Details
In February 2024, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! (as well as a number of other large email providers) announced new email authentication requirements for all email senders, to improve deliverability and prevent spam. These changes were made in a continuing effort to protect their users against fraudulent messages, such as scams and phishing attempts, and will prevent any emails sent from unauthenticated email addresses from reaching the recipient’s inbox.
If you’re sending emails to either Gmail, Microsoft (eg. Hotmail, Outlook) or Yahoo! addresses, you must:
- Authenticate your emails using security protocols like DKIM, SPF, and DMARC.
- Implement email-header changes for unsubscribe (we will do this for you automatically).
- Maintain a spam complaint rate under 0.3% (no more than three spam reports for every 1,000 messages). However, as an industry best practice we recommend keeping your spam complaint rates under 0.1%.
Configuring Your Account
If You Own Your Own Domain Name
You will need to check and ensure that your domain name is setup & configured in our platform. It will need to display a green 'Configured' indicator (as shown in the example below), in order to be correctly configured.
- Log into your account and open the Account area (⚙️ icon, at top right).
- Select Domains from the sidebar. Check this section to ensure your domain is configured correctly. If not, follow our domain configuration guide.
Once the domain is configured, we recommend that you set up self-authentication by instituting a DMARC policy with your domain provider. This is an important step to help build your strong sender reputation.
You’ll need to check that your domain provider has applied DMARC Policy to your domain. Your IT team can assist in setting this up for you with your domain provider.
If You Don’t Own Your Own Domain Name
The email authentication requirements mean that we must authenticate each message using the domain found in the "from address" - if not, your message will likely end up in spam or will not be delivered to the recipient.
However, if you send from a domain name that you don't own (such as an @bigpond.com, @gmail.com, @hotmail.com - or any other email address of this style, where you don't send from a company domain name that your organisation owns), then it is not actually possible to authenticate it.
To get around this, we will automatically rewrite your "from address" for you at the time of sending. For more details, please see our domain configuration article (specifically, the section titled "What Happens if I Don’t Configure My Domain Name?").
Interested in getting your own domain name instead? You can read more about the benefits here.