Google and Yahoo's 2024 email authentication requirements: A new era of security

Greeting of the new year!

Starting February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo Mail are rolling out stringent email authentication requirements to combat malicious messages, reduce inbox clutter, thwart phishing attacks, diminish spam, and bolster data security.

Here are the basic protocols all email senders are required to follow:

 

Implement email authentication

Implement SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) protocols to prevent domain spoofing, a tactic often exploited by cybercriminals. SPF is a framework that allows email administrators to specify which mail servers are authorized to send emails on behalf of a particular domain.

DKIM adds a digital signature to an email message, ensuring that it has not been tampered with during transit. Both SPF and DKIM help make sure emails are genuine and haven't been tampered with, which is important for email security and trust.  

Maintain  low spam rates   

Google mandates the senders to maintain a spam rate below 0.3% (as measured by Google's postmaster tools) to ensure that your emails don't get flagged as unwanted or fraudulent. While Yahoo hasn't explicitly suggested a number, 0.3% is a safe bet to avoid getting flagged.

READ - Staying out of trouble in 2024: A look at email marketing laws and compliance 

You can ensure low spam rates by following basic steps like enabling double opt-in, verifying email lists, and cleaning up old/inactive email addresses, among others.

 For high-volume senders (> 5,000 messages/day)  

In addition to implementing SPF and DKIM, high volume senders are required to implement DMARC policy and conform to DMARC alignment.

• DMARC policy

Implement DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) to provide domain-level protection against email spoofing techniques used in phishing and other attacks. DMARC builds upon SPF and DKIM and allows businesses to publish policies that provide instructions to mailbox providers' recipient servers on how to handle unauthenticated emails sent from their domain.

• DMARC alignment 

Ensure that messages pass DMARC alignment, which checks whether the sending domain's authentication methods (SPF and DKIM) align with the domains used in the email headers. This is the Return-Path value within email headers.

SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are already mandatory in order to send email campaigns in Zoho Campaigns.

•  One-click unsubscribe    

Google recommends implementing a convenient one-click unsubscription feature for users. This single-click process is aimed at allowing Gmail recipients to easily unsubscribe from emails sent by large senders. Additionally, Google recommends that senders promptly process unsubscription requests within a two-day timeframe.

 

Zoho Campaigns and Zoho Marketing Automation are already in compliance with this recommendation. In our system, we include a one-click unsubscribe link in the header of every email. Users can effortlessly click on the unsubscribe link located next to the sender's address to unsubscribe from the organization promptly.

Gmail address as from address

This pertains to cases when the sender's email address for emails sent from Zoho Campaigns is a Gmail address.

What is the change?
Gmail will begin using a DMARC quarantine enforcement policy. DMARC allows domain owners to specify policies that instruct receiving email servers on how to handle messages that fail DMARC authentication.

What is the Impact?
This implies that emails sent with "gmail.com" as the sender (or from) domain will be quarantined by the recipient servers.

To prevent delivery issues and potential IP reputation damage, emails with a sender domain of "gmail.com" will not be triggered from Zoho Marketing Automation after February 1.

Please be aware that this limitation is specific to when gmail.com and googlemail.com is the sender domain. If you have a custom domain, such as zylker.com, hosted on Google Mailbox, then it will not be impacted by the new sender email limitation.

What is the resolution?
To resolve this situation, we encourage users to use their authorized business domain address as sender address, not a gmail address. In case you don't own a domain, you can purchase one from Zoho domains.

• If you have created any email campaign using the Gmail address as the sender address, you'll not be able to send campaigns.
  

• Scheduled campaign will be moved to the draft state after Feb 1

• Campaigns that are in Draft state cannot be sent until the sender address is changed to a business specific email address.

• W.r.t Workflows, we will not stop any workflows. We recommend users edit and change the sender address in case if you have used gmail address.

 What happens if you miss the deadline? 

Your emails may not be delivered to Gmail and Yahoo accounts. This in turn will impact your business, your ability to communicate with customers, and potentially affect customer engagement. We, at Zoho Campaigns, are already aligned with the new guidelines to ensure a seamless experience for our users. If you have any questions or concerns regarding these changes, please reach out to our support team at support@zohomarketingautomation.com. 

