If you rely on email to nurture leads and generate revenue, you need to pay attention. Gmail and Yahoo are implementing stringent new policies starting February 2024.

Gmail and Yahoo are implementing changes to protect their users in response to rises in phishing, spam, and other security attacks targeting inboxes over the past year. They are clamping down on authentication and security protocols while requiring more diligence around engagement and compliance from email senders. This aims to close existing gaps being exploited by bad actors while improving the overall email ecosystem.

Failure to meet these new requirements may result in emails being rejected, delayed, or marked as spam, severely denting your deliverability rates, sender reputation, and the ability to communicate effectively with your clients and prospects.

With around 32% of email flowing through Gmail and Yahoo, this could have an outsized impact on your B2B email marketing performance.

Compliance takes more than just updating some technical settings. To maintain access to your customers’ inboxes, B2B emails need to take an engagement-focused approach centred around value, relevance, and user experience.

If you haven’t already, you need to act now to understand and adapt to these changes to avoid business disruption.

Use this opportunity to review and enhance your email marketing practices for long-term deliverability. If you plan and optimise along these lines, chances are you will maintain strong deliverability rates despite stricter policies. Ignoring or delaying implementation risks struggles with email delivery down the line, severely impacting revenue pipelines when enforcement ramps up.

Understand the New Requirements

Here's what B2B brands need to know and do right away.

Starting 1st February 2024, and with increasing enforcement over time, Gmail and Yahoo will require bulk email senders (those sending over 5,000 emails per day) to:

• Authenticate emails with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to confirm senders are legitimate

• Keep spam complaints below 0.1%, and avoid ever reaching 0.3% or higher

• Enable visible one-click unsubscribes in the body of all marketing and subscribed emails

However, all senders should take note of the stricter email deliverability requirements and take steps to ensure future emails reach the inbox.

How Not to Fall Foul of Gmail and Yahoo Email Requirements

For most B2B companies, this won’t be a huge adjustment. They’ll be able to adapt easily and benefit from improved deliverability under these new policies. 

Apart from ensuring you have authentication in place, the key is to recognise where you might be engaging in any high-volume spammy email practices. Then make a shift to an engagement-focused approach, optimised for an improved customer experience. 

The first step is to tap your internal technical teams and any external Marketing Automation and Email Service Providers (ESPs) to ensure that these changes are implemented correctly.

Suppliers should be on standby to help clients with auditing their existing email setup and authentication. Depending on the level of service provided, they will either provide training and resources or take it off your hands entirely. They might also be able to help to transition high-volume email marketing approaches by offering advice on throttling or scheduling where required.

Afterwards, make sure your marketing team is aware of these standards and understand the importance of high quality email marketing across all future campaigns.

Here’s a checklist to make sure you’re compliant.

Implement Email Authentication

Ensure that all sending domains and IPs are set up with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC authentication.

• SPF (Sender Policy Framework) validates emails by confirming they are sent from authorised domains.

• DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) adds a digital signature to each email, ensuring its authenticity.

• DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) uses SPF and DKIM to report discrepancies and non-compliance in email authentication.

These protocols verify your identity as a legitimate sender. They show that the emails are indeed coming from the claimed domains, thereby reducing the risk of email spoofing and phishing.

One way to check if you are compliant is to pull up one of your campaigns in Gmail, click the three dots in the top right of the message, and ‘Show Original’. If SPF, DKIM, and DMARC show a ‘FAIL’ or aren’t listed, you either need to set up authentication or fix an issue. Get in touch with your tech team and/or service provider.

Implement One-Click Unsubscribes

Ensure that every marketing email includes a visible and easily accessible one-click unsubscribe option so recipients can unsubscribe effortlessly. 

Again, engage with technical teams and ESPs to make platform-level changes for unsubscribe links, preference centres etc. Then make sure everyone on your team knows why it is vital those links are present and the value of lists that only include engaged subscribers.

Work From High-Quality Data Only

Long story short: only sending email to people who want to get messages from you means they’re less likely to report you for spam.

First and foremost, don't purchase email addresses.

Focus on only sending to high-quality, double opted-in subscribers. Double opt-in confirms each recipient's email address before subscribing them, ensuring that your data is correct and you have permission to market to them.

Ensuring list quality and clean data is especially important if your company has purchased or rented lists in the past. However, even if you’ve only ever built your list organically, your list can still benefit from a regular clean.

Finally, keep your subscriber lists under review and remove any invalid and unengaged contacts promptly. Send messages periodically to confirm that recipients want to stay subscribed, offering unengaged members of your list an opportunity to unsubscribe or choose a lower frequency of messages.

Optimise for Engagement

Content relevance is critical to minimising spam complaints. Ensure every email provides value. Offer insights, education, or promotions tailored to each subscriber's needs and interests based on data and engagement history.

You should also test different email elements like subject lines, content, calls-to-action, and timing to determine what resonates best with each subscriber segment to drive higher open and click rates.

Manage Subscribers’ Expectations

Carefully plan daily sending volumes to avoid sudden volume spikes - for example if a campaign is sent out to a new segment of your list.

Avoid blasting emails. Instead, send at consistent rates. You can schedule campaigns at lower volumes and monitor responses before sending additional emails.

Don’t challenge your subscribers’ frequency expectations. In other words, if someone has signed up for a monthly mailing, don’t start dropping into the inbox daily without gaining their permission.

Other changes that challenge your recipient’s expectations should also be handled cautiously. For example, if you send out a regular newsletter but have a promotional campaign you would like to run.

Monitor Your Metrics for Compliance Issues

Google and Yahoo have set their threshold for spam complaints at 0.3%. However, strive to keep them below 0.1% to ensure optimal email deliverability.

Closely track spam complaints, unsubscribe rates, authentication issues, and other metrics in a tool like Google Postmaster and resolve any deliverability issues that emerge immediately.

Adhering to these guidelines will help you comply with the new requirements, maintain a good sender reputation and improve email deliverability.

For more details straight from the source, please review the following:

• Gmail's Email Sender Guidelines

• Yahoo’s Sender Requirements and Recommendations

The Bottom Line

Email marketing remains a vital channel for customer acquisition and retention for B2B brands. These policy updates from Gmail and Yahoo aim to create a safer, more trusted ecosystem - but require diligence from senders to maintain deliverability.

With increasing inbox provider enforcement over 2024, failure to follow recommended guidelines risks reputational damage, blocked emails, and drained revenue pipelines. However, brands investing now in authentication, list quality, relevant content and easy opt-outs will thrive under these new standards.

For established email senders, minor process and technical adjustments enable compliance success. Collaborate with IT and ESPs on authentication, review internal data handling, and stress test campaign changes before wide rollout. For newer senders, build on strong foundations using industry best practices.

Treat this as an opportunity to level-up the subscriber experience through valued content, meaningful engagement metrics, and crystal clear preferences. Maintain an inbox provider policy radar to continually adapt. In doing so, email marketing can remain a B2B growth engine despite shifting sands.

Navigating the shifting sands of inbox provider policies is tricky. Want expert guidance implementing authentication protocols and engagement-focused email best practices? We’re ready to help.