January 16, 2024 • 21 mins
Everyone hates spam emails. I know even with spam filters, spam still gets into my inbox. Going through my email and deleting those unwanted emails is so annoying and feels like a time waste. But what if it’s your business emails that are ending up in spam? Or worse, being blocked and un-delivered? How do we address this and make sure our legitimate business emails are being delivered?
At the time of this podcast's release, Google and Yahoo are setting stricter requirements for bulk email senders that can affect your emails reaching your users. In this episode, we will be talking about email deliverability, what it is, why it is so important, how to ensure better deliverability and how to stay up on the current rules.
In this episode, you will learn:
- Why online businesses are required by email providers such as Google & Yahoo to have advanced email set ups such as DKIM, SPF, and DMARC.
- The risks of spam, spoofing, and phishing to both your users and your online business.
- What factors play into email deliverability that can determine whether your business emails will end up spam or be blocked by email providers.
- What Google and Yahoo’s upcoming requirements for bulk email senders are.
- The importance of staying up to date on requirements, even if they won’t affect you just yet.
- Next steps that you can take to start setting yourself up for better email deliverability and compliance!
Next Steps
1. Check if you are compliant with current email provider requirements.
Use the following tools below to see your domain’s email reputation as well as security compliance.
2. Grab a pen and paper or open a digital document and list out all of the applications that send emails through your domain.
Some examples could be:
- Email service provider, like Aweber, ConvertKit, MailChimp, Flowdesk, etc
- CRMs
- Ecommerce and Web applications such as Magento, BigCommerce, Shopify, Kajabi, Wordpress, etc.
- Etc.
3. Look through each of your applications to see how to comply with email requirements.
Each application can be a bit different, but often times, they provide documentation on how to make sure you are complaint with their software tools. For some of you, this may be easy, but for those with multiple applications or domains, it can be difficult.
Have your tech provider help you through this process or, if you don’t have someone competent in email services, feel free to drop us an email at podcast@bcs
This week’s episode is sponsored by our Search Engine Optimization Mini Course. Our Free online digital course that teaches eCommerce and website owners how to level up their search engine rankings with some simple, doable steps! Join us at www.ecommercemadeeasypodcast.com/seominicourse/
Be sure to subscribe to our podcast where ever you are listening!
You can find our show notes at:
https://www.ecommercemadeeasypodcast.com
Find more of our resources and newsletter subscription here:
https://linktr.ee/bcsengineering
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Everyone hates spam emails, right?
I know.
Even with spam filters in placeon my email, spam still gets
into my inbox and when I gothrough my email and I'm
deleting those unwanted emails,it gets annoying at tiring and I
feel like I'm wasting my time.
Right, but what if it's ourbusiness emails that are ending
(00:23):
up in spam or Worshat, are beingblocked and not being delivered
at all?
How do we address this and makesure that our legitimate
business emails are gettingdelivered?
In this episode, we will betalking about email
deliverability, what it is, whyit's so important, how to ensure
better deliverability and howto stay up to date on the
(00:46):
current rules.
Welcome to the Ecommerce MadeEasy podcast.
I'm your host, kiri Saunders.
When we started this business,all I had was a couch, a laptop
and a nine month old my maingoal to help others.
Now, with over 20 years in theEcommerce building industry and
even more than that and webdevelopment, I have seen a lot.
I love breaking down the hardtech and to easily
(01:07):
understandable bits to helpothers be successful in their
online business.
Whether you're a seasonedEcommerce veteran or just
starting out, you've come to theright place.
So sit back, relax and let'sdive into the world of Ecommerce
together.
Welcome back to this week'sepisode of the Ecommerce Made
Easy podcast.
I'm your host, kiri Saunders.
Today we're diving deep intoemail deliverability, and it's a
(01:32):
bit of a techie topic, I'mgoing to warn you there, but I
am going to try to really breakit down for all tech levels out
there and try to help youunderstand the impact of it, the
basics of it, how you can getbetter at it and some resources
in case you are stuck and needeven more help.
You may have heard all the buzzabout the new email rules that
(01:56):
are including having SPF andDKIM set up so that your emails
are being delivered, and theserules are supposed to go into
effect of February of 2024.
And even if you're listening tothis later on, this episode is
going to really help youunderstand email deliverability
as well.
We're just going to touch onthe new rules at the end of the
(02:16):
episode.
So what are these terms like SPFand DKIM, and why do we really
even care?
Let's first start with why.
