A Tactical List Management Guide for
Google & Yahoo's Email Policy Update
Video Transcript
Let's go ahead and get started. I'm gonna take care of a few Housekeeping items first before we dive in. So just so everyone knows, we will be sending out a recording and the slides. After the webinar.
So if you have to log off early, no worries. You will be getting, all the materials from this webinar afterwards. So don't worry about that. Also, if you have any questions, please feel free to put them into the question portion.
We will be reserving some time at the end of the webinar to answer any questions.
Okay. So let's go ahead and get started. I wanna introduce myself. My name is Natalie Slyman. I'm the content marketing manager at Benchmark Email.
And, Irene Martinez, she's our training manager. She's co hosting with me, and she's gonna pop on a little later. But today, we are discussing how to optimize deliverability. We're gonna offer a tactical list management guide for Google and Yahoo's email policy updates. So let's dive in.
Okay. So today, what we're going to be covering is, you know, how to understand these new email policies, a deep dive into list management.
Put it back to these policy changes.
And integrating policy changes with list management.
Okay.
So Understanding the new email policy is an overview of Google and yahoo's email policy updates. So this is a quick overview of what these policy updates will look like. They include authenticating your sending domain using SPF and DEC authentication, allowing for simple unsubscription and maintaining a rate of spam reports in Google Postmaster tools below a point one percent. So let's discuss the reason behind these changes.
Beginning on the first of February twenty twenty four, So coming up, Google and Yahoo will require all email senders both large and small to comply with these requirements. Just gonna list them again. Authenticating your sending domain names using SPF and D Kim authentication, allowing for simple unsubscription, maintaining spam report, spam reports in Google Post Master tools below point one percent. So SPF stands for sender policy framework and for domain keys identified male. Both are key email authentication methods used to combat spam and phishing by verifying the sender's identity and ensuring the integrity of the email content.
These policies are being put in place to improve mailbox protection against spam, fishing, and spoofing.
So what is this impact?
What is the impact for email marketers? So how will these updates affect email deliverability?
So there will be stricter email authentication.
If your emails, fail to properly authenticate using standards, including SPF, D Kim, and D Mark, There's a higher chance they'll be marked as spam or rejected entirely.
These policies make it essential for senders to correctly set up and maintain these authentication protocols.
There will be enhanced filtering algorithms. Both Google and Yahoo continuously update their filtering algorithms to better identify spam or malicious emails. If your emails resemble spam and content, sending patterns or lack of engagement, they may be filtered out reducing deliverability.
There will also be an increased focus on user engagement as a key metric. So these email providers are placing more emphasis on user engagement like open rates, click through rates, and how users interact with your email. To determine inbox placement. Emails that consistently engage users are more likely to be delivered.
And there will be penalties for noncompliance failing to comply with the updated policies can result in emails being blocked or sent to the spam folder directly affecting deliverability.
This makes it important for businesses to stay informed and adapt their email strategies accordingly.
Okay. So some serious stuff. Let's, we'll get into, you know, more about how marketers can adapt to those changes soon, but first, I want to discuss list management as this also plays a very big role in email deliverability.
Okay. So the importance of a clean and segmented email list.
This is crucial for email for effective email list maintenance for several reason reasons.
It improves deliverability. A clean email list, free from invalid or outdated addresses reduces bounce rates, high bounce rates can damage your sender reputation and lead to emails being filtered into spam.
It also leads to increased engagement So by segmenting your list, you can tailor content to different segments based on their interests, their behaviors, or their demographics.
This personalization typically leads to higher engagement rates as recipients find the content more relevant and valuable.
It can lead to a better sender reputation. So email service providers track how recipients interact with your emails. A clean and engaged list ensures more opens and clicks and fewer spam reports. So these positive interactions enhance your sender reputation and improving your and improve your overall deliverability.
And then it just ensures efficient resource use. Sending emails to a clean and segmented list ensures that you're not wasting resources on unengaged or non existent recipients.
This efficiency can lead to cost savings and better use of your marketing efforts.
