Important: Microsoft Outlook Bulk Email Updates

Important: Microsoft Outlook Bulk Email Updates

Dear Marketers,

We want to bring your attention to an important upcoming change announced by Microsoft (Outlook) that will impact users sending bulk emails to Outlook.com, Hotmail.com, and other Microsoft-hosted inboxes. This update focuses on strengthening email authentication to improve inbox security and reduce spam. These measures will help reduce spoofing, phishing, and spam activity, empowering legitimate senders with stronger brand protection and better deliverability.

Microsoft's New Requirements for Bulk Senders:

Microsoft is introducing new requirements for domains sending more than 5,000 emails per day. Starting May 5th, 2025, Outlook will begin enforcing stricter email authentication standards.

Key Changes to Be Aware Of:

  • Mandatory SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Your sending domain must pass SPF authentication. Ensure your domain's DNS record accurately lists all authorized IP addresses and hosts that send emails on your behalf.

  • Mandatory DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Your emails must pass DKIM authentication. This validates the integrity and authenticity of your emails.

  • Mandatory DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance): Your domain must have a DMARC record in place, and alignment with either SPF or DKIM (preferably both for optimal deliverability).

Impact on Non-Compliant Senders:

  • Initial Routing to Junk: After May 5th, 2025, emails from high-volume senders that do not comply with these authentication requirements will initially be routed to the Junk folder.

  • Future Rejection: Microsoft has stated that in the future, non-compliant emails will be rejected entirely to further protect their users.

Recommendations for Zoho Campaigns Users:

As users of Zoho Campaigns, especially if you send bulk email campaigns that might exceed 5,000 emails per day to Microsoft-hosted inboxes, it's crucial to take the following steps now to ensure your email deliverability is not affected:

  • Review Your DNS Records: Audit your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records for the domains you use to send emails through Zoho Campaigns. Verify that they are correctly configured and accurately reflect your sending infrastructure.

  • Ensure SPF Passes: Confirm that your SPF record includes all necessary sending sources for Zoho Campaigns.

  • Ensure DKIM is Implemented: Verify that DKIM signing is properly set up for your sending domains within Zoho Campaigns.

  • Implement DMARC: If you haven't already, implement a DMARC record in your DNS. Starting with p=none allows you to monitor your email authentication results before moving to stricter policies.

  • Configure Custom Return Path: This dedicated custom return-path address allows you to receive detailed notifications about email bounces, enabling you to analyze delivery issues and proactively manage your email lists.

  • Follow Email Hygiene Best Practices: While not strictly mandatory yet, adopting the following practices will further enhance your deliverability and sender reputation:

    • Use compliant and valid "From" and "Reply-To" addresses.

    • Include functional and easily accessible unsubscribe links.

    • Maintain clean email lists and manage bounces effectively.

    • Practice transparent mailing practices with clear subject lines and proper consent.

Next Steps for You:

  1. Prepare Now: Review and update your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records immediately.

  2. Help Resources: If you need assistance with setting up SPF, DKIM, or DMARC, refer to Zoho Campaigns's help documentation.

This update from Microsoft underscores the increasing importance of proper email authentication for ensuring reliable email delivery. By taking proactive steps now, you can safeguard your email campaigns and maintain strong deliverability to Outlook inboxes.

We will continue to monitor this situation and provide any further updates or guidance relevant to using Zoho Campaigns. Keep an eye on our community forums and announcements.

It's important to note that Zoho Campaigns will not impose restrictions on email sending; however, users are strongly encouraged to proactively implement these authentication measures on their end to maximize deliverability

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this, please don't hesitate to reach out to our support@zohocampaigns.com or engage in the community forums.

Happy Marketing!
Zoho Campaigns

 

    • Sticky Posts

    • Tip of the week 03 - Sending emails in batches

      Today's marketers not only want their email marketing to be efficient, but also smart. For an email campaign, you may think you have all the essential elements for lead conversion—a big mailing list, an attractive template design, and the most-engaging message content, but after hitting the ‘send’ button, you may not get the expected conversions. Wondering why? Here’s one of the major reasons. Many marketers miss out on sending the email campaign the right way. Did you know that you should not be
    • Tip of the week 04 - Know about your recipients' 'prime open time.'