Why do we need these moreadvanced email setups?
Simply put, it helps emailsystems verify who sent the
email as well as if it gotdelivered.
(02:38):
So, just like when you write aletter to a person or send a
package, you can write whomeveryou want as the from on that
letter or package, and you cando the same with email.
A lot of people don't realizethis.
You can change who the email isfrom if certain security
systems aren't put in place.
(02:58):
So if you know a little bitabout tech, this is not too hard
to do, and that's what peoplehave, while spammers have really
been doing over the past many,many years, and bigger email
service providers like Googleand Yahoo are now really
cracking down on some rules tohelp prevent and mitigate this.
(03:20):
So you might also, in addition,to hear about websites getting
hacked, and I get asked a lotwell, why do people hack a
website anyway?
What?
How does it benefit them?
Well, one simple reason is tobe able to send mass emails out
from the hacked site, and it's abit hard to trace it back to
(03:40):
the person who's actually doingthe hack and sending the emails.
So they'll use a hacked site astheir means to send out all
these spam emails.
So so one of the reasons thatlarge email service providers
like Google and Yahoo arerequiring these new requirements
is so that there's a bit moreproof that the sender of the
(04:04):
email is actually who they saythey are.
This not only protects you, therecipient of the emails, but it
also helps protect you as abusiness owner, so that someone
else isn't spoofing your emailsas the from, and spoofing just
simply means, in other words,pretending to be you, so it's a
way to help ensure the identityof who is sending the email.
(04:28):
So malicious people can takethat one step even further with
sending out these spoofingemails and send out emails that
what are called phishing emails.
So phishing attacks are nowcost organizations large
organizations over $15 millioneach annually.
(04:49):
That is a significant amount ofmoney.
It's costing large corporationsand you can even kind of
imagine what that's going tocost middle, medium and small
businesses as well.
That's quite a bit of money.
This is a significant amount ofmoney from either wasted time
for their employees fromdeleting and trying to decide
(05:10):
whether an email is actuallytruly actually from the person
they're reading it from, orwhether it's a phishing success
and they've actually gottenprivate information.
So a phishing email?
If you're not quite sure whatthat is, it's basically an email
that says you know, sometimesyou'll get these from big
corporations like, oh, yourpassword has changed and we need
(05:34):
you to update it.
And then you click on the linkand you put in your new password
and if you're not payingattention, you may go and be
going to the website that's notactually that website or they
might be like oh, your creditcard expired, update it quick
before you lose your Netflixservice, for example.
And if you're not payingattention, you click on the
email, you put in your creditcard information and, bam, they
(05:57):
have your credit card ofinformation right there.
So phishing scams are superimportant to prevent and
mitigate as much as we can.
And again, this is why thesebig corporations like Google and
Yahoo email are starting toenforce these email security
systems.
That's been in place for awhile, but a lot of people
(06:17):
haven't implemented them yetbecause it can be very
complicated, and that's whatwe're going to try to break down
on this podcast.
So email security reduces theopportunity for hackers to forge
emails from your company,reducing their options for
phishing.
It also improves emaildeliverability now.
So when the major free emailservice providers like Google
(06:39):
and Yahoo see that you have theproper email security measures
in place, they can be moreconfident that the email is
actually from you and not beingfaked from somebody else, from a
scammer or a hacker, forexample.
Okay, so now that we've talked alittle bit about the why, let's
go now into the basics of whatis email deliverability and what
(07:01):
really affects it.
So email deliverability refersto the ability of your emails to
reach the intended recipientsinboxes successfully.
It's super crucial as abusiness owner, of course, to
make sure your emails areactually getting to your
potential customers inboxes.
It could mean the success orfailure of your business.
Just like packages in the mailneed to go through several
(07:25):
different steps and places toarrive to the intended recipient
, email also goes throughvarious steps to reach the
recipient's inbox.
Email deliverability involvesensuring that your emails don't
end up in spam folders or getblocked by these email providers
.
So, for example, a little bitof a tangent type of not tangent
(07:46):
but a tangible, I should saytype of example is just a few
weeks ago, I got an email from ashipping provider about a
package that was being deliveredto our house and that the
package was delivered.
It was a package I was lookingforward to having in a timely
manner, but the problem was thephoto of the front door in that
(08:08):
email was not my front door.
It was one of my neighbors andI actually wasn't even sure
which neighbor it was at thetime.
If it hadn't been for thisdelivery confirmation email with
a photo of the wrong door, Iwould have never known that the
Our item was delivered to thewrong house.