And that is not all. There's a lot more benefits to this. So, you're gonna get some accurate metrics and analysis. So with that clean segmented list, you're gonna really see how your emails are actually performing. This clarity is crucial for assessing the effectiveness of your email campaigns and making informed decisions. So if you really know how your email emails are performing, you're able to determine what's working and what isn't.
It's also compliance with regulation. So loss such as the GDPR and Can spam require businesses to obtain consent from their recipients.
And allow them to opt out of communication. So a team list ensures compliance with these regulations and reduces the risk of legal penalties.
This can also lead to reduced spam complaints. So by targeting only those who are interested and have opted in, you minimize the risk of recipients marking your emails as spam, which can seriously harm your sender reputation.
And then it just, you know, enhances the customer experience.
When, you know, people receive personalized emails, they're gonna they're gonna be more likely to feel valued and understood.
This is gonna just know, strengthen their loyalty and connection to your brand because you're sending them content they actually want to receive.
Okay.
So let's kind of dive into, like, the principles behind an effective, but the principles behind effective list management. So in order to practice this, you have to do the following. You have to regularly clean and update your list. So periodically remove inactive, invalid, or bounce email addresses.
By regularly updating your email list, it keeps it clean. It reduces bounce rates, and it improves deliverability.
Practice segmentation. I know we already mentioned this, but we're gonna say it again, and we're probably gonna say it one more time before they get at least one more time before this webinar is over. Make sure you're dividing your email list into smaller segments based on criteria like demographics, purchase history, engagement level, or interests.
Again, this just allows for more targeted relevant messaging.
And again, consent and compliance Just ensure that all your subscribers have explicitly opted in to receive your emails comply with regulations like GDPR can spam and other relevant and others relevant to your audience's location to avoid legal issues and maintain trust. So in order to obtain this consent, you're gonna wanna use email forms that have an opt in option, and we'll kind of discuss this a little bit later.
And then, you know, engagement tracking, you wanna make sure you're doing that. You wanna monitor how subscribers interact with your emails. So, yes, check things like open rate, click through rate. Unsubscribe rates, things like that, so that you can kind of gain an understanding of what content is resonating with your audience and what, you know, you need to do to refine your strategy.
And then obviously practice personalization.
So use the information that you have about your subscribers to personalize the emails you're sending to them. This can include, you know, using the recipient's name or referencing their previous interactions.
It's stuff like that that makes your subscribers feel like you know them and that, you know, you're sending something that is just specific to what they need.
And then there's more obviously. So let's discuss, you know, preference management. So this just means, you know, giving your subscribers control over their preferences.
So, like, how often they want to receive emails and what, you know, on what topics.
This respects their choices and can reduce unsubscribe rates. You may be wondering how you can do this. Well, a lot of this also just ties in with your email marketing practices. So if you can send surveys or, you know, ask them how in the sign up form, how often they wanna receive emails, things like that to kind of inform your strategy.
And then, you know, focus over quality, quality over quantity.
So it's nice to have a really large list, but engaged and interested subscribers are much more valuable than a number of disengaged ones. So just because you have a huge subscriber list doesn't mean you're just nailing email marketing if that subscriber list isn't engaged.
You know, definitely incorporate reengagement campaigns into your strategy. So that just means regularly reaching out to inactive subscribers with targeted reengagement campaigns.
And then, you know, if there's no response, consider removing them from your list.
It's, you know, you don't want to continuously email people who aren't responding or engaging because as we stated previously, that could damage your sender reputation.
And then practice AB testing.
So AB testing is, you know, just testing different aspects of your emails. So that's trying different subject lines, sending different kinds of content, playing around with sending times or, you know, testing out different CTAs or CTA language.
This is just to see what works best for your audience and, you know, helps you continuously optimize based on results.
Also consider incorporating feedback loops for analysis. So implement feedback mechanisms to understand why subscribers may opt out. And use this data to improve. How many times have you opted out of an email, only to be redirected to a page that asks you why you're opting out. That's what a, you know, feedback loop is. That kind of helps the people who are sending you emails determine what was the reason These people became disengaged or wanted to opt out, and maybe that's what we should do to change, you know, our strategy in the future.