 

Note

:  We have hosted a online workshop for email authentication changes from Google and Yahoo. Watch the full video recording here. Please reach out to us support@zohomarketingautomation.com,  if you need any assistance in implementing email authentication measures in your marketing.

 

 

 

• Topic Participants

• Vikram S

  

• Moncy Samuel

• Sticky Posts

• Marketer’s Space - Automating CRM Actions with Journeys – Part 2

  Hello marketers! Welcome back to another post in Marketer’s Space. In our previous post, we explored how CRM actions in Journeys help marketing and sales teams work together by nurturing CRM leads and pushing only engaged prospects back to sales. If you

• Introducing automation and utility conversations in WhatsApp marketing

  We’re excited to announce the addition of two new features to our WhatsApp integration: Automation and Utility conversations. These enhancements will allow you to streamline your marketing efforts and engage with your customers more effectively by automating

• Tip of the week 02 - The art of 'seeing' your leads

  What's the last page that your lead visited before signing up for your brand? What was the page that first convinced your lead to explore more about you? Where are your leads coming in from? Well, these are some perennial questions today's marketers live upon. And, knowing the answers to these questions is crucial, considering the vitality of leads in every business. In the journey of finding lead opportunities, it's important to understand that every detail about a lead is useful. While the channels

• Zoho Marketing Automation Update: Topics, Contacts, and List Management

  At Zoho Marketing Automation, our highest priority is making it easier for you to use our product to accomplish your business goals. With that in mind, we are updating three of our pivotal features: Topic, Contacts, and List Management.   These existing

• Important: Zoho MarketingHub is now Zoho Marketing Automation

  Hello Everyone,   We hope you all are doing well. We'd like to notify you that we have rebranded Zoho MarketingHub to Zoho Marketing Automation. We'll discontinue using the term "MarketingHub" from May 26, 2021. However, there will be no changes in the

• Recent Topics

• #7 Tip of the week: Delegating approvals in Zoho People

  With Zoho People, absences need not keep employees waiting with their approval requests. When you are not available at work, you can delegate approvals that come your way to your fellow workmate and let them take care of your approvals temporarily. Learn more!

• Admin Tip: Manage sub-domain emails using sub-domain stripping

  As an admin, you may need separate domains for different departments such as sales, support, and marketing. While this approach offers flexibility, creating and managing multiple domains can quickly become overwhelming, especially since each domain requires

• Bring Zoho Shifts Capabilities into Zoho People Shift Module

  Hello Zoho People Product Team, After a deep review of the Zoho People Shift module and a direct comparison with Zoho Shifts, we would like to raise a feature request and serious concern regarding the current state of shift management in Zoho People.

• What's new in Zoho Sheet: Simplify data entry and collaboration

  Hello, Zoho Sheet community! Last year, our team was focused on research and development so we could deliver updates that enhance your spreadsheet experience. This year, we’re excited to deliver those enhancements—but we'll be rolling them out incrementally

• Quick Copy Column Name

  Please add the ability to quickly copy the name of a column in a Table or Query View. When you right-click the column there should be an option to copy the name, or if you left-click the column and use the Ctrl+C keyboard shortcut it should copy the

• Ability to Edit YouTube Video Title, Description & Thumbnail After Publishing

  Hi Zoho Social Team, How are you? We would like to request an enhancement to Zoho Social that enables users to edit YouTube video details after the video has already been published. Your team confirmed that while Zoho Social currently allows editing the

• How do I remove a data source from Zoho Analytics?

  I am unable to find a delte option on a datasource that i put in the system as an error. On teh web it refers to a setup icon but I do not see that on my interface?

• Add Employee Availability Functionality to Zoho People Shift Module

  Hello Zoho People Product Team, Greetings and hope you are doing well. We would like to submit a feature request to enhance the Zoho People Shift module by adding employee availability management, similar to the functionality available in Zoho Shifts.

• Bigin, more powerful than ever on iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe, and watchOS 26.

  Hot on the heels of Apple’s latest OS updates, we’ve rolled out several enhancements and features designed to help you get the most from your Apple devices. Enjoy a refined user experience with smoother navigation and a more content-focused Liquid Glass

• Really want the field "Company" in the activities module!