      In today's market, the importance of customer behavior is astounding, with a vast amount of research and resources going into finding how customers make decisions. The process of persuading your customers to open your email and click on your call-to-action becomes easy when you understand the psychology behind their behavioral traits. Time to turn into a psychologist! Let's get to the basics—you want your emails to resonate well with your recipients. So, what's the primary thing involved here? It's
    • Zoho Campaigns Expert Diaries on SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube

      Hi email champs,  As email marketers, we find great lessons in each other's works—be it the subject lines that worked good, the design that was received well, or the CTA that had the maximum clicks. Email marketing encompasses a wide variety of topics spanning everything from creation and design to development and deliverability.  Here's when we from the Zoho Campaigns team found the need to build an email marketing community comprising of seasoned marketers and email geeks who can help each other
    • Email Deliverability Tip #3: Seal the deal with the preheader

      In the last post, we learned about the subject line. Today we'll be learning about the preheader. A preheader is the short text that follows the subject line in an email. The preheader is designed to hint at what your email message is all about. A good preheader should act as a second subject line and convince your contacts to open the email. Now, let's learn the best way to craft a preheader. Your subject line and preheader should work together and accurately convey the gist of your email. Keep
    • Tip of the week 15 - Add subscription-preferences option. Drive more engagement.

      If crafting content for emails, getting creatives done, and running email campaigns is your love, then unsubscribes are the heartbreakers.  You can save your emails from being unsubscribed/trashed by adding a proper subscription-preferences option in your emails (works best at the time of signup). Giving subscribers the option to choose what they want to receive from you and decide how often (frequency of the emails) your emails should hit their inboxes will increase the reach of your campaigns manifolds. 
    • Recent Topics

    • Knowledge base: The nitty-gritty of SEO tags

      A well-optimized knowledge base with great SEO can benefit your company by allowing customers to find help articles and support resources using search engines. This enables customers to quickly and efficiently find the information they need without direct
    • Full Text Customization & Translation in SalesIQ Chat Widget Settings

      Dear Zoho SalesIQ Team, Greetings, We would like to request an important enhancement to the chat widget customization options in Zoho SalesIQ. Current Limitation: At the moment, only some of the text shown in the chat widget is editable or translatable
    • Introducing swipe actions in the Zoho CRM Android app

      Hello everyone, How much time do you spend each day on your list view? Probably quite a lot. Since it's such an important part of your work, wouldn't it be easier if you could take action directly from your list view instead of opening each record one
    • Content Security Policy

      Is there a place in ZOHO CRM to add a Content Security Policy to allow for a call to a google.com map, from inside our current app? Or, how do I resolve the issue below?? jquery.js:1 Refused to load the script 'https://maps.google.com/maps/api/js?v=3.41&libraries=places&sensor=true&key=AIzaSyAyQzKeKSbLci4LwZhn9oXvtCkbUo1Ae4g&callback=map_loader'
    • Option to select location?

      As a business coach, I meet with clients at various public locations. I have two or three pre-determined locations that I meet at. I would like the client to choose the location when booking an appointment. Is there a way to do that with a single service, or is the best way to accomplish this by creating one service for each location offered?
    • Unified WhatsApp Number Management in Zoho Desk and SalesIQ

      Dear Zoho Desk Support Team, We are currently utilizing both Zoho Desk and Zoho SalesIQ for our customer support operations. While both platforms offer WhatsApp integration, we are facing challenges due to the requirement of separate WhatsApp numbers
    • Provide a standard structure to your content using article templates

      Hello everyone, When multiple writers work on different documents, maintaining a standard structure can be challenging as each of the writer follows a different writing style. However, when the structure, tone, and format of every document is different,
    • Accessibility Spotlight Series - 1

      Every user interacts with products differently, what feels intuitive to one may be challenging for another. Addressing this, accessibility is built into Zoho Project's design philosophy. This helps users navigate and perform actions with ease irrespective
    • Projects Tasks Not Showing Dependencies

      I'm clicking on tasks and the popup to add dependencies isn't showing. I can't disconnect the nodes either. For some reason when I slide a task backwards it says it cannot go before a predecessor, even though there is not predecessor. Double clicking
    • Deprecation of C4 endpoint URLs