I would have thought it wasjust maybe lost, right.
(08:29):
So having delivery confirmationand knowing that your emails
are actually getting to therecipient is very important in
this whole process too.
So just like there's severalfactors and steps to receiving
packages on time and at theright location, there are also
several factors that influenceyour email deliverability that
you can control.
(08:50):
So number one is senderreputation.
So this might sound a littlesimple as far as the words go,
but just like people trustcertain mail carriers, email
providers trust certain senders.
So maintaining a positivesender reputation by sending
(09:10):
relevant and wanted email helpensure that your emails are
delivered.
So making sure that what you'resending is what your people are
expecting is super important.
Otherwise, they're gonna clickthat spam button probably on it.
Right and same for contentquality.
This is very similar.
The content of your emailmatters.
Emails with suspicious orspam-like content are more
(09:34):
likely to get filtered out forone, so it's essential to create
well-crafted and legitimateemails and making sure that you
aren't spamming it with lots ofwords like free and sale.
You can obviously use those inyour emails, but you do wanna
use them sparingly just like youwanna use specific keywords
(09:54):
that we talk about a lot on thepodcast sparingly across the one
page you're targeting.
You don't wanna put it too muchor it looks really spammy.
Also, recipient engagement hasa big factor.
Here too, email providers payattention to how recipients
interact with your emails.
So if people are regularlyopening and engaging with your
(10:15):
emails, then it signals toproviders that your emails are
valuable and they're going todeliver them better.
It's kinda similar to whenpeople click on your website
from a search.
When people stay there, thenthe search engine know that that
was good, relevant content forthem.
Also, authentication so emailauthentication methods like SPF,
(10:38):
which stands for Sender PolicyFramework A bit techie, but
we're there.
We can just think of it as SPFfor short and DKEM, which stands
for Domain Keys Identified Mail.
I know super tongue twisterthere too, but just remember SPF
and DKEM, that's the way mostpeople call it.
They don't ever say what itactually stands for.
(10:59):
They both help verify theemails are generally coming from
you and not from imposters.
So currently, and before thishas been put in place, spf is.
What you just needed and we'regonna talk about in a little bit
later in this episode is whenis SPF needed and when is SPF
(11:20):
plus DKEM needed.
So we're gonna talk about thata little bit later.
So try not to get toooverwhelmed on the tech here.
I'm gonna try to break thisdown for you, okay.
And then, lastly, something elsethat affects deliverability is
your opt-in practices.
So sending emails to only thosewho've explicitly opted to
receive them improves thedeliverability.
(11:41):
So avoid purchasing email listsor sending unsolicited emails
as as is just a general rule ofemail marketing anymore.
So, in simple terms, good emaildeliverability ensures that
your emails are getting a highchance of reaching the intended
recipients, inboxes and allowingyour message to be seen in red.
All right, let me just recapreal quick those.
(12:04):
So send a reputation, content,quality, recipient engagement,
authentication.
This is what's a bit more neweror kind of pushed onto us as
rules now, and then opt-inpractices, okay.
So now that we have a bit ofthe basic stance of why email
service providers like Googleand Yahoo are requiring these
(12:26):
new email service securitypolicies in February 2024,.
Let's touch a bit on what thenew requirements are.
So requirements always changing, though, and I want to make
sure you understand this,because you may be listening to
the podcast past the time ofthis requirement or when
requirements have changed, butcurrently, in February 2024,
(12:47):
google and Yahoo are requiringdifferent things depending upon
whether you send less than 5,000emails or more than 5,000
emails as the general rule.
So if you send less than 5,000emails per day, you're going to
need an email authenticationtool such as SPF or DKEM, and
(13:08):
then you also need lowest spamrights.
Okay, sounds a little bit simple.
So if you're in this situationhere, try not to panic on the
newer requirements.
It's something I do recommendwe're going to do, which is the
next set of requirements I wantto talk about that.
You do that as soon as you can,but don't panic.
You should be okay afterFebruary of 2024, at least for a
bit, okay.
(13:29):
So then, if you send over 5,000bulk messages per day, you're
going to need both SPF and DKEM,and they must be in place and
properly set up.
You must also have a DMARCpolicy in place.
I'm not going to go too muchinto what DMARC is.
It's a little bit morecomplicated, but you're going to
need DMARC in place and we'llhave some resources in the show
(13:52):
notes on that one.
