Ensure your email deliverability – best practices.
Gmail and Yahoo are releasing new email sender policy changes .
- Authenticate your email: Senders will be required to verify their sender identities with standard protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
- Enable easy unsubscription: Senders will need to implement a single-click unsubscribe link within emails if they haven’t already, to allow recipients to easily opt out. If sending an email to multiple recipients use Mailchimp or similar
- Only send emails users want: Gmail and Yahoo are getting serious about spam monitoring and senders will need to ensure they’re keeping below a set spam rate threshold.
To avoid disruptions to deliverability and engagement, check on the following areas if you haven’t already done so:
- Your sending domain(s) are authenticated by DKIM and SPF
- You have set up DMARC to protect against spoofing attacks: https://dmarc.org/
- You’ve cleaned your lists and have a strategy to reduce spam rate
- You have a plan to implement a one-click unsubscribe method
- What do SPF and DKIM mean?
- To avoid disruptions to deliverability and engagement, check on the following areas if you haven’t already done so:
- Your sending domain(s) are authenticated by DKIM and SPF
- You have set up DMARC to protect against spoofing attacks: https://dmarc.org/
- You’ve cleaned your lists and have a strategy to reduce spam rate
- You have a plan to implement a one-click unsubscribe method
- What do SPF and DKIM mean?
- How to: Authenticate your domain with SPF and DKIM
- v=spf1 +mx +a +ip4:185.199.220.84 +include:relay.k.io ~all
- The IP4 entry should be the IP of your server, which you can find on the right hand sidebar of any of your cPanel accounts under the ‘Shared IP’ address heading.
- For example, if you are on a krystal.co.uk server, the IP for the entry would be 185.199.220.84 and therefore, your SPF record would look like so:
- v=spf1 +mx +a +ip4:185.199.220.84 +include:relay.k.io ~all
- You can add your domain name if you are sending emails from your website
- v=spf1 +mx +a +a:graphicz.co.uk +ip4:185.199.220.84 +include:relay.k.io -all
- If you use Gmail to send and receive your email you would add +include:_spf.google.com like this
- v=spf1 +mx +a +a:graphicz.co.uk +ip4:185.199.220.84 +include:_spf.google.com +include:relay.k.io -all
- Instead of graphicz.co.uk use your own domain name
- If you use Outlook.com or office 365 there are spf entries you will need to add also.
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/security/office-365-security/email-authentication-spf-configure?view=o365-worldwide
- https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/spf-record-for-outlookcom-using-office-365-home/62ddf333-c91d-406a-9f8a-b5085b784dee
- Once the record has been added, it may take up to 24 hours for the DNS to propagate after which time you should no longer receive bouncebacks from Gmail
- What is DMARC and how does it work?
- A basic dmarc would look like this
- TXT name: Enter _dmarc.graphicz.co.uk.
- TXT value: Enter v=DMARC1; p=reject.
- Note the full stop at the end of both.
- Here is a full dmarc:
- v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:unsubscribe@graphicz.co.uk; ruf=mailto:unsubscribe@graphicz.co.uk; sp=none; adkim=r; aspf=r; pct=100; fo=0; rf=afrf; ri=86400
| Tag | TagValue | Name | Description |
| v | DMARC1 | Version | Identifies the record retrieved as a DMARC record. It must be the first tag in the list. |
| p | none | Policy | Policy to apply to email that fails the DMARC test. Valid values can be ‘none’, ‘quarantine’, or ‘reject’. |
| rua | mailto:email address | Receivers | Addresses to which aggregate feedback is to be sent. Comma separated plain-text list of DMARC URIs. |
| ruf | mailto:email address | Forensic Receivers | Addresses to which message-specific failure information is to be reported. Comma separated plain-text list of DMARC URIs. |
| sp | none | Sub-domain Policy | Requested Mail Receiver policy for all subdomains. Valid values can be ‘none’, ‘quarantine’, or ‘reject’. |
| adkim | r | Alignment Mode DKIM | Indicates whether strict or relaxed DKIM Identifier Alignment mode is required by the Domain Owner. Valid values can be ‘r’ (relaxed) or ‘s’ (strict mode). |
| aspf | r | Alignment Mode SPF | Indicates whether strict or relaxed SPF Identifier Alignment mode is required by the Domain Owner. Valid values can be ‘r’ (relaxed) or ‘s’ (strict mode). |
| pct | 100 | Percentage | Percentage of messages from the Domain Owner’s mail stream to which the DMARC policy is to be applied. Valid value is an integer between 0 to 100. |
| fo | 0 | Forensic Reporting | Provides requested options for generation of failure reports. Valid values are any combination of characters ’01ds’ seperated by ‘:’. |
| rf | afrf | Forensic Format | Format to be used for message-specific failure reports. Valid values are ‘afrf’ and ‘iodef’. |
| ri | 86400 | Reporting Interval | Indicates a request to Receivers to generate aggregate reports separated by no more than the requested number of seconds. Valid value is a 32-bit unsigned integer. |
- Why you should use a domain you own (and not a free mail domain)
- In Sellerdeck it is really important that the email address in Company/Contact is on the same domain as your website. The email address in Company/Contact is the one that is the ‘From’ address for emails being sent out from the website. If it is not the same as the website domain it will trigger all manner of spam flags. You must also authenticate this email address and its mail server in network settings: If your website were graphicz.co.uk, the email address in Company/Contact should be something like hello@graphicz.co.uk.
- In Network Settings – replace graphicz.co.uk with your domain name:
| SMTP Server | mail.graphicz.co.uk |
| SMTP Port | 587 |
| Use Authentication | Ticked |
| User Name | The full email address |
| Password | The email address password |
Any questions?
If you have questions or comments about the above, please contact me.
Keep in touch and share
Graphicz on Social Media
01323 872296. 07836 551000.
Email: