Yahoo’s Marcel Becker is always a highly popular guest on Validity’s State of Email Live webinars, and his most recent appearance was no exception. Our audience benefitted from a treasure trove of expert insights and advice, and I’ve written up the best bits along with additional commentary to help readers make the most of these great learnings.
Our conversation covered key developments we’ve seen in the world of email in 2024, how senders should adapt, and what they can expect in 2025 and beyond.
What learnings and observations can be shared since Gmail/Yahoo’s new bulk sender requirements began in early 2024?
As a reminder, Gmail and Yahoo’s new policies required senders to implement a DMARC record, provide one-click list unsubscribe functionality, and maintain spam complaint rates below a maximum of 0.3 percent. Since these requirements became mandatory, Yahoo has seen an amazing 70 percent increase in the use of authentication and a 50 percent uplift in observance of published best practices.
Marcel is delighted with these results and emphasizes the new requirements were never intended as a “tax” on senders. Rather, his priority is the inbox users, and these measures help ensure they only receive emails they want. In turn, senders benefit from increased subscriber trust and engagement.
Can senders expect more new requirements in the future?
The short answer is, almost certainly.
Marcel is particularly focused on DMARC. While adoption has significantly increased for bulk senders, most have implemented a policy of “none” (p=none).
Scammers have quickly identified this as a sign of weakness because it suggests these programs aren’t monitoring their DMARC data for threats. It’s only a matter of time before senders are required to use stronger “quarantine” or “reject” policies, and proactive senders should prepare now.
In addition to strengthened security, senders can also implement Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI), for greater recognition and trust for their emails.
What other industry developments caught Marcel’s eye this year?
We talked about the increased use of Gmail annotations, as well as Apple’s raft of Q3 announcements, including tabbed inboxes for Apple Mail users, the rollout of Apple Intelligence, and the introduction of Apple Branded Mail. With a twinkle in his eye, Marcel said he was delighted to see the competition catching up!
He has a point—in mid-2024, Yahoo introduced a set of inbox updates that included AI-powered summaries, quick action buttons, a starred view panel, and the ability to link to other accounts. Email marketers also benefitted from the release of Yahoo’s new sender hub dashboard, providing users with a complaints feedback loop (FBL) management, promotions and schema functionality (like annotations), accelerated mobile pages (AMP), and tools to implement and manage BIMI.
Speaking as a major mailbox provider, what deliverability guidance does Marcel have for senders during high-volume periods like Black Friday?
Again, it comes down to ensuring inbox owners only receive emails they want. Observing the new bulk sender requirements is an essential starting point, but there is also a broader set of best practices which—if followed—will all help achieve better deliverability.
Marcel emphasized the importance of transparency—being clear with new subscribers about exactly what they are signing up for when they opt into an email program—then delivering on that commitment.
He also stressed the importance of avoiding top-of-hour sends (we’ve heard this from Microsoft and Orange, too). He’s previously shown how ±70 percent of inbound email volume happens during the first ten minutes of each hour. This creates processing and capacity challenges for all major MBPs (not just Yahoo!) which in turn means degraded throughput and deliverability for senders.
Audience responses: Insights on 2024 trends
Marcel’s insights were invaluable, but we also like to ask our webinar audience to participate in the conversation. As you’ll see, their responses didn’t always align with our expectations!
How have your email program’s inbox placement rates (IPRs) trended this year?
The response from our audience showed a fairly even split between “Improving” (29 percent), “Flat” (30 percent), and “Declining” (24 percent).
This may mirror the adoption of the new Gmail/Yahoo bulk sender requirements, which mandate an established set of best practices: Programs that proactively adopted the new requirements benefitted from improved IPRs. Those who were slow to adapt or are struggling to maintain compliance (see next point), haven’t.
The level of “Don’t Know” responses (18 percent) was eye-opening, but most came from non-Validity customers, reinforcing the old maxim of “can’t measure it, can’t manage it!”
What are your average spam complaint rates?
Only one-quarter of respondents (25 percent) were in the “Less than/equal to 0.1 percent” tier associated with best practice senders. A further two-fifths (43 percent) were in the “Greater than 0.1 percent/ less than 0.3 percent” band (the maximum level tolerated by Gmail/Yahoo). The remaining 33 percent that reported “Greater than 0.3 percent” or “Don’t know” was again, significant.
This was eye-opening for Marcel—he’s clear that any program running average complaint rates of >0.1 percent is likely already experiencing deliverability challenges.
How does your email sending volume change during Black Friday/Cyber Monday (BFCM) week compared with an average week?
Almost two-fifths of our audience (38 percent) said sending volumes increase during this pivotal weekend, and the same percentage said volumes stay flat. Another 14 percent said volumes decrease, echoing recent guidance from Orange’s Axelle Allouch to avoid sending during this period if your messaging is not BFCM-relevant.
As mentioned above, top-of-hour sends create capacity challenges for MBPs, meaning trusted senders (like those in Validity’s Sender Certification program!) are prioritized. Those with lower sender reputations will see increased throttling, spam placement, and blocking during these periods.
So many questions!
Our webinars are always popular, and we often receive more audience questions than we have time to answer. This one was no exception, so we’ve curated some common themes, and Validity Sr. Email Strategist Danielle Gallant and I have responded with our expert opinions.
How can you stop spam emails (that you did not send) sending from your email address?
This is the whole principle behind DMARC, which enables a sender to identify precisely the type of fraudulent activity described here. To prevent it from happening, senders should publish DMARC policies for their domains, ideally setting a “reject” policy.
Is there any downside (from a marketer’s perspective) in moving DMARC from p=none to p=quarantine or reject?
We don’t feel there is any downside. P=none generally only allows for visibility and reporting. P=quarantine and p=reject create a safer ecosystem from your program because they provide MBPs with specific instructions around what to do with fraudulent mail. Just ensure all your IPs and domains are properly authenticated and accounted for before making this change.
If transactional emails are sent on the same IP as commercial emails, does Yahoo treat the entire IP as a commercial send?
We’ve discussed this in a previous blog post. Both Yahoo (and Gmail) say they don’t have specific rules to identify promotional vs. transactional content, and messages aren’t automatically rejected if they don’t meet the one-click unsubscribe requirements. The use of unique subdomains is recommended to differentiate between these mailstreams.
Is the spike (seen in 2024) in email volume and spam complaints a matter of the 2024 US election cycle?
Almost certainly! The conversation about Black Friday volumes highlights the impact broader external factors can have on individual performance. Many Validity clients opted to pause campaigns immediately before/after the US election precisely because of this.
How do I see how many emails actually land in inboxes, how many go to junk, and how many are blocked?
That’s an easy one! Tools like Validity Everest provide insights into inbox and spam complaint rates across a broad range of MBPs and spam filters, while also revealing potential blocks. Validity Sender Certification users receive data from these partners everyday showing specifically how their emails were processed.
If you’ve got this far, hopefully we’ve whetted your appetite to listen to the full conversation.
Also, sign up here for our final edition of 2024, when we’ll be joined by a panel of industry experts to review the many disruptions to email in 2024 and teach senders how to turn these challenges into opportunities.