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

• Zoho Assist not rendering NinjaTrader chart properly

  Hi everyone. Just installed and testing Zoho Assist. I want to display my laptop' screen (Windows 11) on a monitor connected to my Mac mini. The laptop is running a stock trading program called NinjaTrader. Basically, when running, this program displays

• Involved account types are not applicable when create journals

  { "journal_date": "2016-01-31", "reference_number": "20160131", "notes": "SimplePay Payroll", "line_items": [{ "account_id": "538624000000035003", "description": "Net Pay", "amount": 26690.09, "debit_or_credit": "credit" }, { "account_id": "538624000000000403", "description": "Gross", "amount": 32000, "debit_or_credit": "debit" }, { "account_id": "538624000000000427", "description": "CPP", "amount": 1295.64, "debit_or_credit": "debit" }, { "account_id": "538624000000000376", "description":

• Adding Social Media Buttons to Basic Campaigns

  Hi, I'm quote new to using Zoho Campaigns and I can't work out how to add Social Media Buttons into my basic campaign? In MailChimp there's a button that brings the icons into your campaign for you. I've tried adding the social media icons as 'buttons' in Zoho but it's not looking great. Can anyone help? Thanks!

• Dropshipping Address - Does Not Show on Invoice Correctly

  When a dropshipping address is used for a customer, the correct ship-to address does not seem to show on the Invoice. It shows correctly on the Sales Order, Shipment Order, and Package, just not the Invoice. This is a problem, because the company being

• Best way to schedule bill payments to vendors

  I've integrated Forte so that I can convert POs to bills and make payments to my vendors all through Books. Is there a way to schedule the bill payments as some of my vendors are net 30, net 60 and even net 90 days. If I can't get this to work, I'll have

• Link(s) between Notes

  Hello Everyone, It would be great if links could be created between notes. Let's say we have 5 Notes A, B, C , D, E. I would like to be able to link Note A to Note B but not in other way, so no link appears in Note B linking to Note A. An so on, linking

• Regex in Zoho Mail custom filters is not supported - but it works!

  I recently asked Zoho for help using regex in Zoho Mail custom filters and was told it was NOT supported. This was surprising (and frustrating) as regex in Zoho Mail certainly works, although it does have some quirks* To encourage others, here are 3 regex

• Feature Request: Assign Documents to Already Entered Bills, Expenses, Invoices, etc.

  Hi Zoho Team, We are regular users of the Documents module in Zoho Books and appreciate its ability to keep financial records well-organized. However, we’ve noticed a limitation: There is no way to attach a document from the "Documents > Files" section

• I don't see any WITHDRAWL transaction at all

  Hi I manually imported my bank statement to Zoho books today and I am a complete newbie. I have been reading the knowledgebase but unable to fix this. I only see "Uncategorized 91 DEPOSIT transactions". I don't see any WITHDRAWL transaction at all. Also,

• Shared inbox unable to see replies

  Hi we are a small company me and someone else, we have a shared inbox for our sale@ and contact@ however we have this issue where by if i reply to an email or the other person reply to the email, it does not show it to them and therefore we end up replying

• Zoho Books | Product updates | August 2025

  Hello users, We’ve rolled out new features and enhancements in Zoho Books. From the right sidebar where you can manage all your widgets, to integrating Zoho Payments feeds in Zoho Books, explore the updates designed to enhance your bookkeeping experience.

• Kaizen #136 - Zoho CRM Widgets using ReactJS

  Hey there! Welcome back to yet another insightful post in our Kaizen series! In this post, let's explore how to use ReactJS for Zoho CRM widgets. We will utilize the sample widget from one of our previous posts - Geocoding Leads' Addresses in ZOHO CRM

• 404 error at checkout

  Our customers are getting a 404 error at checkout. Anyone else with the same problem?

• FONT Sizing in Notebook

  Hi Kishore - What is the status of adding font sizing to the application? I have several things that I have pasted directly into Notebook and the fonts are HUGE! I would like the ability to highlight them and reduce the font to a legible size. Nothing

• Can managers Upload documents to their direct rapports?

  Admin employees have the ability to upload documents to employees' files; however, managers do not have add/manage button - is it possible for managers to upload their direct reports' documents, such as absence documents or 121 documents. Is there something

• Leave balance display for next year

  Is there a way to not have a rollover or not limit the leave balance depending on the date. For example an employee has 10 days leave balance and wants to apply for January leave in December. They cant because the rollover doesnt show the leave balance

• Please add an “Auto-Apply Unused Credits” toggle

  Hello — please add a simple org-level option to automatically apply unused credits (credit notes, excess payments, retainers) to new invoices and/or bills. An ON/OFF toggle with choices “invoices”, “bills”, or “both” would save lots of manual work for

• Zoho Books not working/loading

  Hi! I haven't been able to access/load Zoho Books for the past hours. I get a time out (and it is not due to my internet connection). Could you please check this asap? Thank you!

