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

• Add specific field value to URL

  Hi Everyone. I have the following code which is set to run from a subform when the user selects a value from a lookup field "Plant_Key" the URL opens a report but i want the report to be filtered on the matching field/value. so in the report there is

• Syncing Bills in Zoho Books to Zoho CRM

  Is there any way to sync the Bills in Zoho Books in Zoho CRM

• Desk DMARC forwarding failure for some senders

  I am not receiving important emails into Desk, because of DMARC errors. Here's what's happening: 1. email is sent from customer e.g. john@doe.com, to my email address, e.g info@acme.com 2. email is delivered successfully to info@acme.com (a shared inbox

• Ticket layout based on field or contact

  Hi! I want to support the following use-case: we are delivering custom IT solutions to different accounts we have, thus our ticket layouts, fields and languages (priority, status field values should be Hungarian) will be different. How should I setup

• SAML in Zoho One vs Zoho Accounts

  What is the difference between setting up SAML in Zoho Accounts: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/accounts/manage-your-organization/saml/articles/configure-saml-in-zoho-accounts ... vs SAML in Zoho One?: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/one/admin-guide/custom-authentication/setting-up-custom-authentication-with-popular-idps/articles/zohoone-customauthentication-azure

• How do I change the order of fields in the new Task screen?

  I have gone into the Task module layout, and moving the fields around does not seem to move them in the Create Task screen. Screenshot below. I have a field (Description) that we want to use frequently, but it is inconveniently placed within the More

• Zoho Inventory. Preventing Negative Stock in Sales Orders – Best Practices?

  Dear Zoho Inventory Community, We’re a small business using Zoho Inventory with a team of sales managers. Unfortunately, some employees occasionally overlook stock levels during order processing, leading to negative inventory issues. Is there a way to

• 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),

• Deactivated Zoho One account can sign in

  I am concerned by the fact that deactivated users in Zoho One have the ability to sign in even after their account has been deactivated (not deleted). these inactive identities have no access to individual Zoho apps or data. based on my experience they

• How can I reset the password for a user in Zoho Projects

  We need to reset the password for a user in Zoho Projects. I am the admin portal owner and there was nothing to be found to do this. very confusing.

• No funcionan correctamente el calculo de las horas laborales para informe de tickets

  Hola, estoy intentando sacar estadísticas de tiempo de primera respuesta y resolución en horario laboral de mis tickets, pero el calculo de horas en horario laboral no funciona correctamente cree los horarios con los feriados : Ajusté los acuerdos de

• How can I add a comment to an existing ticket via API?

  I need to add comments/notes to the history of an existing ticket using the API without overwriting the original ticket description. Thanks!

• Notification to customers when I use a Zoho function

  Hi all, I tried searching the community but couldn't find anything about it. I noticed that the customer receives the notification of reopening the old ticket but does not receive the notification of opening a new ticket when I use the function: "separate

• Internal Error When Accessing Team Inbox.

  All our users are seeing this error in teaminbox. Because its a critical tool kindly resolve this issue ASAP.

• Marketer's Space: Proven tips to improve open rates – Part III

  Hello Marketers! Welcome back to another post in Marketer's Space! This is the final post in the "open rate series". In the first and second parts, we discussed topics ranging from sender domains to pre-headers—but we're not done yet. A few more important

• MCP no longer works with Claude

  Anyone else notice Zoho MCP no longer works with Claude? I'm unable to turn this on in the claude chat. When I try to toggle it on, it just does nothing at all. I've tried in incognito, new browsers, etc. - nothing seems to work.

• Change Number Field to Decimal Field

  Hi, It would be nice to be able to change the field type without having to delete it and create a new one, messing up the database and history. Thanks Dan

• Allow Text within a Formula

  Hi, I would like to be able to use this for others things like taking an existing Date Field and copying its value, so by entering getDay(Date)&"-"&getMonth(Date)&"-"&getYear(Date) it results in 01-02-2026. And then when the Date is changed so is this

• Zoho Social - Feature Request - Reviewer Role

  Hi Social Team, I've come across this with a couple of clients, where they need a role which can review and comment on posts but who has no access to create content. This is a kind of reviewer role. They just need to be able to see what content is scheduled

• Zoho Books/Inventory - Update Marketplace Sales Order via API

  Hi everyone, Does anyone know if there is a way to update Sales Orders created from a marketplace intigration (Shopify in this case) via API? I'm trying to cover a scenario where an order is changed on the Shopify end and the changes must be reflected

• Zoho Inventory / Finance Suite - Add feature to prevent duplicate values in Item Unit field

  I've noticed that a client has 2 values the same in the Unit field on edit/create Items. This surprised me as why would you have 2 units with the same name. Please consider adding a feature which prevents this as it seems to serve no purpose.

