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Bulk Sender Guidelines for Marketing Cloud Engagement
Bulk mail senders must meet specific guidelines regarding message authentication, unsubscription flows, and spam rates. Failure to meet these guidelines can result in an IP or IP range being blocked or rejected. A customer who sends at least 5,000 messages per day is considered a bulk sender.
Domain Authentication
To protect end users, emails must be properly signed and authenticated. Emails must meet these authentication standards: Sender Policy Framework (SPF), DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), and Domain Message Authentication Reporting & Conformation (DMARC).
To meet this expectation:
- Purchase and configure the Salesforce Private Domain or Sender Authentication Page (SAP) solution before February 2024.
- Review your sending domains and ensure that they’re properly authenticated. Registered domains don’t meet authentication requirements. To verify that your domain is properly authenticated, you can use a third-party site, such as mail-tester.com or mailgenius.com.
One-Click Unsubscribe
All commercial emails must offer a one-click unsubscribe workflow. Additionally, you must process all unsubscribe requests within 2 days.
All Engagement emails with a commercial classification contain a list-unsubscribe header, which provides a one-click unsubscribe option for the recipient server.
Limited Spam Complaint Rates
As a bulk sender, keep your effective spam rate at or below 0.3%. To help meet this requirement, consider these steps.
- Send relevant content to only engaged subscriber segments.
- Follow opt-in best practices.
- Remove inactive Google accounts from your subscriber list. Messaging an inactive account increases your bounce rate.
For more guidance on deliverability best practices, see Email Deliverability and Email Deliverability Essentials (Trailhead).
See Also
- Knowledge Article: Bulk Sender Guidelines for Marketing Cloud Engagement: Addendum
- Knowledge Article: Marketing Cloud - Inactive Google Account Policy Update
- External: New Gmail protections for a safer, less spammy inbox
- External: More Secure, Less Spam: Enforcing Email Standards for a Better Experience
- External: Email Sender Guidelines (Gmail)