And then you must pass DMARCalignment, which is this is just
kind of a communication tool sothat you can see when your
messages aren't being receivedit's kind of a feedback tool
would be a short way of sayingwhat that is and messages must
include a one click unsubscribe.
This I'm actually excited aboutis a one click unsubscribe,
(14:13):
because there's nothing morepainful than clicking
unsubscribe and it's like oh,what email do you want to
unsubscribe?
I'm thinking you already knowwhat email you send it to me.
That's just how email serviceproviders work.
Usually, the email is embeddedin the link to unsubscribe.
I want to have to type an emailin, but that's a little bit of
a tanger that drives me crazy.
So I'm looking forward to thatbecause it's going to save us
(14:33):
time and money.
So, like I said, if you sendless than 5000 messages a day, I
wouldn't panic and rush to getthese done if it's not already
done.
I do, however, recommend youhave a plan in place to get this
done as soon as you can,because I am sure that they are
going to require it for peoplewho send less than 5000 messages
(14:56):
a day.
That's a lot.
Most people that I know, eventhough larger businesses we work
with.
Some of them might send morethan 5000 a day.
Let me just be honest with you,but many of our clients do not
send more than 5000 messages ina day, but I do see this coming
forward and going to besomething that's going to be
required of all businesses inthe future, so I highly
(15:19):
recommend you work your waytowards this as soon as you can.
Okay, so this is somethingthat's a little bit hard to keep
up with and stay up to date on.
So if you want to stay up todate on requirements like this,
you can always visit our podcastwebsite at
ecommercemadeeasypodcastcom, andtowards the bottom of the page,
there'sa place where you cansubscribe to our newsletter, and
(15:41):
this is where we keep ourclients up to date on important
business tech topics like this.
We're going to break it downand point you to all kinds of
resources to help you out.
Okay, so, now that we know allthis information, what action
steps can you take?
How can you get ready for this?
How can you make sure that youhave your email services set up
(16:02):
properly.
First check to see if yourcompliant are not already.
There will be links in the shownotes of common tools that we
use to check email health anddeliverability.
It can check whether you'vebeen put on a spam list.
It can check to see if you haveSPF set up correctly.
It can check to see if you haveDMARC set up correctly and DKIM
, et cetera.
(16:22):
So look for the tools thatwe're going to link to you in
the show notes and then next Iwant you to get out a pen and
paper, or however you like, tonotate things, and I want you to
list out any and allapplications that send email as
you and your domain.
So some examples would be anemail service provider, such as
(16:45):
Aweber, convertkit, mailchimp,low Desk, et cetera.
It could be a CRM where youhave your customers in there.
It could be e-commerce andwebsite applications, such as
Magento, bigcommerce, shopify,kajabi, wordpress, et cetera.
So you could have severaldifferent places that you are
(17:06):
sending email from as you.
I know many companies we workwith have at minimum two or
three places that send email astheir domain.
Many of them actually probablyhave more like four or five or
more.
So you really need to documentwhat sends email as my domain.
So then, once you have thatlist, you're gonna need to look
(17:28):
at each of these applicationsdocumentation.
You need to see exactly how tocomply with their software tools
and make sure that you haveDKIMM set up properly there, and
this is going to vary basedupon application to application.
So if you get stuck and can'tfind the right documentations,
you're welcome to reach out tous on social or drop us an email
(17:49):
and we'll be happy to help you.
But you really need to belooking.
I know, for example, aweber andConvertKit and Kajabi and many
of these places are putting outhelp documents on how to make
sure that you're set upcorrectly, and so if your
application doesn't provide that, then do get a hold of us, but
it should already let you knowon how to do this.
(18:11):
And then, if you don't havesomebody competent in email
services too, you wanna makesure when you go to your tech
provider that you have and askthem about this and have them
help you out.
But if you don't have somebodylike that, you're welcome to
drop us an email or connect tous on social, as we've helped
(18:32):
hundreds of clients over themany years set these things up,
so we're here to help you if youdon't already have somebody to
help you with.
Okay, so I know that was a lot,but hopefully I broke it down
and the pieces to help youunderstand what email
deliverability is, why it'simportant and how to get a good
handle on it and get yourselfcompliant.
(18:53):
So let's recap real quick whatwe talked about in the episode.
First, we talked about why freeemail service providers like
Google and Yahoo are gettingmore strict and the fact that
others are going to follow suitand they're gonna get even more
strict when you're sending evenless emails.