  Hi team! Something we are really missing is able to see the field Company when working in the activities module. We have a lot of tasks and need to see what company it's related to. It's really annoying to not be able to see it.🙈 Thx!

• Delay in rendering Zoho Recruit - Careers in the ZappyWorks

  I click on the Careers link (https://zappyworks.zohorecruit.com/jobs/Careers) on the ZappyWorks website expecting to see the job openings. The site redirects me to Zoho Recruit, but after the redirect, the page just stays blank for several seconds. I'm

• Is Desk Down?

  Across department - always an error. [Status Mode] - error [Table View and the rest] - working

• We Asked, Zoho Delivered: The New Early Access Program is Here

  For years, the Zoho Creator community has requested a more transparent and participatory approach to beta testing and feature previews. Today, I'm thrilled to highlight that Zoho has delivered exactly what we asked for with the launch of the Early Access

• Can the Product Image on the Quote Template be enlarged

  Hello, I am editing the Quote Template and added ${Products.Product Image} to the line item and the image comes up but it is very tiny. Is there anyway that you can resize this to be larger? Any help would be great! Thanks

• How do I change the wording of the tile of SignForm?

  When my user opens a SignForm url, the title that is presented is always "SignForm signer Information" and a form is displayed asking for the username and email address. This can be confusing to the end user. How can I change the title at least (Or at

• How to link tickets to a Vendor/Vendor Contact (not Customer) for Accounting Department?

  Hi all, We’re configuring our Accounting department to handle tickets from both customers and vendors (our independent contractors). Right now, ticket association seems to be built around linking a ticket to a Customer / Customer Contact, but for vendor-originated

• Problem with CRM Connection not Refreshing Token

  I've setup a connection with Zoom in the CRM. I'm using this connection to automate some registrations, so my team doesn't have to manually create them in both the CRM and Zoom. Connection works great in my function until the token expires. It does not refresh and I have to manually revoke the connection and connect it again. I've chatted with Zoho about this and after emailing me that it couldn't be done I asked for specifics on why and they responded. "The connection is CRM is not a feature to

• Automatic Matching from Bank Statements / Feeds

  Is it possible to have transactions from a feed or bank statement automatically match when certain criteria are met? My use case, which is pretty broadly applicable, is e-commerce transactions for merchant services accounts (clearing accounts). In these

• Clone Recurring Expenses

  Our bookkeeping practices make extensive use of the "clone" feature for bills, expenses, invoices, etc. This cuts down significantly on both the amount of typing that needs to be done manually and, more importantly, the mental overhead of choosing the

• Unify Overlapping Functionalities Across Zoho Products

  Hi Zoho One Team, We would like to raise a concern about the current overlap of core functionalities across various Zoho applications. While Zoho offers a rich suite of tools, many applications include similar or identical features—such as shift management,

• Automation #7 - Auto-update Email Content to a Ticket

  This is a monthly series where we pick some common use cases that have been either discussed or most asked about in our community and explain how they can be achieved using one of the automation capabilities in Zoho Desk. Email is one of the most commonly

• Ticket to article and Ticket to template

  Hello! I would like to know if it is possible (and how) to do the following actions: 1. To generate an article from a ticket (reply + original message) 2. Easy convert an answer to an email template

• Is there API Doc for Zoho Survey?

  Hi everyone, Is there API doc for Zoho Survey? Currently evaluating a solution - use case to automate survey administration especially for internal use. But after a brief search, I couldn't find API doc for this. So I thought I should ask here. Than

• Windows Desktop App - request to add minimization/startup options

  Support Team, Can you submit the following request to your development team? Here is what would be optimal in my opinion from UX perspective: 1) In the "Application Menu", add a menu item to Exit the app, as well as an alt-key shortcut for these menus

• Creating Parent Child relationship in Accounts

  We have customers with multiple locations, I setup the HQ as an account, then I setup the different sites marking the HQ as the parent to that location. If I then do a Deal for one of the locations, is there a way to show by looking at the parent account

• Kaizen #225 - Making Query-based Custom Related Lists Actionable with Lookups and Links

