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

    • help me! the button "remove zoho ad" is not responding

      help me! the button "remove zoho ad" is not responding, kindly advice. please to check the follows : https://sitepreview-643549202.zohositescontent.com/previewsite https://sitebuilder-643549202.zohositescontent.com/builder thanks,best  regards
    • Zoho Forms API

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

      Does a completely free tier Zoho email still exists? If so why am I receiving email reminders that my account would expire in 2 days
    • Disable "skip to content" in Help Center

      Our users used to be able to press the tab button to skip between fields when submitting a new ticket in the help center. Now it pulls up the "skip to content" button in the top left corner. I know this is an accessibility feature, but is there any way
    • Mail Data Migration

      Hello Team, I have an issue with my organization mail data migration from Google to Zoho. We used Google Workspace before now but decided to change to Zoho to enjoy your service. I have successfully created an account and 1. Complete Domain verification
    • Prompting email addresses when sending an email

      Hi, I was just wondering if it was possible to disable the prompt / suggestion of email addresses when you begin typing an email address into the TO or CC box? Some of the email addresses that are being suggested are people that no longer require the
    • This is a HTML email and your email client software does not support HTML email!

      I have a small business, recently the email notification is coming like this to me, can anyone please help me? I am not so IT savvy -----=_NextPart_b4583c76c623900f59ad5b420c6da260 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_b4583c76c623900f59ad5b420c6da260_alt"
    • How to insert a ZohoUser in a subform field?

      I am building an new external web app that uses the ZohoCRM REST API (v8) to push data to Zoho. How do I use the ZohoCRM REST API to insert ZohoUsers into a subform field? I've tried several approaches and none of them have worked - inserting the ID as
    • Unable to receive emails

      Hello - I set up an email account for my domain. I can send emails but cannot receive them. I believe the issue might be with incorrect IMAP configuration (?) - but im not sure and cant find where this is on the platform. Im using Zoho hosting for the
    • Zoho Account delete function

      Hello Zoho support team The issue is as follows: Step1: Created an account community@bisonenergy.net Step2: Deleted this account. Step3: Created the new group mail using the same mail address, but the data already exists. So I have to change the name
    • help, 554 5.1.8 blocked

      got this blockade, i don't know why?
    • Not Receiving Emails from Gmail, but Other Providers Work Fine

      Hello, I'm experiencing an issue where my Zoho Mail account does not receive any emails sent from Gmail addresses. However, I can successfully receive emails from other providers such as Hotmail and Yahoo. There are no problems with sending emails—I'm
    • Basic String Search Not Possible in CRM Deluge – Feature Request or Workaround?

      Hi all, I’m trying to solve what should be a very basic automation task in Zoho CRM Deluge: Find the first 11-digit number anywhere in a string (specifically an email subject). In almost any programming language—even 1980s BASIC!—this is a trivial loop:
    • Reencaminhamento de e-mails.

      Boa tarde, gostaria de saber se tem a possibilidade de realizar o reencaminhamento de um e-mail especifico. Ex. Eu recebo alguns e-mails de um remetente e gostaria que o meu amigo de trabalho também recebesse esse e-mail, somente deste destinatário, é
    • Knowledge base articles is now available in the Zoho Desk mobile app!

      Hello all,   As a customer service agent, every day you might have to deal with many questions and issues reported by the users. With Knowledge Base, you can reduce the issue resolution life cycle for your organization.   We are delighted to announce that we have brought in support for 'Knowledge Base articles' in the Zoho Desk iOS mobile app.  This feature is already available for Android users.   KB articles are available to iOS users in the latest version of the app (v2.4.9). You can update the
    • Set Default Payment Method & Default account

      Hi, I would like to know how to set the default payment method and default bank account when recording payments in zoho books. At present we have to change these fields everytime we record a payment, which leads to potential error and as we have a very
    • More than one "Other" response in a Multiple Choice (Many Answers) question type?

      Is there a way to have more than one "Other (Please Specify)" with a short response as an option to a Multiple Choice (Many Answers) question? I understand there may be other ways, but I am looking for this way specifically as it would be best for the
    • Zoho Surveys

      Dear Zoho Support Team, I hope this message finds you well. I am writing to inquire about the availability and documentation for the Zoho Survey API. Background: I am currently working on a project that requires programmatic access to survey data and
    • Help Needed: Jira to Zoho Projects Migration — Tickets Imported as Unassigned & Comments Under Admin Name

      Hi Zoho Team and Community, We recently completed a migration from Jira to Zoho Projects using the official import method outlined in this Zoho Help Article. Issue Summary: We had already added all users to Zoho Projects before the migration, using the
    • Zoho Finance Estimate to Deal Attachment

      Hi, I'm trying to fetch estimate pdf from zoho books and upload it as deal attachment without success. any tips how to achieve this?
    • Journeys - how do i branch on contact call result

      Hi all. I want to branch based on the Call result field in contacts. Any idea how I can do this? Also what is the best way to have this condition checked at each step? Thanks!
    • The 3.1 biggest problems with Kiosk right now

      I can see a lot of promise in Kiosk, but it currently has limited functionality that makes it a bit of an ugly duckling. It's great at some things, but woeful at others, meaning people must rely on multiple tools within CRM for their business processes.
    • Perform custom actions from the Ticket interface using Buttons