      Note: This post is only for users who are still using the C4 endpoints. Hello everyone, At Zoho Creator, we're committed to continuously enhancing the security, performance, and capabilities of our platform. As part of this ongoing effort, we'll be deprecating
    • Introducing AWS authentication for connections in Deluge

      Hello everyone, We're incredibly excited to announce the all-new AWS authentication for connections in Deluge! This highly anticipated feature simplifies connecting to Amazon Web Services, opening up a world of possibilities and allowing you to seamlessly
    • Timeline Tracking Support for records updates via module import and bulk write api

      Note: This update is currently available in Early Access and will soon be rolled out across all data centers (DCs) and for all editions of Zoho CRM. The update will be available to all users within your organization, regardless of their profiles or roles.
    • Customize User Invites with Invitation Templates

      Invitation Templates help streamline the invitation process by allowing users to create customized email formats instead of sending a one-size-fits-all email. Different invitation templates can be created for portal users and client users to align with
    • ListObjects is recognized by VBA

      Sub addNewRow() Dim ws As Worksheet ' Set your worksheet name Set ws = ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Invoice") ' Set your table name (change "Table1" to your actual table name) ws.ListObjects("InvItems").ListRows.Add End Sub I am getting Unknown function: Li
    • KPI Widget dashboard select periods

      I have a problem with selecting periods as a user filter. In the beste scenario I would like to have to have a period filter like Google Analytics has of Datastudio (see attachment). In the KPI widget I "Group by "inquiry_date" on week&Year". It selects
    • Need a way to secure Prefill URLs in Zoho Forms (hide or encrypt prefilled values)

      Hi everyone, I often use Zoho Forms with prefilled URLs to simplify the user experience — for example: https://forms.zohopublic.com/.../form?Name=David&Amount=300 However, the problem is that all prefilled values are visible and editable in the link.
    • Can’t send emails from Zoho CRM after adding a new user — verification codes not received

      Hi everyone, We recently added a new user to our Zoho CRM account and purchased an additional license. Since then, we haven’t been able to send any emails from Zoho CRM. Our Zoho Mail accounts are working perfectly, we can send and receive emails directly
    • CRM for email in Outlook: how to ignore addresses?

      We’re using the "Zoho CRM for email" add-in for Outlook. When opening an email, the add-in displays all email addresses from the message and allows me to add them to the CRM or shows if they’re already contacts. However, sometimes people listed in To
    • Scheduling Calls in CommandCenter / Blueprints

      I would love it if you could add a function to schedule a call in the lead's record for a future date. I know you can add a Task by going to Instant Actions > Task and completing the form: These tasks go into the lead's record under Open Actions. But
    • Quickly send emails and sync conversations with custom email addresses in CRM

      Editions: All editions DCs: All DCs Release plan: This enhancement has been released for customers in all DCs except IN and US. We will be enabling it for IN and US DC customers soon. [Update on 22 May 2024] This enhancement has been released for all
    • Zoho製品と生成AIツールの活用について

      いつもありがとうございます。 弊社では、Zoho Oneを契約し、CRMを軸として、見込み客の管理から商談、その後の受注や請求の管理、サポート業務(Desk)、業務データのレポーティング(Analytics)などを行っております。 Zohoサービス自体には、Ziaというツールが搭載されているかと存じますが、それ以外の外部の生成AIツールと連携した活用などもできるのでしょうか?具体的には、CopilotなどがZohoに登録されているデータや情報を見て、対話型で必要なデータを提示してくれたり、商談や蓄積されたメモなどを分析してユーザが知見を得られるような活用ができないか、と考えております。
    • Work with Contacts who use multiple Emails / Manage obsolete Email addresses without loosing Emails in Context

      Hello List Work with Contacts who use multiple Emails Only after 1 week in using Zoho CRM productively we have contacts which randomly use 2 different email addresses. From the concept I've understood that Zoho CRM offers two email fields which are recognized
    • New Field in CRM Product Module Not Visible in Zoho Creator for Mapping

