Maximizing Email Deliverability

Navigating Google and Yahoo’s 2024 email delivery changes

The two major behemoths of personal email accounts—Google and Yahoo—have announced significant rule changes for email senders targeting their users. As of February 2024, all email senders must abide by the rules below:

Authenticate emails: Email senders need to authenticate their email using standard security protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC and use their unique custom domain

Enable simple unsubscribing: Email senders need to offer subscribers a one-click, unsubscribe option and process all unsubscribe requests within 2 days

Keep spam rates low: While the ideal spam rate is under 0.1%, the current threshold is 0.3%

As the two companies control over 48% of B2B email,¹ noncompliance isn’t an option. Ignoring the above guidelines could lead to any number of consequences, including: emails being blocked, flagged as spam, or rejected; a diminished sender reputation; or potential blacklisting of your domain or IP address.

Beyond the send button: elevate your email marketing strategy to a new level

Let’s face it—the above guidelines should be considered basic email etiquette. No one wants to open an inbox that’s cluttered with a high volume of generic, mass-marketed emails that don’t speak to our individual needs.

These new rules present a tremendous opportunity for marketers to re-commit to an enhanced email marketing strategy that emphasizes tailor-made (not Taylor-made, that topic is for another blog post) communications that meet users where they are on the customer journey.

6 email marketing best practices for every organization

Let’s discuss some proven email marketing strategies that help brands stand out from the crowd, enhance their perception, and achieve specific marketing and sales goals.

1. Personalization must be a priority
   • We don’t just mean using someone’s first name, although that’s a nice touch. AI-driven personalization provides a treasure trove of data on email subscriber behavior, preferences, and interests. Optimizing subject lines, content, and CTAs, along with analyzing user behavior in email and web data, are essential use cases to prioritize. These personalized insights can become the foundation for retargeting campaigns to support users in the customer journey and move them through the sales funnel.
2. Account-based marketing for high-value accounts
   • You need a separate marketing strategy that addresses the needs of your top accounts and top targets. Create segmented lists based on everything from engagement levels to purchase history, and tailor each message accordingly to their behavior.
3. Make your emails more interactive
   • Interactive emails have higher click-thru’s and lead generation rates²—which provides you with better data insights to target additional email messages with content that’s valuable for the user.
4. Sell more with retargeting
   • From abandoned cart emails to cross-selling, to reengaging clients who have been inactive for a period of time, a robust retargeting strategy should be a cornerstone of any email marketing program.
5. Provide value
   • 59% of B2B marketers cite email as a top channel for sales.³ Even so, don’t lose sight of the fact that at the end of the day, a goal for every business should be to provide value to the audience to keep them engaged and loyal to your brand. Create space in your email marketing program to educate loyal customers on industry trends, what’s going on in your business, and to stay connected even when there isn’t a direct sale to push.
6. Deliver relevant content that aligns to the user’s journey
   • Understanding the needs of customers at each stage—and then creating content that aligns accordingly—is crucial. While email might be the primary channel, pull through consistent messaging and imagery into other deliverables, including social media and websites. Don’t overlook the importance of the landing page emails drive to. Design landing pages that continue the conversation from the email and align to customer personas and where a user is in the buyer’s journey.

Elevate your email marketing strategy

In our view, don’t consider the new email rules from Google and Yahoo as an obstacle to communicate with clients. Instead, take this opportunity to critically examine your email marketing strategy and identify areas for improvement. To have a successful email marketing campaign, you need to reach the right people, at the right time, with the right message. It takes continual data analysis and refinement to build and maintain a winning email marketing strategy.

So that’s where we come in. Here at The Simon Group, we’ve got a full team of pros that geek out at data analysis, creating customer personas and mapping them to customer journeys, and staying on top of design best practices to optimize CTA’s and increase click-thru rates.

If you’re looking for a partner who can navigate the ins and outs of strategic email marketing, send us an email to start the conversation.