New Email Policies in February 2024 For “Bulk Senders”
If your Farm sends more than 5,000 emails on any given day, then read carefully!
Google and Yahoo announced stronger guidelines against unwanted emails to better protect users, which could significantly impact the ability of your Farm to send email to your customers (and prospects).
Beginning in February 2024, heightened email sender policies will be enforced that impact any domain (www.yourfarm.com) that sends 5,000+ emails per day (known as a “Bulk Sender”). These new policies may affect any Farmer with a large customer base, who regularly send out newsletters, order reminders or any variety of email campaigns. If your Farm, through any combination of marketing activities, exceeds 5,000+ email sends in a single day, then you will be impacted.
If your Farm is categorized as a Bulk Sender and fails to follow these new Google and Yahoo policies, then your Farm may be “blacklisted” from sending emails to any Gmail or Yahoo user. This blacklist would not only affect bulk email sends, but any email sent (even if individually) by any user under your Farm domain. Additionally, Bulk Senders failing to comply with the new policies may also find their emails delayed, blocked, or directed to spam. The duration of the “blacklist” is still unknown (as these new policies are evolving).
To avoid these penalties, there are three primary requirements Bulk Senders must follow:
Email Authentication: prevents spoofing, encrypts emails, and verifies domain legitimacy
Enable Easy Unsubscription: ensure single-click unsubscribe is enabled for all emails
Ensure You’re Sending Wanted Emails: avoid spam complaints averaging 0.3% or more among email recipients
If your Farm sends more than 5,000 emails on any given day (or could potentially qualify as a Bulk Sender), then the policy changes from Google and Yahoo could present a material impact to your Farm business. We know many Farmers using Barn2Door, leverage email to encourage regular purchases and to communicate with their customers (e.g. automated order reminders, welcome emails and customer journeys (with Mailchimp)).
If your Farm may qualify as a Bulk Sender, we strongly encourage strict compliance with the new policy guidelines published by Google and Yahoo, to reduce potential impacts. Some additional steps to mitigate your risks:
Document: Detail all your email touch points (automated and manual sends)
Plan Ahead: Carefully plan and calculate the timing and size of your email sends
Segment your Customers: Segment your customer audiences to ensure your email sends fall below Bulk Sender thresholds
For additional assistance, Farmers who are Barn2Door Account holders are encouraged to join Office Hours, or work directly with their Account Manager if they qualify as a Bulk Sender.
By tightening your Farm’s email policies to align with the Bulk Sender changes, and ideally stay below policy thresholds, your Farm should be able to mitigate the downside risks of these new email policy guidelines.