And next we talked about thebasics of email deliverability
and what factors affect yourdeliverability and email.
(19:15):
It's kind of a hard word to say.
And next we talked about therequirements that are being put
into place and how to stay ontop of the new requirements as
they come out.
Make sure you subscribe to agood newsletter like ours we
like to keep up to date forclients if you're not already on
a good tech provider's emailnewsletter.
And, most importantly, wetalked about what steps you can
(19:36):
take to make sure you arecompliant.
That's all I have for thisweek's episode.
I hope it was super helpful foryou.
I know it was a bit more on thetechie side, but necessary for
business success.
So be sure to visit our shownotes at
ecommercemadeeasypodcastcomforward slash 38 for this
specific episode.
(19:56):
And if you're watching on theYouTube channel, make sure you
hit that subscribe button so youdon't miss out on any of our
upcoming videos.
And if you're listening on thepodcast, hit that follow button
wherever you're listening onyour favorite podcast app.
If you're listening to this andhave found value in today's
episode, we would love to hearfrom you.
What other content do you wantto hear on the show?
(20:20):
Drop us an email at podcast atbcsengineeringcom, or leave us a
review on your favorite podcastapp.
Thanks again for listening andwe will see you next week.
Everyone hates spam emails, right?
I know.
Even with spam filters in placeon my email, spam still gets
into my inbox and when I gothrough my email and I'm
deleting those unwanted emails,it gets annoying at tiring and I
feel like I'm wasting my time.
Right, but what if it's ourbusiness emails that are ending
(00:23):
up in spam or Worshat, are beingblocked and not being delivered
at all?
How do we address this and makesure that our legitimate
business emails are gettingdelivered?
In this episode, we will betalking about email
deliverability, what it is, whyit's so important, how to ensure
better deliverability and howto stay up to date on the
(00:46):
current rules.
Welcome to the Ecommerce MadeEasy podcast.
I'm your host, kiri Saunders.
When we started this business,all I had was a couch, a laptop
and a nine month old my maingoal to help others.
Now, with over 20 years in theEcommerce building industry and
even more than that and webdevelopment, I have seen a lot.
I love breaking down the hardtech and to easily
(01:07):
understandable bits to helpothers be successful in their
online business.
Whether you're a seasonedEcommerce veteran or just
starting out, you've come to theright place.
So sit back, relax and let'sdive into the world of Ecommerce
together.
Welcome back to this week'sepisode of the Ecommerce Made
Easy podcast.
I'm your host, kiri Saunders.
Today we're diving deep intoemail deliverability, and it's a
(01:32):
bit of a techie topic, I'mgoing to warn you there, but I
am going to try to really breakit down for all tech levels out
there and try to help youunderstand the impact of it, the
basics of it, how you can getbetter at it and some resources
in case you are stuck and needeven more help.
You may have heard all the buzzabout the new email rules that
(01:56):
are including having SPF andDKIM set up so that your emails
are being delivered, and theserules are supposed to go into
effect of February of 2024.
And even if you're listening tothis later on, this episode is
going to really help youunderstand email deliverability
as well.
We're just going to touch onthe new rules at the end of the
(02:16):
episode.
So what are these terms like SPFand DKIM, and why do we really
even care?
Let's first start with why.
Why do we need these moreadvanced email setups?
Simply put, it helps emailsystems verify who sent the
email as well as if it gotdelivered.
(02:38):
So, just like when you write aletter to a person or send a
package, you can write whomeveryou want as the from on that
letter or package, and you cando the same with email.
A lot of people don't realizethis.
You can change who the email isfrom if certain security
systems aren't put in place.
(02:58):
So if you know a little bitabout tech, this is not too hard
to do, and that's what peoplehave, while spammers have really
been doing over the past many,many years, and bigger email
service providers like Googleand Yahoo are now really
cracking down on some rules tohelp prevent and mitigate this.
(03:20):
So you might also, in addition,to hear about websites getting
hacked, and I get asked a lotwell, why do people hack a
website anyway?
What?
How does it benefit them?
Well, one simple reason is tobe able to send mass emails out
from the hacked site, and it's abit hard to trace it back to
(03:40):
the person who's actually doingthe hack and sending the emails.
So they'll use a hacked site astheir means to send out all
these spam emails.
So so one of the reasons thatlarge email service providers
like Google and Yahoo arerequiring these new requirements
is so that there's a bit moreproof that the sender of the
(04:04):
email is actually who they saythey are.
