Log in
Log in
mobile-logo

SEARCH THE KNOWLEDGE BASE

Yahoo Email Deliverability Guide

Table of contents

Email Deliverability

If you’re looking to improve your YNOT Mail delivery rates (aka “deliverability”) to Yahoo email boxes, you’re in the right place. Please check back often, we’ll be updating this section routinely as new and supplemental information arrives.

IMPORTANT: Yahoo has issued Rules that all senders MUST comply with in order to get avoid penalization, which likely will include your emails not getting delivered. Compliance is a shared responsibility. We document each of these Rules below, and tell you when something is Your Responsibility (these are denoted by the bold RED color font) versus when it’s something that YNOT Mail handles for your automatically. We do what we can to make compliance with Yahoo Rules automatic when possible, however some items involve DNS settings and use of best practices, and these will require your cooperation.

Yahoo Rules & Bulk Email Sender Requirements
 #

The following items are now marked as required by Yahoo, meaning if you fail in any of these required steps your ability to get your emails into the inboxes of your Yahoo-based subscribers will be impacted.

Yahoo announced in 2024 that compliance with these required sending practices will be enforced gradually throughout the year.

How can you assure that your YNOT Mail account will be in compliance for best Yahoo delivery results?

Yahoo Rule #1: Authenticate Your Mail #

Since you’re sending bulk emails with your account, Yahoo needs you to use all three of the standard email authentication methods with respect to your sending email domains. Those three are SPF, DKIM and DMARC, which all help email providers like Yahoo verify that incoming emails claiming to be coming from users at your domain name are in fact authorized to send emails from your domain name.

Your Responsibility #1: Setup SPF authentication records.
How: By updating your domain name’s DNS records. Read more here about SPF setup with YNOT Mail.

Our Comments: Setting up SPF (Sender Policy Framework) for your sending domain is an important step in email authentication. It helps to prevent spammers from successfully sending messages with forged “From” addresses using your domain, and it lets providers like Yahoo know that YNOT Mail servers are authorized to send emails from your domain name on your behalf.

Your Responsibility #2: Setup DKIM authentication records.
How: We’ll provide you with what you need, just contact us when ready. Read more here about DKIM setup with YNOT Mail.

Our Comments: DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is an email authentication method like SPF, but it’s designed not just to help prevent email spoofing, but also to ensure that the message content is not altered in transit. It allows the sender to attach a digital signature to emails, which recipient servers can verify using a public key published in the sender’s DNS records. This verification process helps to establish the email’s authenticity and improve overall email security and trustworthiness..

Your Responsibility #3: Publish a valid DMARC policy for your sending domains.
How: This involves updating DNS records, but should only be done once SPF and DKIM are setup. Read more here about DMARC setup with YNOT Mail.

Our Comments: DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) is yet another email authentication protocol, and this one also utilizes both SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) to determine the authenticity of an email message. It adds new ways for domain owners to protect their domain from unauthorized use, commonly known as email spoofing, by instructing email receivers on how to handle unauthenticated emails – either by quarantining, rejecting, or allowing them – and it also provides reports on email delivery status.

Yahoo Rule #2: Support easy unsubscribes #

This one’s straightforward: if a Yahoo user doesn’t want to receive your marketing emails, then Yahoo doesn’t want you to send them your marketing emails. Unwanted emails make the inbox experience less pleasant, and email account providers like Yahoo lose money dealing with massive volumes of unwanted email on their servers and moving through their networks.

So now they’re no longer asking you, they’re telling you: make it easy for people to unsubscribe to your email lists anytime they want, with as little hassle as possible.

You should want the same thing. While nobody wants to lose subscribers, you don’t want unwilling subscribers receiving your emails for a number of reasons. They’ll just cost you money with no conversions, generate spam complaints and lower your overall delivery rates — costing you even more money from lost business. Luckily it’s extremely easy to comply with Rule #2 if you’re using YNOT Mail.

Your Requirement #4: Add unsubscribe links to your emails.
How: When creating an email in YNOT Mail, copy/paste the below code and include it in your design.

%%unsubscribelink%%

Our Comments: When you include this tag in your email template or campaign content, YNOT Mail automatically converts it into a unique unsubscribe link for each recipient when the email is sent. This ensures that each recipient has a straightforward way to opt out of receiving further emails, which is not only a best practice but also a legal requirement in many places.

Here’s an example of how you might include it in your email HTML:

<p>If you no longer wish to receive our emails, you can unsubscribe at any time by clicking <a href="%%unsubscribelink%%">here</a>.</p>
You should test your email before sending it to your entire list to ensure that the unsubscribe link is working as-intended. For this, don’t use the “Preview Your Email Campaign” option that’s built into the  Campaign Editor, it won’t generate the unsubscribe link. Instead, create a list specifically for testing purposes, for example one with only your own email addresses on it. You can then send the campaign first to your test list.

