Google and Yahoo’s New 2024 Email Sender Guidelines: Everything to Know

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What are Google’s new email sender guidelines?
Google and Yahoo’s new guidelines require all bulk emails to meet standards for email authentication, spam reporting, and easy unsubscribing. Many marketers will already meet these standards, but may have to coordinate with their sales teams.

You might be reading this blog post because you’ve heard about the new Google and Yahoo email guidelines, and you’re wondering what it’s all about. Or, maybe this is the first you’re hearing of them. Either way, you’re undoubtedly looking for some answers, and we’ve got them for you.



On this page, we’ll cover the following:

What are the 2024 email sender guidelines?
Why the new Google and Yahoo email guidelines?
What is the impact on marketers and other bulk email senders?
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What are the 2024 email sender guidelines?
Near the end of 2023, Google and Yahoo announced that they created new email guidelines — and by guidelines, we really mean regulations — that will become effective in February 2024.

These guidelines are a set of new requirements for bulk email senders. In this instance, bulk email senders are defined as businesses that send over 5000 emails per day to Gmail or Yahoo email addresses. If that’s you, you’ll want to know these guidelines.

There are three core requirements going into effect:

Email authentication
Easy unsubscribe
Spam reporting
We’ll discuss each of those in more detail below.

1. Email authentication
The first requirement in the new Gmail email guidelines is email authentication. This means that bulk email senders will need to be authenticated to avoid loopholes that bots and hackers might otherwise exploit.

The details of this authentication are a bit technical, but here are the main factors that go into it:

Sender Policy Framework (SPF): The SPF is a mechanism that lets email senders specify which email servers are permitted to send emails from their domain.
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM): The DKIM system automatically adds a digital signature to each email that gets sent out. This ensures that the emails were indeed sent out by a verified sender.
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC): DMARC allows domain owners to decide what should happen if an email fails the authentication test. As part of that, it also lets them see reports on email authentication.
If you’re a bulk email sender, make sure you have all of these systems up and running. They’re required as of February 1, 2024.

2. Easy unsubscribe
The next requirement is a lot less technical than the first one. It simply states that bulk email senders must provide an easy-to-find, one-click unsubscribe option in each email. The phrase “one-click” is significant here — don’t force users to walk through a series of steps before they can unsubscribe.