This not only protects you, therecipient of the emails, but it
also helps protect you as abusiness owner, so that someone
else isn't spoofing your emailsas the from, and spoofing just
simply means, in other words,pretending to be you, so it's a
way to help ensure the identityof who is sending the email.
(04:28):
So malicious people can takethat one step even further with
sending out these spoofingemails and send out emails that
what are called phishing emails.
So phishing attacks are nowcost organizations large
organizations over $15 millioneach annually.
(04:49):
That is a significant amount ofmoney.
It's costing large corporationsand you can even kind of
imagine what that's going tocost middle, medium and small
businesses as well.
That's quite a bit of money.
This is a significant amount ofmoney from either wasted time
for their employees fromdeleting and trying to decide
(05:10):
whether an email is actuallytruly actually from the person
they're reading it from, orwhether it's a phishing success
and they've actually gottenprivate information.
So a phishing email?
If you're not quite sure whatthat is, it's basically an email
that says you know, sometimesyou'll get these from big
corporations like, oh, yourpassword has changed and we need
(05:34):
you to update it.
And then you click on the linkand you put in your new password
and if you're not payingattention, you may go and be
going to the website that's notactually that website or they
might be like oh, your creditcard expired, update it quick
before you lose your Netflixservice, for example.
And if you're not payingattention, you click on the
email, you put in your creditcard information and, bam, they
(05:57):
have your credit card ofinformation right there.
So phishing scams are superimportant to prevent and
mitigate as much as we can.
And again, this is why thesebig corporations like Google and
Yahoo email are starting toenforce these email security
systems.
That's been in place for awhile, but a lot of people
(06:17):
haven't implemented them yetbecause it can be very
complicated, and that's whatwe're going to try to break down
on this podcast.
So email security reduces theopportunity for hackers to forge
emails from your company,reducing their options for
phishing.
It also improves emaildeliverability now.
So when the major free emailservice providers like Google
(06:39):
and Yahoo see that you have theproper email security measures
in place, they can be moreconfident that the email is
actually from you and not beingfaked from somebody else, from a
scammer or a hacker, forexample.
Okay, so now that we've talked alittle bit about the why, let's
go now into the basics of whatis email deliverability and what
(07:01):
really affects it.
So email deliverability refersto the ability of your emails to
reach the intended recipientsinboxes successfully.
It's super crucial as abusiness owner, of course, to
make sure your emails areactually getting to your
potential customers inboxes.
It could mean the success orfailure of your business.
Just like packages in the mailneed to go through several
(07:25):
different steps and places toarrive to the intended recipient
, email also goes throughvarious steps to reach the
recipient's inbox.
Email deliverability involvesensuring that your emails don't
end up in spam folders or getblocked by these email providers
.
So, for example, a little bitof a tangent type of not tangent
(07:46):
but a tangible, I should saytype of example is just a few
weeks ago, I got an email from ashipping provider about a
package that was being deliveredto our house and that the
package was delivered.
It was a package I was lookingforward to having in a timely
manner, but the problem was thephoto of the front door in that
(08:08):
email was not my front door.
It was one of my neighbors andI actually wasn't even sure
which neighbor it was at thetime.
If it hadn't been for thisdelivery confirmation email with
a photo of the wrong door, Iwould have never known that the
Our item was delivered to thewrong house.
I would have thought it wasjust maybe lost, right.
(08:29):
So having delivery confirmationand knowing that your emails
are actually getting to therecipient is very important in
this whole process too.
So just like there's severalfactors and steps to receiving
packages on time and at theright location, there are also
several factors that influenceyour email deliverability that
you can control.
(08:50):
So number one is senderreputation.
So this might sound a littlesimple as far as the words go,
but just like people trustcertain mail carriers, email
providers trust certain senders.
So maintaining a positivesender reputation by sending
(09:10):
relevant and wanted email helpensure that your emails are
delivered.
So making sure that what you'resending is what your people are
expecting is super important.
Otherwise, they're gonna clickthat spam button probably on it.
Right and same for contentquality.
This is very similar.
The content of your emailmatters.
Emails with suspicious orspam-like content are more
(09:34):
likely to get filtered out forone, so it's essential to create
well-crafted and legitimateemails and making sure that you
aren't spamming it with lots ofwords like free and sale.
You can obviously use those inyour emails, but you do wanna
use them sparingly just like youwanna use specific keywords
(09:54):
that we talk about a lot on thepodcast sparingly across the one
page you're targeting.