• Zoho CRM for Everyone's NextGen UI Gets an Upgrade

  Hello Everyone We've made improvements to Zoho CRM for Everyone's Nextgen UI. These changes are the result of valuable feedback from you where we’ve focused on improving usability, providing wider screen space, and making navigation smoother so everything

• Kaizen #224 - Quote-driven Deal Reconciliation Using Zoho CRM Functions and Automation

  Hello everyone! Welcome back to another instalment in the Kaizen series. This post covers quote-driven deal reconciliation, emphasizing Functions and Automation to address practical sales challenges. Business Challenge Sales organizations often mark deals

• Dependent / Dynamic DropDown in ZohoSheets

  Has anyone figured out a way to create a Dropdown, the values of which is dependent on Values entered in the other cell ?

• Zoho Inventory - Composite Items - Assembly - Single Line Item Quantity of One

  Hi Zoho Inventory Team, Please consider relaxing the system rules which prevent an assembly items from consisting of a single line item and outputting a quantity of 1. A client I'm currently working with sells cosmetics and offers testers of their products

• Directly Edit, Filter, and Sort Subforms on the Details Page

  Hello everyone, As you know, subforms allow you to associate multiple line items with a single record, greatly enhancing your data organization. For example, a sales order subform neatly lists all products, their quantities, amounts, and other relevant

• BARCODE PICKLIST

  Hello! Does anyone know how the Picklist module works? I tried scanning the barcode using the UPC and EAN codes I added to the item, but it doesn’t work. Which barcode format does this module use for scanning?

• Zoho Inventory - Allow Update of Marketplace Generated Sales Orders via API

  Hi Inventory Team, I was recently asked by a client to create an automation which updated a Zoho Inventory Sales Order if a Shopify Order was updated. I have created the script but I found that the request is blocked as the Sales Order was generated by

• How do I create an update to the Cost Price from landed costs?

  Hi fellow Zoho Inventory battlers, I am new to Zoho inventory and was completely baffled to find that the cost price of products does not update when a new purchase order is received. The cost price is just made up numbers I start with when the product

• Manage control over Microsoft Office 365 integrations with profile-based sync permissions

  Greetings all, Previously, all users in Zoho CRM had access to enable Microsoft integrations (Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks) in their accounts, regardless of their profile type. Users with administrator profiles can now manage profile-based permissions

• Zoho OAuth Connector Deprecation and Its Impact on Zoho Desk

  Hello everyone, Zoho believes in continuously refining its integrations to uphold the highest standards of security, reliability, and compliance. As part of this ongoing improvement, the Zoho OAuth default connector will be deprecated for all Zoho services

• VoC in Zoho CRM is now data savvy: Explore response drilldown, summary components and participation in CRM criteria

  VoC has all the goods when it comes to customer intelligence—which is why we're constantly enhancing it. We recently added the following: A customer drilldown component that shows you the list of prospects and customers behind a chart's attribute Expanded

• How do I bulk archive my projects in ZOHO projects

  Hi, I want to archive 50 Projects in one go. Can you please help me out , How can I do this? Thanks kapil

• Error 0x800CCC0F Outlook

  Hello, i cannot send or receive email in outlook. can you please help. 'Sending' reported error (0x800CCC0F) : 'The connection to the server was interrupted. If this problem continues, contact your server administrator or Internet service provider (ISP).'

• Passing the CRM

  Hi, I am hoping someone can help. I have a zoho form that has a CRM lookup field. I was hoping to send this to my publicly to clients via a text message and the form then attaches the signed form back to the custom module. This work absolutely fine when

• Can I add Conditional merge tags on my Templates?

  Hi I was wondering if I can use Conditional Mail Merge tags inside my Email templates/Quotes etc within the CRM? In spanish and in our business we use gender and academic degree salutations , ie: Dr., Dra., Sr., Srta., so the beginning of an email / letter

• Zoho vault instal on windows

  I am trying to use Zoho Vault Desktop for Windows, but I am unable to complete the sign-in process. Problem description After logging in to my Zoho account and clicking Accept on the authorization page, nothing happens. The application does not proceed

• Zoho Browser??

  hai guys, this sounds awkward but can v get a ZOHO BROWSER same as zoho writer, etc. where i can browse websites @ home and continue browsing the same websites @ my office, as v have the option in Firefox, once i save and close the browser and again when i open it i will be getting the same sites. If u people r not clear with my explanation, plz let me know. Thanks, Sandeep  

• Let’s Talk Recruit: LinkedIn Cheatsheet

  Welcome to the first edition of Let’s Talk Recruit for 2026. We are kicking off the year by revisiting one of the most asked about topics in Zoho Recruit. How our LinkedIn integrations actually work and how recruiters can get the most value from them.

• Zoho Forms API

  Is there any way to get all form entry list using API? Looking forward to hear from you

• Next Page