Okay.
So now to the good stuff. To align with Google and Yahoo's email policy updates, marketers should should take specific steps that not only comply with the new regulations, but also optimize their email strategies for maximum effectiveness. So Here are some key, actions to consider to help you kind of adapt to these policy changes.
So we're gonna sound a little repetitive here, but it's all good. This is just gonna help you kind of really understand what you need to be doing.
So, you know, obviously ensure proper email authentication.
So implement and correctly configure SPF, decom, and D Mark, records. These authentication protocols are crucial for verifying your emails legitimacy.
So just so you and we're gonna we're gonna kind of dive into this and and Irene's gonna explain this a little bit later, but our team is currently working on ways for our users, to kind of implement this within our platform so that it makes it super easy.
Obviously maintain a clean email list. So, you know, use the tips we preview I previously mentioned, like regularly removing inactive subscribers and invalid email addresses and hard bounces from your email that will just ensure your list is super clean.
Enhance your email content and relevance. So, you know, make sure you're creating engaging quality content that is relevant to your audience. This includes sharing, you know, blog posts that are educational and, you know, gated content or white papers things that provide education and resource, so that, you know, the people receiving it will find them truly valuable.
And, you know, segment your email list. Like I mentioned, this is we were gonna talk about this again. So, you know, divide your email list into those more specific categories so that, you know, it makes personalization super easy.
And then, you know, check-in on your Sender reputation. So keep track of your sender score, which, you know, obviously reflects your reputation as an email sender. A good sender score improves the likelihood of your emails reaching the inbox.
Okay. Some more steps.
Include, you know, adopting a double opt in process. So, a double opt in process for new subscribers can ensure that they genuinely want to receive your emails. This process also helps in verifying the validity of the email address. So, you know, obviously your email sign up forms can have, you know, an opt in button, But another the double opt in process could include sending them an email just kind of verifying that they wanna continue receiving emails from you.
It's just kind of like really hammering home. Like, you are in this for the long haul. And then, you know, focus on user engagement. Again, just monitor those, email tricks and make sure, you know, if you notice anything dipping, you can kind of try and figure out what's going on there so that you can rectify that.
Test and optimize your email campaigns. You know, yeah. Again, use AB testing.
You know, don't just look at the obvious. Don't just look subject lines or the CTAs. You know, again, try sender times. Try, you know, certain days of the week. See what works for your audience so that you can really optimize on, you know, the strategies and approaches that you're using.
Really make sure You know, this is so important as more and more people are viewing their emails on mobile devices and, you know, devices other than computers. Your emails have to be responsive and they have to be accessible. So make sure, you know, they're easily read readable on all devices, including mobile. And pay attention to aspects like font size, button size, and overall layout.
And yeah, manage feedback and unsubscribes effectively. So make sure, you know, it's obviously very clear and easy for people to unsubscribe, but then make sure you really respect those unsubscribes and request promptly.
And yeah, feedback loops are great and, you know, they will help you figure out why people don't want to continue receiving your emails and just make sure you respond to all those complaints.
Then, lastly, educate and train your team. So it's great if you know these, you know, policies and and what to be doing, but, you know, you have a team helping you most likely. Or, you know, you at least have some other people that need to be aware of the of these changes. So just ensure everybody is involved, on the importance of these updates and you know how to comply with them.
Okay.
We discussed a lot and you might be wondering how, you know, where's the there's nitty grittyness to like actually, you know, putting these practices into place and there's, you know, things you need to do in order to ensure you're actually on the right track. The good news is a lot of email automation platforms out there can help you, including mark email. So, with benchmark email, you can have access to features that will help you maintain a clean and healthy email list so that your deliverability can stay strong and so that you don't have to kinda like get in the weeds with all of this. I'm gonna list a few of our capabilities, and, you know, some of features. We have obviously segmentation capabilities. So through our platform, you can segment your email list based on, you know, things like region, you know, other interests that that can help you maintain that personalized content approach.
We also have a feature called smart content, which is honestly wonderful.