• Custom Fields with Data Types for Expense and Payments Received in Zoho Books

  Hi all, We are glad to present to you, the option to create Custom Fields for the Expense and Payments received modules in Zoho Books. This also comes with an icing on top of it - Yes, the custom fields can now be created with different data types. Types like Text, Number, Decimal, Amount, Auto Number and Check Box are supported as of now. Rush to the gear icon at the top right corner, select 'More Settings', choose 'Preferences' in the left pane. Click the Expense/Payment preferences where you can

• [Webinar] Automate sales and presales workflows with Writer

  Sales involves sharing a wide range of documents with customers across the presales, sales, and post-sales stages: NDAs, quotes, invoices, sales orders, and delivery paperwork. Generating and managing these documents manually slows down the overall sales

• Zoho Cliq - Incident alert (Server outage - IN DC) | August 28

  We've received server down alerts and are currently investigating the issue (IN DC) to find the root cause. Our team is actively working to restore normal operations at the earliest. Status: Under investigation Start time: 09:44:21 AM IST Affected location:

• Claude + MCP Server + Zoho CRM Integration – AI-Powered Sales Automation

  Hello Zoho Community 👋 I’m excited to share a recent integration we’ve worked on at OfficehubTech: ✅ Claude + MCP Server + Zoho CRM This integration connects Zoho CRM with Claude AI through our custom MCP Server, enabling intelligent AI-driven responses

• How can I see content of system generated mails from zBooks?

  System generated mails for offers or invices appear in the mail tab of the designated customer. How can I view the content? It also doesn't appear in zMail sent folder.

• Limitations on editing a message in Cliq

  Hi I've checked the documentations and there's no mention of how many times a message can be edited. When trying with code, I get various numbers such as ~1000 edits or so. Please mention if there's a limit on how many times one can change a message via

• Problem with reports due to "Connected" items change - Yes this IS a problem

  Now that the change has been made to use "connected" items I can no longer run the reporting I need in CRM. I should be able to start with Deals as the parent, connect down to the Account (Account_Name) on the deal as the child, then to any child items

• CRM x WorkDrive: File storage for new CRM signups is now powered by WorkDrive

  Availability Editions: All DCs: All Release plan: Released for new signups in all DCs. It will be enabled for existing users in a phased manner in the upcoming months. Help documentation: Documents in Zoho CRM Manage folders in Documents tab Manage files

• Narrative 10: Assignment Rules - Streamlining Ticket Management

  Behind the scenes of a successful ticketing system: BTS Series Narrative 10: Assignment Rules - Streamlining Ticket Management In the complex world of customer support, a flood of incoming tickets can hit the help desk in seconds. Businesses must do more

• Free webinar! Digitize recruitment and onboarding with Zoho Sign and Zoho Recruit

  Hello, Tired of being buried in onboarding paperwork? With the integration between Zoho Sign and Zoho Recruit, a powerful applicant tracking system, you can digitize and streamline the entire recruitment and onboarding process, all from one platform.

• Custom form - Duplicate Value Present

  I am new to Zoho People. I create a new form on Zoho People quite simple. A date (by default the current date) and a radio button with 3 options (Yes, No, Not applicable) I defined the date as ‘No duplicate’ as only one entry by date is allowed. I added:

• Zoho API connection issues

  Hi, Today at around 1930 GMT our application started experiencing intermittent timeouts from the Zoho API. These intermittent timeouts are not enabling our app to work properly. The API connection was working just fine before. HTTPSConnectionPool(host='www.zohoapis.com',

• Query Regarding our Partnership between AIC-JKLU and Zoho

  Dear Zoho Team, I am writing to raise a concern on behalf of AIC-JKLU, one of Zoho’s incubator partners. Recently, our startups have been facing difficulties while trying to get themselves onboarded on Zoho through our dedicated partner link. Unfortunately,

• Getting events in the future

  Hi I am trying to get events in the future by calling this API Endpoint https://www.zohoapis.eu/crm/v8/Events?fields=Event_Title,Created_By,Created_Time,Start_DateTime But that gives me all events in the database. How do I make a query that returns all

• Created Date/Invalid Fields

  Since Saturday we have suddenly had issues with our webhooks and data retrieval from CRM. Specifically how Created Date is handled. It appears there was some sort of change within CRM that broke a lot of our code that has been in place for several years.

• Problem for EU users connecting Zoho CRM through Google Ads for Enhanced conversions

  Has anyone else experienced this problem when trying to connect Zoho CRM through Google Ads interface to setup enhanced conversions? Did you guys get it fixed somehow? The Problem: The current Google Ads integration is hardcoded to use Zoho's US authentication

• integration zoho form - drive

  I integrated my form with Google Drive. The report of user submissions from the Google Form becomes a Google Sheets table. When I used Google Forms for the same task, the summary sheet adapted to the form. For example, if I added a new field to the form,

• Revenue Management: #9 Revenue Recognition in Media & Publishing

  Media & Publishing industry has evolved in recent times. It offers subscriptions, bundles digital and print access, runs sponsored content, and sometimes even sells ad spaces. If you run a media or publishing business, you will always get into a situation

• Zoho CRM Community Digest - July 2025 | Part 2:

  Hello, Everyone! We’re closing out July with a can’t-miss highlight: Zoholics Europe 2025! Happening from September to October, it’s your chance to level up your CRM skills, covering everything from automation and CPQ to dashboards and advanced workflows.

• How can I trigger a flow action only once while updating contact?

  Hi, we have a trigger to merge&mail file when the field YYY is filled out. For this acion I used "Create or update module entry". But unfortunately we get tens of email on a day with this merged file, because the contact is being regularly updated. The

• Clone a Module??

  I am giong to repurpose the Vendors module but would like to have a separate but very similar module for another group of contacts called Buyers. I have already repurposed Contacts to Sellers. Is it possible to clone (make a duplicate) module of Vendors

• Copy a Record Template from one Form to another

  I have a Creator application with several forms.  I developed a record template for one of the reports/forms but want to use most of it for another of the form/report combinations in the application. Is there a way to copy the template (code or otherwise) to another form?

• Next Page