Google and Yahoo Email Deliverability Changes: What You Need to Know

If you market your business using webinars, then you probably know that email communication plays a critical role in ensuring your webinar’s success. According to statistics…

• 76% of marketers rely on email marketing as the single most effective way to drive webinar registrations. (Markletic)
  
  
• Webinar attendance rates can improve by 20% when you send your registrants the webinar broadcast room link via email. (DemandSage). 
  
  
• Conversions or responses can increase by 22% when you send follow-up emails after your webinar. (Woodpecker)

When you follow Google and Yahoo’s new email deliverability guidelines, your webinar notifications and follow-up emails can safely reach your registrant’s inboxes, helping you earn the most from your webinar!

Here’s what you need to know.

By February 2024, Google and Yahoo will introduce new email delivery standards that are crucial to understand. These standards prioritize sender authentication and recipient preferences, effectively keeping out spoofed and unwanted mail from our inboxes. Stay informed and empowered to protect your email!

Bulk email senders will be required to:

1. Authenticate their sender domain
   Email domain authentication is enabled by a DKIM record added to the DNS settings for your domain and linked in WebinarJam (coming to your account in Jan 2024).
   
   
2. Prioritize recipient preferences with easy unsubscription
   Recipients should be able to easily opt out of content they don’t want. WebinarJam natively provides the tools needed to make this happen–no special configuration is required.
   
   
3. Ensure their messages are relevant and wanted
   Google is enforcing a spam rate threshold requirement to keep recipients from being spammed with messages they don’t want. WebinarJam already enforces a spam rate threshold that keeps you well within the new requirements.
   

Bonus tip:

Google is cleaning house and deleting old personal mail accounts that have been dormant for more than 2 years. If you send email to a significant segment of Gmail accounts, this could cause a sudden spike in bounce rates and put your sender reputation at risk.

What actions do you need to take?

Get ready for February in a few steps:

1. Use a custom domain email address as the sender for all outgoing webinar follow-up and reminder emails.
   
   
2. Add DKIM records to your WebinarJam account for sender verification.
   DKIM tools will be released for WebinarJam in January 2024. More information about when they will be available and how to use them will be provided soon.
   
   
3. Add DMARC records to the DNS settings for your email sender domains.
   

Bonus tip:

If it’s been a while, we recommend that you take some time to clean your subscriber list and make sure your audience is still engaged.

Why is this important?

Google recipients are at the top of our delivery list and Yahoo ranks as number two.

Senders who do not observe these requirements will experience a significant drop in their deliverability to Google and Yahoo email addresses and a hit to their sender reputation. This can be very difficult to recover from.

As global leaders in email, Google and Yahoo represent a huge segment of email users and are setting a precedent for spam management that other providers will likely follow. Taking steps to improve your sending practices now will help you be prepared as the rest of the industry follows suit.

I still have questions, how can I learn more?

We will be hosting a series of events to walk you through how to configure your DKIM, SPF and DMARC records for your DNS settings. Please note the Q&A sessions will be hosted on our Kartra platform.

The schedule is as follows:

• January 22, 2024 at 11:00am EST: Walkthrough Webinar – this webinar will include a demonstration with a step-by-step guide.
  
  
• January 23, 2024 at 2:00pm EST: Q&A Session 1 – Google & Yahoo Updates.
  
  
• January 30, 2024 at 2:00pm EST: Q&A Session 2 – Google & Yahoo Updates.
  
  

All registrants will receive a replay of the webinar regardless of their attendance at roughly 3PM EST. Should you have any further questions please reach out to our support team with any specific account related questions.

The WebinarJam Commitment

Email plays a vital role in the comprehensive webinar solution provided by WebinarJam. As the digital marketplace evolves, we are dedicated to equipping you with the necessary tools to uphold best practices, effectively engage with your customers, and establish a powerful brand.

If you’re looking to elevate your online presence and take your business to new heights, WebinarJam offers a complete set of tools to create impactful presentations that attract and retain customers.