  Hello everyone! Welcome back to another post in the Kaizen series! This week, we will discuss an exciting enhancement in Queries in Zoho CRM. In Kaizen #190, we discussed how Queries bridge gaps where native related lists fall short and power custom related

• WebDAV / FTP / SFTP protocols for syncing

  I believe the Zoho for Desktop app is built using a proprietary protocol. For the growing number of people using services such as odrive to sync multiple accounts from various providers (Google, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, etc.) it would be really helpful

• CRM x WorkDrive: We're rolling out the WorkDrive-powered file storage experience for existing users

  Release plan: Gradual rollout to customers without file storage add-ons, in this order: 1. Standalone CRM 2. CRM Plus and Zoho One DCs: All | Editions: All Available now for: - Standalone CRM accounts in Free and Standard editions without file storage

• Non-responsive views in Mobile Browser (iPad)

  Has anyone noticed that the creator applications when viewed in a mobile browser (iPad) lost its responsiveness? It now appears very small font size and need to zoom into to read contents. Obviously this make use by field staff quite difficult. This is not at all a good move, as lots of my users are depending on accessing the app in mobile devices (iPads), and very challenging and frustrating. 

• [Free Webinar] Learning Table Series - AI-Enhanced Logistics Management in Zoho Creator

  Hello Everyone! We’re excited to invite you to another edition of Learning Table Series, where we showcase how Zoho Creator empowers industries with innovative and automated solutions. About Learning Table Series Learning Table Series is a free, 45-60

• Learner transcript Challenges.

  Currently i am working on a Learner Transcript app for my employer using Zoho Creator. The app is expected to accept assessment inputs from tutors, go through an approval process and upon call up, displays all assessments associated with a learner in

• Customizable UI components in pages | Theme builder

  Anyone know when these roadmap items are scheduled for release? They were originally scheduled for Q4 2025. https://www.zoho.com/creator/product-roadmap.html

• Feature Request - Set Default Values for Meetings

  Hi Zoho CRM Team, I would be very useful if we could set default values for meeting parameters. For example, if you always wanted Reminder 1 Day before. Currently you need to remember to choose it for every meeting. Also being able to use merge tags to

• Analytics <-> Invoice Connection DELETED by Zoho

  Hi All, I am reaching out today because of a big issue we have at the moment with Zoho Analytics and Zoho Invoice. Our organization relies on Zoho Analytics for most of our reporting (operationnal teams). A few days ago we observed a sync issue with the

• How to use Rollup Summary in a Formula Field?

  I created a Rollup Summary (Decimal) field in my module, and it shows values correctly. When I try to reference it in a Formula Field (e.g. ${Deals.Partners_Requested} - ${Deals.Partners_Paid}), I get the error that the field can’t be found. Is it possible

• Zoho Creator to Zoho CRM Images

  Right now, I am trying to setup a Notes form within Zoho Creator. This Notes will note the Note section under Accounts > Selected Account. Right now, I use Zoho Flow to push the notes and it works just fine, with text only. Images do not get sent (there

• CRM gets location smart with the all new Map View: visualize records, locate records within any radius, and more

  Hello all, We've introduced a new way to work with location data in Zoho CRM: the Map View. Instead of scrolling through endless lists, your records now appear as pins on a map. Built on top of the all-new address field and powered by Mappls (MapMyIndia),

• Error Logs / Failure logs for Client Scripts Functions

  Hi Team, While we are implementing client scripts for the automation, it is working fine in few accounts but not working for others. So, it would be great if we can have error Logs for client scripts also just like custom functions. Is there any way that

• Automate pushing Zoho CRM backups into Zoho WorkDrive

  Through our Zoho One subscription we have both Zoho CRM and Zoho WorkDrive. We have regular backups setup in Zoho CRM. Once the backup is created, we are notified. Since we want to keep these backups for more than 7 days, we manually download them. They

• Zoho Books blocks invoicing without VeriFactu even though it is not mandatory until 2027

  I would like to highlight a very serious issue in Zoho Books for Spain. 1. The Spanish government has postponed the mandatory start of VeriFactu to January 1st, 2027. This means that during all of 2026 businesses are NOT required to transmit invoices

• Next Page