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Delivery Email Marketing New Domain Authentication Requirements: How to Prepare
In the wake of Gmail’s recent announcement regarding email sender requirements, Yahoo is also poised to implement changes in its email authentication protocols. This requirement shift from major inbox service providers proves the evolving improvement of email communication standards. In this article, we’ll cover all the changes coming in February of 2024. While these changes can seem restrictive to email senders, requirements like domain authentication protect us from emails whose sole intention is negative or fraudulent.
Topics covered in this article:
Before Getting Started
As of February 1st, 2024, Gmail and Yahoo will require email senders to authenticate their domains for their emails to reach the inbox. What does this mean exactly?
For your email domain to be fully authenticated, you’ll need an SPF record, DKIM record, and DMARC policy configured in your DNS settings with your domain provider. There is no exception; you’ll need all three to be completely authenticated.
✅ SUMMARY
SPF validates the domain or IP address used to send the email message.
DKIM stands for DomainKeys Identified Mail. It is an email authentication method designed to detect and prevent email spoofing, while also guaranteeing the integrity of email messages. DKIM allows the sender of an email to digitally sign the message, providing a cryptographic signature that can be verified by the recipient’s email server.
✅ SUMMARY
The DKIM record adds a second layer of security, effectively reducing the risks associated with spoofing and phishing.
DMARC is an important step of email domain authentication; it establishes how email clients will receive messages that fail the DMARC authentication checks. A GMAIL and Yahoo requirement with the DMARC policy is that all senders have at least a “p” value in their DMARC policy.
To check if you need to update your DMARC Policy, you can utilize a third-party tool like MXToolBox or check with your domain admin. If no DMARC record is found, you can add the following DMARC policy to your domain, ”v=DMARC1; p=none; adkim=r; aspf=r”. This will ensure you pass the requirements for sending from your domain using Benchmark Email.
Type: TXT Name: _dmarc Value: v=DMARC1; p=none; adkim=r; aspf=r
IMPORTANT
The key to successfully sending emails from Benchmark is to ensure that your domain’s DMARC record has a p= policy and aspf/adkim is not set to strict.
Mail sent from Benchmark Email will have to meet these requirements in order to send from your private domain. If you cannot fully authenticate your private domain, your emails will automatically be sent from a Benchmark Email-owned domain that is fully authenticated
For example, if you cannot authenticate your domain, and your from email address is sales@companyname.com, your email address would appear as: sales.yourcompanyname.com@123456.clients.bmsend.com.
For step-by-step instructions on how to authenticate your domain, click here.
✅ SUMMARY
The DMARC policy verifies the alignment of SPF and DKIM in the from address of a sender. The p= policy tells the email client what they should do with an email whose DMARC failed, and when rua and ruf tags are configured, it provides reporting to the legitimate domain of the activity of other domains impersonating them.
Unlike the SPF and DKIM records shared in the domain authentication page in your Benchmark Email account, DMARC records impact your entire domain and not just emails sent from Benchmark Email. It is important to consult your system administrator (if applicable) before making any changes to your DMARC records.
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As a new requirement, all emails must include a one-click unsubscribe header. The one-click unsubscribe header is different from the unsubscribe link in the email’s footer. All emails delivered from Benchmark include the mandatory unsubscribe header, which asks the recipient in their inbox if they would like to unsubscribe from your mailing list.
The new one-click unsubscribe header is not visible in the email itself, only in the inbox. It will appear next to the From name in the email message. When you click on this, a pop-up will appear asking you to confirm your choice; that’s it. Recipients won’t have to fill out an Unsubscribe form, improving their email experience.
IMPORTANT
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Keeping a low Spam complaint rate has always been a standard practice. However, with the coming changes, the new threshold is to keep a spam complaint rate under 0.10% and avoid reaching a complaint rate of 0.3%. The spam complaint rate is composed of emails marked as spam from the contact’s inbox. This statistic is tracked at the domain level and should be proactively monitored using tools like Postmaster. Tools that track your domain sending can give you the following information.
Maintaining a low spam rate is crucial to an email’s delivery success. To see how spam rate affects emails in Google, click here.
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Some of the requirements listed above have always been in place but will now be more heavily enforced, which brings us to what senders can do to avoid their emails being rejected or marked as spam.
Benchmark Email understands that not everyone owns a private domain. Therefore, we have different protocols for customers sending from public domains. When a customer uses a public domain for email sends, we adjust the from email address to have one of our shared domains.
For example, if your email address is companyname@gmail.com, your from email address would appear like this: companyname.gmail.com@001B00.clients.bmsend.com.
Sending from a fully authenticated private domain is the best choice when sending emails from a marketing service like Benchmark Email.
SUGGESTION
If you don’t have a private domain, here are a few inexpensive domain registrars you can try:
If you have a private domain that domain is not fully authenticated with your Benchmark Email SPF, DKIM, and a DMARC record, your emails would instead be sent from a fully authenticated Benchmark Email domain.
For example, if your email address is sales@companyname.com, your domain would appear as: sales.yourcompanyname.com@123456.clients.bmsend.com.
For step-by-step instructions on how to authenticate your private domain, click here.