It’s crucial to respect the unsubscribe requests from your recipients promptly and efficiently.

Yahoo Rule #3: Keep Spam Complaint Rates Low #

This one’s straight forward, you need to use practices that limit the number of spam complaints your mailings generate. What’s a low enough spam rate for Yahoo? They want your spam rates to be below 0.3%.

Practically speaking, what does that mean? It means that out of all the emails you send through YNOT Mail, less than 0.3% should be marked by either recipients or the email service provider as spam. Keeping your spam rates low suggests that the majority of the emails you’ve sent are well-received, relevant, and compliant with email best practices and standards. A low spam rate is crucial for maintaining a good sender reputation and ensuring high email deliverability rates.

Your Requirement #5: Keep your spam complaints low.
How: Be aware of best practices and use them on all your email campaigns.

Our Comments: There’s no specific to-do items here, other than read up on best practices when sending email campaigns. Make sure you don’t use bought lists, that you opt-in subscribers, email regularly, and make sure your subscribers know emails are from you. If you want to delve into this topic in a thorough way, check out the Sender Best Common Practices document produced by the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group.

Yahoo Rule #4: Valid DNS Records #

There must be valid forward and reverse DNS records for all IPs that send your email. This one’s easy, YNOT Mail takes care of  compliance with this rule for you, so you can focus your time elsewhere.

That’s all, so you can move on to Rule #5 below, or read on for some details on why proper reverse DNS is important when sending mass email campaigns.

Importance of Reverse DNS in Email Marketing #

  1. Spam Filtering: Many mail servers perform a reverse DNS lookup on the IP address of the incoming mail server. If the reverse DNS does not match the domain of the sending email address or is not set up, the email is more likely to be marked as spam.
  2. Email Server Reputation: A properly set reverse DNS for your mail server’s IP address is seen as a sign of a legitimate and well-configured email sender. This enhances your server’s reputation.
  3. Email Deliverability: ISPs and corporate email servers often use reverse DNS as part of their filtering process. Lack of proper reverse DNS setup can lead to your emails being blocked or sent to the spam/junk folder.
  4. Authentication and Trust: Reverse DNS adds a level of trust to the email exchange process, as it verifies that the sender is who they claim to be, reducing the likelihood of email fraud.

Yahoo Rule #5: Compliance with RFCs and CAN-SPAM #

Your email campaigns will need to adhere to RFCs 5321 and 5322. More good news here, YNOT Mail automatically takes care of the technical requirements for you, leaving you to focus on CAM-SPAM compliance specifically.

Your Requirement #6: Stay compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act.
How: Be aware of what CAN-SPAM requires of you, and comply where needed.

Our Comments: As with all legal matters that might impact your business, it’s always wise to consult with a competent attorney to ensure your business activities are properly complying with applicable laws. The information below is not legal advice, but can give you an overview of what CAN-SPAM requires.

If you feel like you’re up on CAN-SPAM and are fine letting us worry about applicable RFCs, then you can safely move on to review the ‘Additional Recommendations for Senders’ below, or read on if you want to know a little more about these requirements.

The CAN-SPAM Act sets the rules for commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial messages, and gives recipients the right to stop emails from being sent to them. Here’s a summary of what email marketers need to do to comply:

  1. Don’t Use False or Misleading Header Information. This relates to the “From,” the “To,” and the “Reply-To” addresses you use in your email campaigns, as well as the routing information. The originating domain name and email address you use must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message. In other words if you send an email from newsletter@mydomain.com then you should own mydomain.com and it should be easy to identify you or your business through that domain.
  2. Don’t Use Deceptive Subject Lines. The subject lines you use must accurately reflect the content of your messages. Easy enough? If you’re trying to sell on your dry cleaning service, don’t use a headline that tries to make people think they won the lottery so they’ll open your email.
  3. Identify the Message as an Ad. The law gives you a lot of leeway in how to do this, but you must disclose clearly and conspicuously that your message is an advertisement if it is, in fact, an advertisement.
  4. Tell Recipients Where You’re Located. Your message must include your valid physical postal address. This can be your current street address, or for a more private setup you can use either a post office box you’ve registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox you’ve registered with a commercial mail receiving agency established under Postal Service regulations.
  5. Tell Recipients How to Opt-Out of Receiving Future Email from You. Your message must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting email from you in the future. Craft the notice in a way that’s easy for an ordinary person to recognize, read, and understand. If you’ve complied with Yahoo Rule #2 above using a YNOT Mail unsubscribe code, then you have this requirement all handled as well.
  6. Honor Opt-Out Requests Promptly. Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your message. You must honor a recipient’s opt-out request within 10 business days. You can’t charge a fee, require the recipient to give any personally identifying information beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending a reply email or visiting a single page on an Internet website as a condition for honoring an opt-out request. If you’ve complied with Yahoo Rule #2 above using a YNOT Mail unsubscribe code, then you have this requirement all handled as well.
  7. Monitor What Others are Doing on Your Behalf. The law makes clear that even if you hire another company to handle your email marketing, you can’t contract away your legal responsibility to comply with the law. Both the company whose product is promoted in the message and the company that actually sends the message may be held legally responsible. This can be especially important to consider in affiliate and partner situations, as well as when outsourcing your email marketing to another firm to handle on your behalf.

