Google and Yahoo are making their biggest change in over 20 years and you need to know about it.
Hey there, I’m Jillian Kendrick and welcome to the Momentum Marketing podcast. I’m a mama, a wife, an entrepreneur and a three time best selling co-author. In each episode you’ll get real world practical advice and strategies and maybe a parenting tip or two along the way. If you’re ready to create a business that supports your family and your lifestyle, then you’re in the right place.
Some big changes are happening to the world of email, the world of email marketing. And if you are a business owner, whether you do email marketing, which you should be doing and we need to talk about that, but whether you’re doing email marketing or not, which you should be and we need to talk about that. Starting in 2024 Gmail, Yahoo Microsoft, other email service providers are making big, big changes to the way that they receive emails from email senders and I promise you if you own a business, this is going to affect you.
So what is this change? What’s happening? Let’s dive in, let’s talk about it because this is really important.
First of all, I want to say before we get into like all the nitty gritty. Some of the things that we’re about to talk about together are gonna be super technical. And as always, I will do my absolute best to make sure that I explain and dive into each piece so that you’re not left in the lurch. If we do hit something technical and it’s either like over your head or you don’t know what I just said. Or you’re like, gosh, I don’t, don’t know to deal with it. Just email me. hello@jilliankendrick.com and I’ll be happy to send you some more resources. And launching early next week. I will have a solution to deal with this problem. I’m calling it Inbox Success and you’re gonna learn all about it a little bit later.
So what’s happening? Here’s what you need to know as of February 1st 2024. So honestly, like this is applicable to you whether or not you are doing email marketing, whether or not you have your own domain. If you own a business, this is important to you. You need to listen up. Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft, other email service providers have basically all gotten together and been like, you know, we have to deal with a lot of garbage email. We have to deal with a lot of spam, a lot of phishing, a lot of malware, a lot of spoofing. Just a lot of garbage. Did you know that there are nearly 15 billion emails a day? A day? That’s insane. 15 Billion emails a day. That are emails that people don’t want. They’re being phished, they’re either spamming, phishing, spoofing, they’re malware, they’re doing something, they’re doing something bad or their intention is to do something bad to the recipient of that email. And it’s Google and Yahoo’s job to block those 15 billion, billion with a B 15 billion unwanted emails every single day. Now, that already sounds like a lot. That already sounds wildly overwhelming. I, I can’t even wrap my head around how many that is per hour? It’s in the hundreds of millions per hour. It’s insane. But think about it from their perspective, it takes coding, resources, personnel, time, money, server space and so much more for them to be able to block all of these bad emails. Probably asking yourself? Ok, great.
What’s the update? Well, here’s what’s happening, Google and Yahoo are making it so that you as the sender of emails and very specifically they’re talking about bulk senders. They’re talking about people who potentially send at least 5000 emails in a single day. But the way I’m seeing this trend and the things that I’m seeing within my industry, within email marketing and automation, the trend is going such that everyone, every single business owner needs to authenticate the way in which they send emails in order for Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft and others to accept those emails. So what does that mean? Let’s talk about what authentication even means. Authentication in the email marketing world is. If you own a business and you are sending emails, even if they’re like blind carbon copied from, you know, my business name@gmail.com and you send those out, that’s not necessarily part of this, but I imagine it’s gonna stop very, very, very, very soon. When Google talks about bulk senders, they’re talking not only volume, but they’re talking about the manner and the way in which your emails are sent. So they’re saying if you utilize an email marketing software or a CRM, if you use something like Keap, Hijabi, Clickfunnels, Infusionsoft, Go High Level, Zoho, Monday, Mailchimp, Constant Contact, I could sit here and name half a dozen others. But I think you get the point. If you utilize a piece of software to aggregate and bulk send your emails, you no longer can send that email from an @Gmail or at Yahoo account like that’s done. It’s dead in the water come February 1st. If that’s you, in this case, you need to have your own domain to be able to send email. You need to have your own domain and have that domain be authenticated in order for Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to confirm that domain and then allow your emails into their inboxes. We’re gonna get into the way that email works in just a second. But let me make another point real quick. Gone are the days of you being able to send from an @Gmail account. So if you like using Gmail and personally I’m a really big fan of it. I’m gonna put my Google affiliate link inside of either the chat, the comments or the transcript of this episode and you can click on that and sign up for a Google email account. What you’ll do is you’ll sign up for an email, you’ll sign up for an inbox via Google. So you’ll have whateveryourdomainis.com. But then you’ll log into Google to access that email and it’s great because if you’re already familiar with Google and the Google Suite and using Google Docs or sheets, then it’s really great. It’s only like six bucks a month. It’s a fantastic and very economical solution for business owners who need a proper email address. So do that six bucks a month. Dirt cheap. You’re welcome.