      I created a new single-line field in the Products module in Zoho CRM. Zoho CRM and Zoho Creator are integrated, but the newly created field in CRM is not visible in Zoho Creator when I try to map fields.
    • Send WhatsApp voice messages from Bigin

      Greetings, I hope all of you are doing well. We're happy to announce this enhancement we've made to Bigin. Bigin's WhatsApp integration now supports audio messages, so you can record and send voice messages. This makes it easier to handle customer questions
    • Microsoft Teams now available as an online meeting provider

      Hello everyone, We're pleased to announce that Zoho CRM now supports Microsoft Teams as an online meeting provider—alongside the other providers already available. Admins can enable Microsoft Teams directly from the Preferences tab under the Meetings
    • I want to subscribe 1 professional user but the email only 250 per day?

      When I subscribe 1 professional user, I am only able to send 250 email per day? So less? Or is it typo, 2500 rather than 250? Any sale agent or friends can clear my doubt? Thank You
    • How to add a % Growth column for year-over-year comparison (2024 vs 2025)

      Hello, I am trying to build a monthly revenue comparison between 2024 and 2025 in Zoho CRM Analytics. My current setup is: Module: Deals (Affaires) Filter: Stage = Closed Won Date field: Closing Date Grouping: By Month Metrics: Sum of Amount for 2024,
    • How do you map a user picklist field to another user picklist field.

      In Zoho Projects, I'm trying to map a custom field (user picklist) in Task Details to a field (user picklist) in the Project Details. How do you get the two to map to each other? This is what I currently have that works for my other fields but doesn't
    • Explore Competitive 3D Scanner Prices at Protomont Technologies

      The genesis of Protomont Technologies emerged from the collaborative efforts of the founders in 2019, both the founders shoulder an enormous experience in the world of 3D Printing. Protomont Technology aims to craft your vision with creativity, empowering
    • New and improved API resources for Zoho Sign Developers

      Hello, Developers community! We know that for you, an API's real value depends on how quickly, easily, and reliably you can integrate the it with your application. That's why we're excited to talk about the recent improvements to our developer resources,
    • Project Approval Process Workflow

      Issue: When a new Project is created, there is lack of process/workflow that provides their manager a process to approve or review. Suggestion/Idea: Similar to “Workflow”, we need “Workflow” ability at Project level, where based on the criteria of the
    • Marketing Tip #5: Improve store speed with optimized images

      Slow-loading websites can turn visitors away. One of the biggest culprits? Large, uncompressed images. By optimizing your images, your store loads faster and creates a smoother shopping experience leading to higher sales. It also indirectly improves SEO.
    • Why can I not choose Unearned Revenue as an account on items?

      Hello, I do not understand why we don't have the ability to code an item to unearned revenue. It is not an uncommon situation to have in business. I understand that there is the Retainer invoice as an option, however that doesn't really work for us. Our
    • Form Submission Emails

      Is there a current delay with submission emails being sent? We've had 10-20 forms completed today but only a handful of emails.
    • Rules not working properly

      I created a rule to display certain fields on certain states. But it seems to be not working. It hides the fields even when I selected California, (which is a state that should show the fields when selected)
    • Notebook font size issue

      If I copy something from somewhere and paste it in my notebook, the font size becomes smaller.
    • Sign in process is beyond stupid. I'd rather plug my phone into USB and copy files than sign in to this POS.

      792 clicks and fields to fill in just to get into a 3rd rate app is too stupid for me.
    • Ampersand in URL parameter // EncodeURL does not work

      Hi Zoho, I have a url link with a parameter. The parameter is including ampersand in some cases (Can be "H&M" or "P&I") When trying to use %26 instead of "&"  (the result I get using EncodeURL()) I get H%26M instead of H&M in the parameter field. How can I solve this? Thanks! Ravid
    • how can we create in zoho crm a new contact when the looup does not find a similar existing one

      In forms/integrations/zoho crm / ne w record tab, contact name is to be mapped with my form contact name. When I go in biew edit/lookup configuration, I don t get the options (help dedicated page simply repeat the same info you get in the app) and does
    • Directory Websites

      Directories are a good website category to gain search engine traffic. Directories for a professional service category as an example can help their members in search results over their individual website. It would be nice to have a directory template
    • Next Page