of Reverse DNS in Email Marketing #
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Google Rule #5: Use TLS Connections for Transmitting Emails #
Another easy one for YNOT Mail customers, we handle this requirement for you.
Google Rule #6: Comply with RFC 5322 #
Complying with RFC 5322 is YNOT Mail’s responsibility, so this is another one we do for you. Want to learn more about RFC 5322? Keep reading.
Additional Recommendations for Senders from Google #
- Don’t impersonate Gmail From: headers. Gmail will begin using a DMARC quarantine enforcement policy, and impersonating Gmail From: headers might impact your email delivery..
- Tip for Passing DMARC Alignment. For direct mail, the domain in the sender’s From: header must be aligned with either the SPF domain or the DKIM domain. This is required to pass DMARC alignment.
Sending Practices to Avoid #
The kind folks over at Google have put together this list of email sending practices that you’ll want to avoid to maximize delivery of your emails. Please take a look and identify any undesired practices you’ll need to remove from your approach to email marketing.
- Don’t mix different types of content in the same message. For example, don’t include promotions in sales receipt messages.
- Don’t impersonate other domains or senders without permission. This practice is called spoofing, and Gmail may mark these messages as spam.
- Don’t mark internal messages as spam. This can negatively affect your domain’s reputation, and future messages might be marked as spam.
- Don’t purchase email addresses from other companies.
- Don’t send messages to people who didn’t sign up to get messages from you. These recipients might mark your messages as spam, and future messages to these recipients will be marked as spam.
- Avoid opt-in forms that are checked by default and that automatically subscribe users. Some countries and regions restrict automatic opt-in. Before you opt-in users automatically, check the laws in your region.
No matter how hard you try, some legitimate messages may still be marked as spam on occasion. Recipients can mark valid messages as not spam, so future messages from the sender should be delivered to their inbox.
Although this page was written to be specific to Google’s published rules, all of these things will help increase deliverability with other inbox providers too, including Yahoo, Microsoft’s Hotmail & Outlook, and Apple’s email services.