Next. Let’s talk about the way in which emails get sent from one of these bulk senders. If you don’t know by now. I personally love and use Keap, I’ve been a Keap certified partner for almost a decade, which is wild. I’m coming up on my 10 year anniversary with them. That’s pretty awesome. And I really love Keap. If you want to learn more about Keap, you can always email me. I love it. I’m a big fan. I’ve used it in my own business for years and years. And so when it comes to business owners sending emails and the way, like the process, in which we send emails is you go into your email sender or your CRM. You create the email through like a template or a system. You choose the list of people or the list of email addresses that you’re gonna send that email to or maybe you’re sending it to your entire list. And then you either send it immediately or you schedule it to send within a certain amount of time or a certain number of days. So then what happens is that email, it’s created all of the individual emails to each of those people that you’re sending it to basically get like set up within that system or that server. And then your email system, or Keap in my case, would then go to the server, the bank of memory and place where the internet lives within Keap. And it then pushes that email out through, through its server. And then that email gets sent to all sorts of people around the country around the world. Well, what happens when you send an email to someone who, let’s say has a Gmail account, that email gets sent to Gmail and then Gmail server receives that email and it says, ok, what’s up with this email? Let’s take a look at it. Does it look spammy? Does it have any words in the title or in the body of the email that could be considered spammy? Is it using an excessive amount of emojis? What’s the ratio of text to images within the body of the email? Who is the email sender? What is that sender’s reputation? What is the email sending reputation of the server that that email came from? What is the email reputation of that individual sender? What is the email reputation of that sender’s domain? Is that domain verified? Has that domain gone through the three different levels of authentication? And then once it does this like a checks and balances sort of system that by the way happens instantaneously and you’re never ever going to really know officially what the exact algorithm of stuff that Gmail is looking at or looking for when they decide what kind of email you’re sending. Then Gmail says, ok, this seems like a promotional email. We’re going to put it in the person’s inbox, but we’re gonna put it in their promotional folder or we’re gonna put this in their inbox, but we don’t want it to go straight to the inbox because we think it’s spam, but that’s up to the recipient to decide. So we’re gonna put it in their spam folder or hey, we actually know that this person is authenticated. We know that this sender is authenticated. We know that they have a good email reputation. We know that the recipient of this email has opened and clicked on emails from this person in the past. So I think they’re in the clear and we’re gonna put this in their inbox. That’s a really basic bare bones version of what happens when an email gets sent out and then received through Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, et cetera.
One of the checks and balances of that process that I talked about is authenticating the domain and the sender. It used to be that email authentication was just like a nice to have in my kind of industry for a really long time. Now, according to the changes that Google is making, it is a must have. It is that you cannot do business without this.
Listen to this because this is really important. Gmail will prevent your emails from ever getting into anybody’s inbox ever again. If you do not do this thing, that is how serious this is. And I’m impressing upon you the seriousness of the situation because that’s the truth, Google Yahoo and Microsoft. If you choose not to authenticate your emails, if you continue to send from bulk email senders with an @comcast.net or an @Gmail or an @hotmail.com account, you will be shut down. Period. Like it’s gonna happen. Which is why you need an email address with your own domain attached to it. Because what that’s doing is that’s telling these email providers that not only are these emails being sent from a business or from a real human being, but when they’re sent from a specific domain, we can trace that back to where is that domain hosted? Who owns that domain? How long have they owned that domain? Stuff like that. And Gmail Yahoo and Microsoft want to know that you’re a legitimate human being or that you’re a legitimate person trying to do business trying to communicate and that you’re not and they’re trying to keep tabs on you to understand who you are and what kind of email practices your engaging.