      Hello everyone, We have introduced an option to add Buttons to the tickets, which will facilitate direct access to other applications, websites, allows execution of custom workflows, and more. Accessibility and visibility of buttons The buttons can be
    • Inserting a video from library in microsite

      Hello, We have uploaded videos in our space library. We created a new event and want to use the videos in our main page our microsite. It's possible to selected image from the library, but no videos. Only URL are accepted, but videos in library have no
    • UUIDs

      Has anyone coded a Universal Unique Identifier (UUID) generator in Deluge?
    • Create Tasks in arbitrary Zoho Project triggered from CRM [Zoho Projects]

      Community, hello What I'm trying to do is to create a Zoho Project when a Deal is created in CRM and then to be able to add tasks to this Project also from Zoho CRM with the trigger (Blueprint/ Workflow). I succeeded in creating Project using Zoho Flow,
    • Invalid Client - Client ID passed does not exist

      Hi, Daniel here. i try to generate an authorization code by following this page Authorization Request - Web Apps - OAuth | Zoho Accounts https://accounts.zoho.com/oauth/v2/auth?scope=ZohoCRM.users.ALL&client_id=1000.myclientid&response_type=code&access_type=offline&redirect_uri=https://localhost:7195/account/integrations/zoho/tokencallback
    • Generate Token v2 api using c# sdk

      Hello I am trying to generate a access token using c# sdk but fails every time.is there any sample code so that i can implement that code to insertleads in crm.  my use case is i want to insert and update lead in zoho crm. when user signup in my website i insert the detail of that user in crm using API v1. but V2 api is more confusing that API v1 . so please can anyone provide me a sample code of c# sdk to generate token and insert lead in crm. Or is there any way to achieve this without using c#
    • Upsert your missing data without affecting the historic logs

      Dear Customers, We hope you're well! Migrating your data from a legacy system to Zoho CRM is a critical operation as it deals with treasured data. In an unfortunate event, if you have missed to move your historical datasets, you have had to repeat the
    • Dashboard won't save, nor allow me to do a "save as"

      For some reason, one of my dashboards won't let me make any modifications to it and save?  I get the "do you want to save before closing?' and I say yes and the dialogue box just stays there.  I try to do a "save as" right after I open that dashboard and I get the dialogue box that seems to let me name the new dashboard, but it won't let me save.  The dialogue box just stays there unless I hit cancel or no. Can you please help? Jamie
    • Copying Files Between Modules

      Hi, I'm creating a Deluge script and I've hit a roadblock. I'm trying to copy files from one module (let’s call it Module A) into another one (Module B). Here’s what I’m doing: record = zoho.crm.getRecordById("Module_A", record_id); files_toCopy = record.get("Files_From_A");
    • Problem with scheduled report sending in Zoho Analytics

      Problem with scheduled report sending in Zoho Analytics. Reports are not sent due to size. How can I increase it?
    • 【Zohocreator】ログについて

      ワークフローのDelugeスクリプトのinfo関数が出力するログはどこから見れますか?
    • US military addresses

      When we have a client with a US military address having them fill in a form is a problem Zoho forms doesnt acommodate them correctly. It doesn't make sense for me to have to create a secondary data model for military addresses. I have placed some links
    • Introduction of Robotics Process Automation in Zoho products

      It will be great if Zoho can start advancing from automation to robotics process automation. For a start, it can be started with smart document understanding. Provide OCR engines Google cloud, Microsoft Azure Computer vision OCR, Microsoft OCR, Omnipage
    • Automation#34 : Automate Email threading for Ticket notification

      Hello Everyone, It's been a while since we've presented an automation. However, our community has been buzzing with ideas, use cases, and discussions with our community experts and Ask the Experts session. So, here we are again, presenting an automation
    • Zoho Sigma and Catalyst IPs for Whitelist

      Hi there, We are developing a series of integrations between Zoho CRM and Zoho Desk with an on-premises system for a customer and they have firewall rules to access their server, so they are requesting the list of IPs addresses for our backend calls,
    • 【開催報告】大阪 ユーザー交流会 2025/6/5 Zoho サービスを活用して業務をアップデート

      皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの中野です。 6/5(木)に、大阪 ユーザー交流会 を開催しました。本投稿では、その様子をお届けします。 当日の登壇資料などもこちらに共有しますので、参加できなかった皆さまもご参照ください。 (Zoho社員セッションの登壇資料については、8月に開催する福岡 ユーザー交流会の開催報告で共有予定です。) 今年初の開催となる大阪 ユーザー交流会では、akippa株式会社 内藤さんによるZoho CRM / Forms の事例セッションのほか、 「見込み客・顧客データの管理/活用方法」をテーマに、参加者同士でZohoサービス
    • Moving forward, can we change our reports to send record ID's by default?

      With the new policy of not including record ID's in reports, is there a way to default to including them in my reports as they used to be?
    • WhatsApp integration isn't very useful at all (no workflow support)

      We have set up WhatsApp through Business Messaging. It works, but there appears to be no workflow support for messages that are sent/received! Without being able to trigger a workflow when an inbound message is received, my colleagues would have to manually
    • Next Page