Zoho Email Deliverability 2024

Ashley Bell — Sun, 28 Jan 2024 22:38:45 +0000

At the start of February 2024 Google and Yahoo will introduce new security standards to help reduce spam for their users. If you don’t meet the new standards then emails you send from business email addresses will probably go straight to spam or be rejected altogether!

Does this affect me?

If you send emails from a business email address then this will affect you, regardless of what platforms you use to send those messages from. By business email I mean, your email address ends in your company web domain like @yourcompany.com.

If you have a personal email address ending in something like @gmail, @hotmail, @yahoo, etc… this won’t affect you.

What do I need to do?

In summary, you must have SPF, DKIM and DMARC setup for your domain, a spam score of less than 0.3% and provide 1 click unsubscribe from your marketing emails. This might sound complicated but it’s not at all and I’m going to talk your through it.

Step 1 - Create your SPF, DKIM and DMARC records

Setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records might sound technical, but it’s quite easy and the email platform you’re using will give you the information you need. Here’s what you need to do it in simple steps:

1. Get Code From Your Provider: Your email service (like Zoho, Gmail, Outlook, etc…) will give you the code you needed to create these records. Start by searching online for “SPF,” “DKIM,” and “DMARC” along with the name of your email service. If you can’t find the information, don’t hesitate to ask their support team for help.

2. Access Your Domain Settings: You’ll need to go to the “control panel” of your domain provider, then locate the “DNS Settings”. However, if your website is using a CDN (Content Delivery Network) then you will need to change your DNS settings there instead.

3. Add a New SPF Record: Before you add a new SPF record, check if you already have one. If there’s one, you’ll see it starting “v=spf1”. If you don’t see this then go ahead and create a new record and set the “Type” as “TXT”, then past in the SPF code you got from your email provider. In the “Host” field enter “@” and in the TTL field the lowest possible value or leave blank if allowed.

If you do find an SPF record then you will notice somewhere in it “include: domain@domain.com”, you just need to add another include statement straight after it, no special characters or comas are required, just edit the record and paste in the include text provided by your email provider.

4. Add a new DKIM Record: Next, add another TXT record and paste in the DKIM code you got from your email provider. In this case you are allowed to have multiple records. In the “Host” field enter “@” and in the TTL field the lowest possible value or leave blank if allowed.

5. Add a DMARC Record: Before you add this record, check if you already have one. If there’s one, you’ll see it starting “v=DMARC1;”. If you don’t have a DMARC record yet, go ahead and create a new TXT record with the DMARC details provided by your email service. Only one DMARC record is allowed because it’s just your policy on how your emails should be handled.

Step 2 - Register for Google Postmaster Tools

By registering for Google Postmaster Tools you’ll learn what your current spam score is and you’ll be able to keep track of it. It’s important to keep that below 0.3% or your emails will start getting automatically sent to the recipients spam folder.

Your spam score goes up if the people receiving your emails are marking them as spam. To reduce this, you can make sure your emails are relevant and of value to your audience. You can also remove inactive users from your mailing list, so only the most engaged users are getting your mail.

Step 3 - Include 1 click unsubscribe

Make sure any email campaign platforms you’re using include a 1 click unsubscribe link in the email footer. If the link takes the recipient to a page where they can choose which topics the do and don’t want to receive you will fail the test. They just need to be able to click once to be removed from your list.

The good news here is that most reputable email marketing platforms will already have this in place by default but if you’re not sure, check it out.

More detail... if you're interested

That’s it, your all done now and this should help prevent your emails going into spam folders due to the new standards coming into force. If you want to read more about what SPF, DKIM and DMARC do, here’s some simplified information.

SPF (Send Policy Framework)

This is essentially a record which gives other companies permission to send mail on behalf of your domain. So if you are sending email through Zoho Campaigns, Mailchimp or any other web service you must include your service provider in your SPF record. Basically, the bouncers at your recipients mailbox are going to say to your service providers email “if your name’s not on the list, you’re not getting in!”.

DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail)

This is a digital signature which is encoded into emails sent from your domain. The system receiving the email can check this digital signature to make sure the email hasn’t been intercepted and changed. It’s a similar idea to putting a wax seal on a letter, if the seal was broken you’d know the letter had been opened.

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance)

This final layer of security allows you to tell the systems receiving your emails how you would like them to react. For example, if the wax seal is broken reject it altogether or mark it as spam. It can also send reports back to you, telling you whether emails are being received and how they’re being handled. It’s like telling those bouncers what to do with party crashers—turn them away or let them in with a warning.

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