You don't wanna put it too muchor it looks really spammy.
Also, recipient engagement hasa big factor.
Here too, email providers payattention to how recipients
interact with your emails.
So if people are regularlyopening and engaging with your
(10:15):
emails, then it signals toproviders that your emails are
valuable and they're going todeliver them better.
It's kinda similar to whenpeople click on your website
from a search.
When people stay there, thenthe search engine know that that
was good, relevant content forthem.
Also, authentication so emailauthentication methods like SPF,
(10:38):
which stands for Sender PolicyFramework A bit techie, but
we're there.
We can just think of it as SPFfor short and DKEM, which stands
for Domain Keys Identified Mail.
I know super tongue twisterthere too, but just remember SPF
and DKEM, that's the way mostpeople call it.
They don't ever say what itactually stands for.
(10:59):
They both help verify theemails are generally coming from
you and not from imposters.
So currently, and before thishas been put in place, spf is.
What you just needed and we'regonna talk about in a little bit
later in this episode is whenis SPF needed and when is SPF
(11:20):
plus DKEM needed.
So we're gonna talk about thata little bit later.
So try not to get toooverwhelmed on the tech here.
I'm gonna try to break thisdown for you, okay.
And then, lastly, something elsethat affects deliverability is
your opt-in practices.
So sending emails to only thosewho've explicitly opted to
receive them improves thedeliverability.
(11:41):
So avoid purchasing email listsor sending unsolicited emails
as as is just a general rule ofemail marketing anymore.
So, in simple terms, good emaildeliverability ensures that
your emails are getting a highchance of reaching the intended
recipients, inboxes and allowingyour message to be seen in red.
All right, let me just recapreal quick those.
(12:04):
So send a reputation, content,quality, recipient engagement,
authentication.
This is what's a bit more neweror kind of pushed onto us as
rules now, and then opt-inpractices, okay.
So now that we have a bit ofthe basic stance of why email
service providers like Googleand Yahoo are requiring these
(12:26):
new email service securitypolicies in February 2024,.
Let's touch a bit on what thenew requirements are.
So requirements always changing, though, and I want to make
sure you understand this,because you may be listening to
the podcast past the time ofthis requirement or when
requirements have changed, butcurrently, in February 2024,
(12:47):
google and Yahoo are requiringdifferent things depending upon
whether you send less than 5,000emails or more than 5,000
emails as the general rule.
So if you send less than 5,000emails per day, you're going to
need an email authenticationtool such as SPF or DKEM, and
(13:08):
then you also need lowest spamrights.
Okay, sounds a little bit simple.
So if you're in this situationhere, try not to panic on the
newer requirements.
It's something I do recommendwe're going to do, which is the
next set of requirements I wantto talk about that.
You do that as soon as you can,but don't panic.
You should be okay afterFebruary of 2024, at least for a
bit, okay.
(13:29):
So then, if you send over 5,000bulk messages per day, you're
going to need both SPF and DKEM,and they must be in place and
properly set up.
You must also have a DMARCpolicy in place.
I'm not going to go too muchinto what DMARC is.
It's a little bit morecomplicated, but you're going to
need DMARC in place and we'llhave some resources in the show
(13:52):
notes on that one.
And then you must pass DMARCalignment, which is this is just
kind of a communication tool sothat you can see when your
messages aren't being receivedit's kind of a feedback tool
would be a short way of sayingwhat that is and messages must
include a one click unsubscribe.
This I'm actually excited aboutis a one click unsubscribe,
(14:13):
because there's nothing morepainful than clicking
unsubscribe and it's like oh,what email do you want to
unsubscribe?
I'm thinking you already knowwhat email you send it to me.
That's just how email serviceproviders work.
Usually, the email is embeddedin the link to unsubscribe.
I want to have to type an emailin, but that's a little bit of
a tanger that drives me crazy.
So I'm looking forward to thatbecause it's going to save us
(14:33):
time and money.
So, like I said, if you sendless than 5000 messages a day, I
wouldn't panic and rush to getthese done if it's not already
done.
I do, however, recommend youhave a plan in place to get this
done as soon as you can,because I am sure that they are
going to require it for peoplewho send less than 5000 messages
(14:56):
a day.
That's a lot.
Most people that I know, eventhough larger businesses we work
with.
Some of them might send morethan 5000 a day.