Failure to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act can result in hefty fines, so it’s important for email marketers to understand and adhere to these guidelines.

Complying with RFCs 5321 and 5322 is about adhering to the established standards for email formatting and transmission on the Internet. These RFCs (Request for Comments) are documents that define the protocols and guidelines for internet technologies, including email. Let’s break down what each one covers:

RFC 5321 |  This one specifies the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), which is the standard protocol used for sending emails across the Internet. In practical terms, compliance with RFC 5321 involves:

  1. Correct Email Routing
  2. Proper SMTP Transactions
  3. Error Handling
  4. Validating Sender and Recipient Addresses
  5. Server Configuration and Security

RFC 5322  | This one concerns the Internet Message Format and defines the standard format for email messages (the structure of email messages themselves). Compliance with RFC 5322 means:

  1. Proper Email Headers
  2. Character Sets and Encoding
  3. Message Body Format
  4. Handling Attachments

For email marketers and anyone sending emails, complying with these RFCs means:

  • Reducing Spam Flags. Emails that don’t comply with these standards are more likely to be flagged as spam or rejected by email servers.
  • Enhancing Deliverability. Compliance ensures smoother passage through various spam filters and email validation checks, leading to better deliverability rates.
  • Maintaining Sender Reputation. Adherence to these standards is a part of maintaining a good sender reputation with ISPs and email services like Yahoo.

Essentially, complying with RFCs 5321 and 5322 is about ensuring that your email infrastructure and the emails themselves are correctly set up and formatted according to the widely accepted standards of the internet community. This compliance is crucial for effective and reliable email communication and, congratulations, if you’re using YNOT Mail then you already have this done.

Additional Recommendations for Senders from Yahoo: #

  • Send Desired Emails. Only send emails to users who have requested them, and respect the frequency of communication they expect. If you fail to honor this approach, it will show in the data and your deliverability rates will suffer.
  • Segregate Email Types. Use a dedicated platform like YNOT Mail for your marketing emails and an entirely different platform for your transactional emails. You don’t want to risk transactional emails getting confused by inbox providers as marketing emails, since the latter type generally has lower delivery rates.
  • Use Opt-In for Subscriptions: Confirm user subscriptions through opt-in emails only before you start emailing them regular content. This ensures someone else didn’t sign them up maliciously for your newsletters, and also will reduce the number of garbage subscribers impacting your campaign results. When they confirm, let them know what to expect from your email list; this will help with retention, engagement and lower spam complaints.
  • Remove Invalid Recipients: Actively manage your mailing list to remove invalid or inactive recipients. YNOT Mail will do some of this for you, however we’re happy to consult with you if you want additional ways to keep your lists clean. Sending to few invalid emails will enhance your deliverability rates with Yahoo, as well as other inbox providers.
  • Enroll in Complaint Feedback Loop (CFL). YNOT Mail has done this for you, so there’s nothing for you to do here. This is how we know when people click the spam button on your email campaigns, and it helps us ensure these people don’t accidentally get repeat emails from you thus clobbering your send reputation.
  • Secure Mail Servers. Yahoo recommends that all senders regularly update security patches and filter user-generated content. This is another process that YNOT Mail handles for you, so you can focus on marketing.
  • Control Outbound Email Flow. Another point for YNOT Mail, we monitor and control the number of messages we send per SMTP connection, handle automatic re-connection if needed, and ensure use of multiple connections is done with proper respect for Yahoo’s resources, so your emails don’t get blocked or lost.

Although this page was written to be specific to Yahoo’s published rules, all of these things will help increase deliverability with other inbox providers too, including Google’s Gmail, Microsoft’s Hotmail & Outlook, and Apple’s email services.

What are your feelings
Updated on January 13, 2024
Table of contents