So what does that mean for you? There are three levels of authentication and actually possibly 1/4 depending on the way that you look at it that you need to go through in order to be able to continue to send email marketing, even if you’re under the 5000 a day threshold, even if you’re not sending to a very big list. And I would go as far as to say, even if you are a business and you do 1 to 1 communication and you’re not sending from an email service provider, you’re not sending from like a bulk email sender like we had talked about. I think you should still do this. That’s my professional opinion based on the trends that I’m seeing within my industry. So what are those three or possibly four levels of levels of authentication that people need? Well, there are three big ones and then one that’s kind of secondary.
So DKIMD, SPF and DMARC, what do they all stand for?
DKIM is Domain Key Identified Male. This is according to Cloud Flare, a method of email authentication that helps prevent spammers and other malicious parties from Impersonating legitimate domains. So what this means for you as a business owner is that when you have DKIM authenticated with the way in which you send emails. So let’s say I only send emails from keep, but somebody creates a fake Zoho account and tries to send emails from Zoho as Jillian@jillian kendrick.com because I’ve authenticated the way in which I send emails, they can’t do it. Like those emails will fail because I’ve told the email providers and I’ve told the company that hosts my domain host, skater name cheap or whoever it is, that this is the way or That Keap is the way that I send emails. And if you see emails from me from anywhere else except Keap, don’t deliver them because they’re not me. So that’s what DKIM is.
SPF is Sender Policy Framework. SPF is an email authentication standard. The domain owners use to specify the email servers that they send from making again, making it harder for frauding, spoofing, spamming and malware type of emails to be send. So very similar to DKIM, where you have to say these are the places in which I send and receive email. If you see an email from me or from my domain that are coming from other places other than where I specified, don’t receive that email because it’s not me.
And then the last one is DMARC, Domain Messaging Authentication, Reporting and Conformance. DMARC is an email authentication and reporting protocol that builds on top of your use of the other two. And DMARC is a way of not not only authenticating but confirming failures and looking at reporting, looking at the senders. And there’s another level of protection for your domain and a protection against the sending and receiving of fraudulent emails.
So having these three things, having these three things is no longer nice to have. It is 100% a must have. And again, as of February 1st 2024 Gmail is only requiring this for those who are bulk senders sending more than 5000 emails a day. But the trend that I’m seeing truly, the trend that I’m seeing within my industry, within email marketing and automation. Gmail and others is that Gmail and other email service providers are starting that threshold at a really high bar so that they can kind of mitigate the amount of spam and phishing and malware emails that get sent by the largest offenders. But that means that all the bad guys are then gonna come after the small businesses, the mom and pops, the ones that send 1000 emails a day or 20 emails a day or 20 emails a week. They’re not gonna come after the big guys. They’re not gonna come after the big gun email senders because all that authentication is gonna be set up already. They’re gonna come after the smaller ones. And I’m telling you now, I believe Gmail is starting at that 5000 message a day threshold and they’re going to lower it slowly but surely to the point eventually. Where maybe not this week, this month or even this year. But eventually everyone who sends any amount of emails ever, whether bulk sent or not is going to need to authenticate. Period.
So in my opinion, do it now while it’s easy, do it now while the requirements are minimal and do it now before the consequences are even more severe because I am telling you and I’ve heard this from other people in my industry. Those who do not comply with Gmail, Yahoo and Microsoft cannot prevent you from sending an email. But they have the ultimate power when it comes to like we had talked about earlier. Remember how I I explained to you the way in which an email gets sent and when that email is sent from the email server and sent into Gmail, the Gmail server receives that email and says, ok, who sent this? What’s the context of the content? And does this email deserve to go into the recipient’s inbox? Yes or no. Google Yahoo and Microsoft have the ultimate power to decide whether or not your emails merit getting into somebody’s inbox. And not only can this happen if you aren’t following best email practices for sure. But if you are not compliant with the email authentication and validation processes that we’ve been talking about in this episode, they have the ultimate power to prevent your emails from not only never making it into the inbox but never even making it into the spam folder and never getting past their gatekeepers. Period.