Let me just be honest with you,but many of our clients do not
send more than 5000 messages ina day, but I do see this coming
forward and going to besomething that's going to be
required of all businesses inthe future, so I highly
(15:19):
recommend you work your waytowards this as soon as you can.
Okay, so this is somethingthat's a little bit hard to keep
up with and stay up to date on.
So if you want to stay up todate on requirements like this,
you can always visit our podcastwebsite at
ecommercemadeeasypodcastcom, andtowards the bottom of the page,
there'sa place where you cansubscribe to our newsletter, and
(15:41):
this is where we keep ourclients up to date on important
business tech topics like this.
We're going to break it downand point you to all kinds of
resources to help you out.
Okay, so, now that we know allthis information, what action
steps can you take?
How can you get ready for this?
How can you make sure that youhave your email services set up
(16:02):
properly.
First check to see if yourcompliant are not already.
There will be links in the shownotes of common tools that we
use to check email health anddeliverability.
It can check whether you'vebeen put on a spam list.
It can check to see if you haveSPF set up correctly.
It can check to see if you haveDMARC set up correctly and DKIM
, et cetera.
(16:22):
So look for the tools thatwe're going to link to you in
the show notes and then next Iwant you to get out a pen and
paper, or however you like, tonotate things, and I want you to
list out any and allapplications that send email as
you and your domain.
So some examples would be anemail service provider, such as
(16:45):
Aweber, convertkit, mailchimp,low Desk, et cetera.
It could be a CRM where youhave your customers in there.
It could be e-commerce andwebsite applications, such as
Magento, bigcommerce, shopify,kajabi, wordpress, et cetera.
So you could have severaldifferent places that you are
(17:06):
sending email from as you.
I know many companies we workwith have at minimum two or
three places that send email astheir domain.
Many of them actually probablyhave more like four or five or
more.
So you really need to documentwhat sends email as my domain.
So then, once you have thatlist, you're gonna need to look
(17:28):
at each of these applicationsdocumentation.
You need to see exactly how tocomply with their software tools
and make sure that you haveDKIMM set up properly there, and
this is going to vary basedupon application to application.
So if you get stuck and can'tfind the right documentations,
you're welcome to reach out tous on social or drop us an email
(17:49):
and we'll be happy to help you.
But you really need to belooking.
I know, for example, aweber andConvertKit and Kajabi and many
of these places are putting outhelp documents on how to make
sure that you're set upcorrectly, and so if your
application doesn't provide that, then do get a hold of us, but
it should already let you knowon how to do this.
(18:11):
And then, if you don't havesomebody competent in email
services too, you wanna makesure when you go to your tech
provider that you have and askthem about this and have them
help you out.
But if you don't have somebodylike that, you're welcome to
drop us an email or connect tous on social, as we've helped
(18:32):
hundreds of clients over themany years set these things up,
so we're here to help you if youdon't already have somebody to
help you with.
Okay, so I know that was a lot,but hopefully I broke it down
and the pieces to help youunderstand what email
deliverability is, why it'simportant and how to get a good
handle on it and get yourselfcompliant.
(18:53):
So let's recap real quick whatwe talked about in the episode.
First, we talked about why freeemail service providers like
Google and Yahoo are gettingmore strict and the fact that
others are going to follow suitand they're gonna get even more
strict when you're sending evenless emails.
And next we talked about thebasics of email deliverability
and what factors affect yourdeliverability and email.
(19:15):
It's kind of a hard word to say.
And next we talked about therequirements that are being put
into place and how to stay ontop of the new requirements as
they come out.
Make sure you subscribe to agood newsletter like ours we
like to keep up to date forclients if you're not already on
a good tech provider's emailnewsletter.
And, most importantly, wetalked about what steps you can
(19:36):
take to make sure you arecompliant.
That's all I have for thisweek's episode.
I hope it was super helpful foryou.
I know it was a bit more on thetechie side, but necessary for
business success.
So be sure to visit our shownotes at
ecommercemadeeasypodcastcomforward slash 38 for this
specific episode.
(19:56):
And if you're watching on theYouTube channel, make sure you
hit that subscribe button so youdon't miss out on any of our
upcoming videos.
And if you're listening on thepodcast, hit that follow button
wherever you're listening onyour favorite podcast app.
If you're listening to this andhave found value in today's
episode, we would love to hearfrom you.
What other content do you wantto hear on the show?
(20:20):
Drop us an email at podcast atbcsengineeringcom, or leave us a
review on your favorite podcastapp.
Thanks again for listening andwe will see you next week.
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