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Update your Account Engagement sending domains to prepare for 2024 email platform changes

Publish Date: May 3, 2024
Description
Email platforms Gmail and Yahoo recently announced upcoming changes to their spam prevention methods. These changes bring new email sending domain requirements for bulk email senders. Update your sending domain with a verified DKIM record to help marketers keep emails out of the spam filter and follow email deliverability best practices.

You can read more about these email platform changes in the resources below:
A verified email sending domain in Account Engagement is already required in order to send emails from this domain. Sending domains with a verified DKIM record were pre-verified without using the new email sending domain validation key method. However, customers that didn’t have a verified DKIM record on their email sending domain(s) should consider taking action to verify their DKIM record now to prepare for the upcoming email platform changes.

Account Engagement doesn't currently require a verified DKIM record to send emails from the email sending domain. But because of upcoming email platform changes, we strongly encourage that all email sending domains also have a verified DKIM record. This will help keep your emails out of the spam filter and aligns with email deliverability best practices.
Resolution
The three main impacts to Account Engagement are related to 1) email sending domain authentication, 2) one-click unsubscribe, and 3) spam rates.

1) Domain Authentication
According to joint statements by Gmail and Yahoo, both companies are concerned about the security and protection of their users and are expecting proper domain authentication to be in place.

What does this mean for you
Some email sending domains don't have a verified DKIM record under Domain Management, but are still verified and usable for email sending. These domains will not be considered fully authenticated to meet the upcoming email platform updates.

Suggested action
Configure both the email sending domain validation key and DKIM for your Account Engagement email sending domain(s). More about how to do that can be found here.

Account Engagement still recommends setting up an SPF statement for your own business needs. More about that can be found here. 

Support is unable to assist with the set-up of DMARC because the configuration of DMARC exists outside of Account Engagement. However, DMARC does work with Account Engagement out-of-the-box. We strongly recommend working with our Support team to configure a custom return-path for full domain alignment, which can strengthen an existing DMARC policy. More on Account Engagement and DMARC can be found here. 

Note: Customers using a 2048-bit key DKIM won’t see their email sending domain DKIM verified in Account Engagement even though it may be present in your DNS records.

2) One-Click Unsubscribe
Gmail and Yahoo have stated that unsubscribing should be easy and timely.

What does this mean for you
All unsubscribes should be processed within a two-day timeframe and senders are encouraged to make that process a single click.

Suggestion
All Account Engagement emails contain a list-unsubscribe header that is automatically added for our customers, which provides a one-click unsubscribe option for the recipient server and fulfills the Gmail/Yahoo requirement. We also require including the Unsubscribe link or Email Preference Center link in all marketing emails. This Unsubscribe link can use the two-click functionality mentioned here since the list-unsubscribe header fulfills the one-click requirement, and will result in immediate opt out. Unsubscribes performed via either the Unsubscribe link or the Email Preference Center will also result in an immediate opt out and automatic suppression within Account Engagement.

You can continue to use the two-click unsubscribe method mentioned here for the unsubscribe page, as that does not impact the one-click unsubscribe we automatically insert into the email headers. You can continue to use a one-click or two-click unsubscribe page (linked to from the email body) dependent on your company's preferences.

3) Spam Rates
Gmail’s existing bulk sender rules advise senders to keep their spam output below 0.3 percent as a best practice.

What does this mean for you
Follow the suggested best practices to avoid problems with enforced complaint rates.

Suggestion
As always, we recommend focusing on your engaged subscriber segments (avoiding subscribers who haven't opened/clicked in 6+ months) and sending content that's relevant to your subscribers, based on their opt-in selections. This will minimize complaints and maximize ROI. More about spam complaints in Account Engagement can be found here. 

Learn more about these upcoming email platform changes by visiting the Salesforce blog post here.
Knowledge Article Number

000397141

 
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Salesforce Help | Article