Only email contacts who have given you permission to email them. Use a double opt-in verification process for new contacts. A double opt-in verification is a two-step process. The purpose of this email address is to confirm the email address is valid.
Steps
They will be added to your email list only after they click on the confirmation link.
Do not purchase contact lists. Avoid emailing customers who have not engaged with your company prior. Contacts not expecting emails from your company may flag your emails as Spam, which leads to negative impacts on your sender’s reputation.
SUGGESTION
Benchmark Email signup forms provide a double opt-in process to ensure only valid emails get into your contact list.
Clean your contact lists frequently. If you are a daily sender, clean your contact list at least every two weeks. If you send 1-3 times a week, clean it monthly, and if you are a once-a-month sender, clean your contact list every 6 months. Of course, these are only recommendations; adjust your cleaning period as you see fit. The goal of cleaning your lists is to avoid emailing customers who are not interested in your email messages, which can eventually mark your emails as Spam.
For step-by-step instructions on how to clean your Benchmark contact list, please click here.
Send permission reminder emails to confirm your contacts want to continue receiving your email messages. Doing this can help you weed out customers no longer interested and strengthen your list of loyal customers. If you are unsure how to word this email, please use our Permission Reminder text below and adjust as needed. Please note the [reconfirm] merge tag in the email copy below will only work within a Benchmark Email.
Dear First Name,
We hope this message finds you well. At YOUR COMPANY NAME, we value your privacy and believe in delivering content that matters to you. To ensure we continue sending you the latest updates, exclusive offers, and relevant information, we ask your consent to stay subscribed to our newsletter.
Why Confirm Your Subscription? Confirming your subscription, you help us maintain a secure, personalized experience tailored to your preferences. Plus, you won’t miss out on exciting news and special offers!
How to Confirm: Click the button below to confirm your subscription and stay connected:
[opt-in:Click here to confirm your email subscription]
Not Interested?
If you’d prefer to stop all emails, click the unsubscribe link in the footer of this email. Thank you for being a valued member of our community.
We appreciate your trust and look forward to continuing to share meaningful content with you.
Sincerely, YOUR COMPANY NAME.
Avoid using HTML and CSS to hide content in your email messages; similarly, do not use URL shorteners. Hiding content in your email can get your email filtered as spam.
URL Shorteners may seem like a good idea to shorten the length of your URL, but in fact, it is seen as a negative practice. Instead, hyperlink a text using the link options provided by your email provider.
Avoid sending to all of your contacts at once. Instead, send to small segments of engaged contacts at a time. Monitor your sending reports and spam rate, and increase your sending if you see good reporting.
Do not suddenly increase your sending volume. For example, if you normally email 5,000 contacts, do not send an email out to 10,000 contacts. A sudden change in your sending practice may seem suspicious and cause your emails to be filtered as Spam. A good practice would be to increase your list by 10% increments.
We highly recommend you create a subdomain exclusively for email sending from Benchmark and/or based on the content of the emails you are sending from Benchmark. A sub-domain is an extension of your apex domain. Many email marketers have applied this practice to segment content and purpose it by subdomain. For example, sending marketing emails from marketing.domain.com helps build a reputation specifically for your marketing content.
If you are using a sub-domain, ensure that authentication is added to the sub-domains, as SPF and DKIM records are not inherited from the apex domain.
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What happens if my domain is already authenticated?
If you previously authenticated your domain in Benchmark Email (SPF & DKIM) and have a valid DMARC record, no action is required.
How do I check if my domain is authenticated?
You can check your domain status directly from your Benchmark account. To check your authentication records, log in to your account, then on the top right, click on your name and select Account Settings. Next, click on Domain Authentication, and you will see a status for your domain. Click on View. You can also run a check using MXToolbox.
What if I don’t authenticate my domain?
If you fail to authenticate your domain with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, we will adjust your From email address, and emails from Benchmark Email will be sent from an authenticated Benchmark domain. For example, if your email address is sales@companyname.com, your domain would appear as: sales.yourcompanyname.com@123456.clients.bmsend.com.
What happens if I don’t own a domain and send from a public domain?
Customers using a public email address will have their from email adjusted to use an authenticated Benchmark. For example, if your email address is companyname@gmail.com, your domain would look like this: companyname.gmail.com@001B00.clients.bmsend.com.
However, because this is a shared domain, you have less control over your deliverability results. We encourage you to purchase a private domain for email sending immediately.
What if I send from multiple Benchmark accounts?
Each Benchmark account is unique from one another, including subaccounts. You must add an SPF and DKIM record for each account you send from. However, you do not need to add another DMARC record.
What if I send from different domains, do they all need to be authenticated?
Yes, you will need to authenticate the private domains in your account to ensure proper authentication.
What if I send from subdomains?
If you are sending emails from a subdomain, the subdomain should also have an SPF and DKIM record, and while it is not required, we recommend adding a DMARC record at the subdomain level for each subdomain used in Benchmark Email.
What if I use more than one email service provider?
You will need to add an SPF and DKIM record for each email service provider you use; otherwise, you risk low deliverability. Please consult with your IT administrator to make sure all your records align.
If you have any questions, please contact our support team.