Marketing and running a business is hard enough. I don’t want that for you. So do yourself a favor now and authenticate your emails before it’s too late.
A few other things you should know, just as like a side note, directly from Google, a few of their other requirements for bulk senders as of February 2024 is not only the necessity of authenticating your emails, which we just talked about.
Number two is an easy way for people to unsubscribe if you’re using a bulk email sender, like Keap. Keap actually requires that you have an unsubscribe button inside of your email. You can edit the text a little bit, but you cannot delete that unsubscribed button. And honestly, it’s a really good thing. Just as much as we want to bring in new customers and attract people to us. We also don’t want people to be on our list who aren’t gonna buy from us and who aren’t interested anymore. And that’s ok. Give them the opportunity to unsubscribe from you.
Number three, ensure you’re sending wanted emails. Yes. So the article goes on to talk about the definition of wanted emails, but a lot of that is going to include the rate in which you send emails, the number of emails that you send the the topic and context of that email. If it’s related to what the person subscribed for and signed up for initially, your reputation and your best practices as a business owner when it comes to emails and especially not sending to people who did not subscribe. So again, if you send through a bulk email sender, like Keap, Keap actually automatically prevents you from sending emails to people who’ve unsubscribed. So let’s say you have a list of 20,000 people, you pull that list and you’re gonna create an email to send out to everyone on your list. Well, keep will automatically eliminate the five or 10,000 people who are already unsubscribed from your list. So that’s really nice. You don’t have to worry about that. But what Google is talking about in this case is going and buying lists of people who do not know who you are, have never heard from you and get a random email one day. Do not send emails to those people. Don’t buy lists. I suppose as a side note, if you’re going to buy a list, buy a list and then run ads to those people or create a look alike audience within Facebook and Instagram ads. Do not send email, marketing to people who have not subscribed. Period.
You can get access to this article by going to jilliankendrick.com/google-compliance. OK. And you can learn more about the Google compliance mandate as of February 1st 2024. And like I said, if you have any questions at all, if you still don’t know what DMARC and DKIM and SPF and authentication and servers and all of this other stuff is, go ahead and email me hello@jilliankendrick.com and I would be happy to explain or have a conversation with you and I’m not going to leave you in the lurch. I’m definitely not the type of business owner to BS you to waste your time or to just tell you my story of doom and gloom that the email marketing world is coming to an end. And that’s it. I, of course, am always here to help you and I have your back.
So I’ve come up with a program called Inbox Success and it is a step by step process of how you can set up the email authentication for DKIM DMARC and SPF. And then I think MX Records are gonna have to be part of that too because that’s like a secondary part of, of DKIM that people are gonna really mess up and, and miss if they’re not fully aware of it. So I’m not gonna leave you in the Lurch. Inbox Success is going to launch this coming week, which is perfect for this podcast timing coming out. You can check it out at automatedmama.com/inbox-success. Get all of the details there and learn more about email authentication. Why it’s so important, why you need to be a part of it and why you need to take action now, before February 1st.
I’m excited to be on this journey with you. And as always, I’ll see you next week and as always, I’ll see you in the next episode.
Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of the Momentum Marketing podcast. If listening to this has brought you value, improved your life or given you insight on how you can build your own momentum, then please share this with a friend. And if you’re ready to grow your business on autopilot, then I want to help you get there easier and faster with a free copy of my entrepreneur’s survival kit. Just leave a review of this podcast wherever you’re listening right now. Hopefully, it’s a five star review and you love it, then screenshot the review and email the screenshot to hello@jilliankendrick.com Once we confirm the review, we’ll send you a copy of the survival kit totally free. Thank you so much for joining me and I’ll see you on the next episode. All content is written and recorded by Jillian Kendrick Copyright 2023. All rights reserved.
The Momentum Marketing Podcast
By Jillian Kendrick
Episode: #43
Topic: Google’s Biggest Change in 20 Years
Contact: hello@jilliankendrick.com
Follow IG: instagram.com/automatedmama
https://jilliankendrick.com/link-pineapple/