A lot of people struggle with putting together email content, but with smart content, the struggle doesn't exist anymore. It's an our AI copywriting feature, and it kind of helps you get a fresh take on evergreen topics. You can use it to send personalized email content to your subscribers and keep engagement company. So basically smart content creates the content for you so that you don't need to, you know, kind of rack your brain and get writer's block on what to put down.
We also have a feature called smart sending.
And it automatically removes unengaged email addresses from your email sends. So you've you're only sending emails to your most engaged and interested subscribers.
Like we mentioned earlier, this is how you can maintain a clean list and improve your deliverability.
And you can always, send reengagement campaigns to those, unengaged subscribers in the future.
We also have a GDPR compliant form builder and landing page creator. So our, you know, our tool helps you create online forms and add them to your landing pages and website.
And, you know, our form builder ensures that your email sign up forms are opt in. So your subscribers know exactly what they're signing up for.
We also have a forms and surveys or I'm sorry, polls and surveys. So our tool, you know, helps you send polls and surveys to your subscribe to see what kind of content they want. How often they want to receive emails from you. You know, again, this just ensures they're happy with the frequency and the content so they're less likely to unsubscribe.
And we also have reporting. Our reporting feature shows you performance points like open rates, unsubscribe rates, and click rates, and more. Tap you can tap into these insights so you can be on top of how well your emails are aligning with your audience.
Okay. So I'm gonna have, I'm gonna pass it over to Irene now. She's gonna walk you through how benchmark email can help you maintain a clean list and, clean and organized list for optimal deliveries and to show you specific features within our platform. That you can just see just how well we're equipped to help you with these new changes. So Irene, I'm gonna let you take it away.
Hey, Natalie. Thank you so much. Hi, everyone. Am I read? And I'm gonna be going over just a few of the tools that we have on how to keep your list clean and how and how to keep segmented as well as how to personalize them up your emails. So, at the end of this case, feel free to ask any questions. I don't do my best to answer those for you.
Sharing my screen.
Natalie, can you guys see my screen?
Yeah. It looks great, Irene. It's all good.
Alright. So let's go ahead and get started. So the first tool that I wanna go over with you is how to keep your list clean.
Now there are a number of ways that you can do this in benchmark, but one of the easier ways or features that we have is gonna be the clean, list feature. And you can find this feature in the contact list dashboard under whatever list you want it clean. So let's head over there now. I'm gonna go to the list dashboard and I'm gonna go ahead and open up a contact list that I have here.
In this area, we're gonna go over to the clean list feature. And here we're gonna have some options. So To maintain your list clean, you know, we want to remove any contacts who have hard bounce. The soft bounces, you don't have to necessarily remove right away because there is chance that they'll become active contacts again.
But the hard bounces you want to move and you also have the option to remove contacts who have not been engaging with your email. So for example here, we have contacts who have not opened in the last. And in this case, you can do five campaigns, ten, twenty, or thirty. I'm gonna choose five and it's only going to give me two contexts because this list isn't a list that I'm using frequently, but as you can see it is telling me that I had fifty two contacts that I have, two contacts have not been engaging with my list.
So there's two things I can do. One, I can create a list of those two people who are not engaging and just gonna keep that list to the side and then maybe target them again later on or I can just remove them from the list completely. Now if you're sure that you don't wanna email them again, then you can just hit remove. Those contacts will be gone completely from your account or you can select the create new list option.
So this is one of the ways that you can do that. And then when you save this, it's gonna create a new contact list for. So if you select the Korean new list, It's going to create a new contact list in the account under, monthly newsletter unopens and so on.
But another way that you're gonna do this is going to be, through either through the contact Sorry. It's gonna be either through the email report or through the segment option, but I'm gonna show you the report option. So from the email reports. Let's say that I wanna go look at this email that I sent.
I'm gonna open this up here. You can go to your email reports and then you're gonna see everything that you call that feeder. But if I click on my opens and I know that these are contacts who are interested in my email, I can either save as a list which this would give me a list of context to you know, I know are engaged. They want to receive my emails, but I can also switch this around and go to unopened and it's going to give me a list of contexts who are not opening and this is the second method that you can do and this is gonna be more specific to the latest email that you sent on removing contacts or created a list of them.
