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HOW TO PREPARE FOR UPCOMING GOOGLE AND YAHOO! CHANGES


Tara NatansonLast Modified: December 5, 2023
7 min read


CEMENT YOUR SENDER REPUTATION AND ENSURE YOUR EMAILS REACH YOUR SUBSCRIBERS’
INBOXES.

On October 3rd, both Yahoo! And Google announced they will be tightening up
their bulk sender policies. They will restrict unauthenticated mail into their
systems in order to reduce spam from bulk senders.

Authenticating your email has grown in importance over the last several years.
However, the changes coming from Yahoo! and Google demonstrate just how
important authentication is (and will be) to ensuring the delivery of legitimate
emails.  Mailbox providers like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! are looking at a
domain’s authentication policies, practices, and reputation more and more. Their
goal is to deliver the mail that users want. 

While Constant Contact has been authenticating our customers’ mail for over 10
years, these recent changes mean a few more steps may be necessary to ensure
deliverability.  Let’s dig a little deeper to understand why.


WHAT IS EMAIL AUTHENTICATION?

Authentication is a way to verify that an email comes from who it claims to come
from and is not a spoof.  Over the years, there have been several different
approaches to email authentication, but the current best practice is to
authenticate your emails with DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail).  This
technique uses cryptographic signatures to sign the messages as they are sent.
The domain owner publishes a public key in their DNS for receiving mailbox
providers to use to decrypt the signature as it enters their system.

Constant Contact authenticates on behalf of our customers– and we’ve been doing
this for years. We do this by signing the mail with our own domain (i.e.,
auth.ccsend.com instead of your business’s web domain). 

For years, this was enough; however, in the ongoing battle against spam and
phishing emails, more mailbox providers are seeking ways to validate  the domain
found in the friendly, or visible “From:” address.  This is the address your
customers see when they open your mail. 

In the example above, the sender’s email address is attached to their business
web domain. Authentication provides a behind-the-scenes-way to prove this
address is legitimate.

Since this address is often spoofed, the mailbox providers want to make sure it
can be trusted.  This means that in order to prove that you are who you claim to
be, you should be authenticating your mail using your domain in addition to
Constant Contact’s.  At Constant Contact, we refer to this as
Self-Authentication.

Self-Authentication can only be used with a domain you own. You will not be able
to set up this level of authentication if you are sending from a free webmail or
ISP domain like gmail.com, yahoo.com, outlook.com, comcast.net, etc.


BRAND REPUTATION

Sending mail using your own domain and signing it with DKIM authentication will
help your brand (and your email) start to build its own reputation. This can
help you stand out in the inbox, and, if you’re following best practices,
improve your deliverability to the inbox.  In fact, many of our customers have
seen an average of 10-20% increase in opens and clicks after turning on self
authentication. 

Let’s face it, sending mail from <name@company.com> looks way more professional
than <company@gmail.com>. Recipients will have more confidence the brand they
are doing business with is professional and trustworthy.  Plus, if you’re
already a good emailer, it will help the mailbox providers recognize your mail
and keep it out of the junk folder. So what are you waiting for? 


WHAT’S NEXT? 

At Constant Contact, we have been working to make this part of email marketing
easier for you! While we have offered self-authentication (authenticating with
your own domain) for a while now, the process just got easier with our
DKIM/CNAME feature update. Once enabled from the settings page, you will be
given a set of records to be added to your domain’s DNS host. Not sure how to do
that? Here are some quick pointers:

The first step is to determine where your domain is hosted:

 1. Who set your website up for you, or initially purchased your domain? If you
    used a contractor or even just a friend with web experience, they can likely
    point you in the right direction.
 2. If you purchased your domain yourself through a large registrar such as
    GoDaddy, it is likely your records are hosted there.   
 3. If you are able to locate bills or invoices (typically annually) for your
    domain, the information may appear there, as well.
 4. You can also look up your domain’s DNS hosting provider using this handy
    tool.

Once you determine where your DNS records are hosted, you will log in to your
DNS host and add the new CNAME records to your domain. Most hosts have a similar
process, but we’ve included links to the instructions for several top hosting
sites:

 * Hostmonster
 * Squarespace
 * Amazon
 * GoDaddy
 * Wix

Once your CNAME records have been published by your DNS host, you will need to
check back into your Constant Contact account to verify we can see them
correctly and confirm everything is set up correctly.  Our Knowledge Base
article can help you get started!


THE TAKEAWAY

New anti-spam measures can pose a challenge for businesses trying to communicate
with a significant number of recipients. But as more spam gets weeded out before
it hits the inbox, more legitimate emails– like yours–can cut through the
noise. 

For businesses who are sending email from a domain that they own,
self-authentication can help contribute to a solid sender reputation and better
deliverability. For senders who are not sending through a domain they own,
Constant Contact’s deliverability and product teams are hard at work behind the
scenes. We are building new, advanced functionality to make sure your email gets
exactly where you want it to go. After all, it’s what we do best!

To prepare for these changes, visit the new Email Delivery Hub in the Constant
Contact Community.  Here you will find videos and articles to help you
understand your options when it comes to ensuring your emails are delivered in
2024.

Investing in an established, expert email marketing solution like Constant
Contact can ensure you’re using email marketing tools supported by a dedicated
deliverability team. This has helped Constant Contact achieve best-in-class
deliverability that’s recognized by G2 as a leader in the industry.


REACH THE INBOX

Get started today with a free trial of Constant Contact.
Share with your network



TARA NATANSON

Tara's Website

Manager of ISP Relations at Constant Contact. I focus on increasing email
deliverability and making sure our customers have the tools they need. With more
than 23 years of email industry experience, I am a member of the Messaging
Anti-Abuse Working Group (MAAWG) where I co-chair the Senders Sub Committee, and
collaborate with other email service providers and ISPs to reduce network abuse
and refine email best practices as the email ecosystem continuously changes. I
work hard to make sure the email industry continues to hold a place for small
businesses to succeed.


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