Critical Changes To Email Requirements For Businesses - New Email Sending Rules From 1st February 2024

There are BIG changes coming up for email sending compliance and deliverability, and if you’re a business it is CRITICAL that you take action on this….

If you havn’t got these basic changes in place in your email settings before 1st February 2024, your emails are going to stop reaching people’s inboxes and go straight to spam….

Not only that, you could even get your domain ‘blacklisted’ by ESPs and never come back from the spam box again.

And note - if you are using Tekmatix, we set up ALL of this FOR you.

Here's a very simplified summary of the new email requirements effective from February 1st 2024:

*Disclaimer - this is not legal advice

Your Email Sending Domain Needs to Be ‘Authenticated’:

You will need to ensure that your sending domain has what’s called an ‘SPF (sender policy framework) or DKIM (Domainkeys Identified Mail)’ record added to the DNS (domain name system) that you bought your domain URL from.

These tell your recipients' inboxes that your server is authenticated/verified and therefore that you’re more trust worthy.

If you don’t have this by Feb 1st, your emails are going straight into the toilet.

Get Tekmatix, and we will take care of this for you on a quick zoom call.

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Set Up Your PTR Record:

Basically, a PTR (pointer) record is a bit like when you send a package in the mail to somebody, and put your own name and address on the back as the sender.

The recipient of that ‘strange’ package will see your name on the back and say ‘ah yes, I know that guy!’ and suddenly trust the package enough to open it, because they knew where it came from.

This is essentially what a ‘PTR' record does with your emails.

It tells the email recipients inbox that your sending IP address, matches your domain record, and therefore that you are real and your email is less likely to be a ‘dodgy package’ or spam mail.

Especially if sending bulk emails at over sending over 100,000 emails a month, it’s critical that you have set up a reverse DNS record (PTR) in or with your email service provider before 1st Feb.

Reduce Your Spam Complaint Rate:

When somebody presses the ‘report as spam’ button on one of your emails, your deliverability scorecard gets a black mark.

This is just part of business, but it is essential that you keep your spam complaint rate well under 0.3% or it could permanently damage your domain reputation.

At Tekmatix we monitor this FOR you so you don’t have to, and our system will automatically pause any of your campaigns that hit that rate to protect your domain sending reputation.

This gives you chance to edit your campaign, recipient segmentation, clean your list and then restart your campaign with your domain reputation still in tact.

Other ESPs (email service providers) don’t care about your domain health and will just let your campaigns run wild whilst your domain is getting smashed with reports behind the scenes and you’re none the wiser.

But not at Tekmatix, we care about your domain and your deliverability and we keep an eye on it all FOR you. We’ve got your back ❤️

Don’t Send From Gmail:

Send emails from your business domain, not personal Gmail accounts, to avoid being marked as spam.

Too many people have been using Gmail (and other personal email accounts) to send business related emails and bulk emails, and the ESPs are cracking down HARD on this. ONLY use personal email accounts for sending one off emails and NEVER for mass-mailing, or your deliverability WILL take a severe hit.

Buy your own domain, connect it to Google Workspace or Tekmatix (or both!) and send emails compliantly.

Set Up A DMARC Policy:

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) is an email validation system designed to protect your email domain from unauthorised use. Eg, if a hacker managed to somehow get access to your email domain and started sending mass scam emails to people, DMARC will automatically detect that the SPF, DKIM and PTR addresses are not all matching, and that therefore your domain might be compromised. Any mis-match can then trigger your domain to be ‘quarantined’ to protect your email domain reputation and your email recipients' security.

Set up a DMARC record with at least a 'none' policy, which helps control how your emails are handled if they're unauthorized or tampered with.

Your ‘From’ Email, Should Match Your Domain URL:

The email address you are sending emails from MUST be the same domain as the domain in your SPF/DKIM records, especially if sending more than 5000 emails per day.

Eg, our domain URL is tekmatix.com.

When we send you an email, it says that it is ‘From’ [email protected] in your inbox.

The ‘From’ email domain is matching the domain URL in the DNS.

This alignment shows email providers like Gmail or Yahoo that your emails are legitimately from your business, which helps prevent them from being marked as spam.

If you don’t do this, ESPs will start blocking your emails from 1st Feb.

Add a REALLY OBVIOUS One-Click Unsubscribe:

This is already an absolute compliance MUST.

If you don’t yet have an ‘UNSUBSCRIBE’ button on all of your bulk emails, you are already breaking the law and could face severe penalties.

Adding a really clear unsubscribe link or button is a vital ‘must have’ for your compliance, and for your user experience.

Making it more obvious for your recipients to unsubscribe, also means you’ll get less of them pressing that dreaded ‘report as spam’ button.

We Can Take Care of It FOR You

ALL of these these steps are a necessity for ensuring your emails reach your audience and comply with the new requirements.

I know all of this is very ‘techy’, but if you have an email service provider who cares about you, your business and your domain reputation - like we do at Tekmatix, then they should take care of this stuff for you.

And if you just want to hand all of this over to tekky pro’s who know what they’re doing, join Tekmatix, book your FREE onboarding call with one of our Teksperts and we will get it all set up and sorted for you on a zoom call.

We love your tech.

Get a free trial on Tekmatix here: https://www.tekmatix.com/

If you’re already using Tekmatix and would like our Teksperts to check your email settings are in order, book a FREE 15min support call here: https://www.tekmatix.com/support/

Happy Tekkin!

(PS, don’t forget to share this post with your business friends!)

*Note: This is not an exhaustive list of all of the many things you must be doing and have in place in order to run a compliant business. Please seek legal advice from a lawyer. This is general information only and is subject to change and geographical variations in regulation.