So then here you can select export to a file and this is gonna give you a file that you can download on your computer. And then you can if you wanna save these and then maybe exclude them later on, you can just reimport them. To the system and then that way you can have a list of contacts who didn't engage with this email. Now this is a little bit more work that you have to do so I do always recommend to use a clean list feature instead of the email report option, but it is another way that you can, segment contacts out And then the last way that you can do this is going to be with our targeted list feature. Now with the targeted list feature, you're also gonna be going into the contact dashboard but instead of opening up a specific list, you're gonna go to create a new list.
And then here you're gonna select targeted list and then you're gonna select your general and opens, or you can just do click focus, but the purpose of this one, we're trying to narrow down the engagement on the contact list. So we're gonna select the first one which is It's gonna look for everything, clicks, and opens. Whereas the click focus is only going to look for contacts who have clicked on links within your email.
Okay. So the next step here, we're gonna select the number. We're gonna select the email templates. I'm gonna select all four of these. Keep in mind these are a little bit older. It's gonna serve our purpose.
And now we're gonna select the engagement criteria.
The so here you could either do based on engagement so we can say I want to know anyone who's engaged with some or all of the emails and here it immediately switched to zero. So let's just do Some or all, and then I'm gonna switch from clicks to opens. And then here we're gonna see that I'm out of all of the emails that I sent and again your your list of emails can be completely different from mine. Actually, they will be. But so this number is gonna tell you that there's fourteen contacts who have engaged with all of the emails that you've sent and you can save it. Save this as a new list. Now you can also turn this around and say I wanna see everyone everyone who hasn't engaged with my con with my emails.
And then here it'll show you another result for the people who have it engaged Now this is one way that you can, you know, find or create a list of contacts who are not opening your emails, and then you can save this so that when you go to send out an email, you know that you should not send to these contacts specifically because they're not engaging.
Now I'm gonna stay on this topic and kind of move over into the next topic, which is how to create a segment of users who have clicked. As I mentioned earlier, the targeted list can help you create a list of contacts who are clicking on emails. So just the same way that we created list here and we said, okay, I wanna I wanna see a base on engagement.
I can also say the engagement type to be placed now. Keep in mind my emails are only for testing purposes, but if I had you know, let's say a hundred contacts who are interested who are clicking. I can still save this as a list and then target those customers later on you know, because they are engaging.
Now the next way that benchmark can help you on how to, you know, maintain a good clean list is also by you creating a custom field in those custom fields could be anything. So for example, I'm going to show you a list that I have outside of benchmark and in my contact list I have information such as items, purchase, or interest.
Now in benchmark, these are fields that we automatically give you. So you have to customize those.
So to do that, you're gonna go to any of the contact list that we have here or any of your lists.
You're gonna open that contact list and then you're gonna go over to the edit option.
And then you're gonna scroll down. So after you pass the middle name, all of these fields here that you see these are open to edit so you can change whatever you'd like. You know, it could be something completely different.
We do have extra fields that we recommend that you change just in case you wanna use these again later on. So I'm gonna scroll all the way to the end.
And then here we have some different fields. So for example, this extra three field, this is one that we give you so that if you wanna add your content. So I used the extra four and I changed it to item purchased and then I used extra five to change it to interest Now when I import my contact list, it is going to, detect that I have these two fields and it can automatically map that. So that's one way of you being able to edit the custom field now on how to use that.
There is a number of ways that you can use that, but let's move over to how to segment. So we created a custom field and now what do we do with that information?
So we're gonna go back into the contactless dashboard and here over on the left hand side, I wanna walk you through the segment area. So segments are good because they're gonna help you narrow down your contact list to people who are interested in specific topics or specific, you know, they made specific purchases.
Now in my contact list, I have, you know, hiking gear, riding gear, and what this is gonna be good or is when I send an email out, I can send out an email specifically to people who are interested in hiking and hiking information or they wanna know more about you know, the running gear that I have coming up. So let me show you how you can create a segment.
So we're gonna create a new segment here and then We're gonna select the contact list that we're working with. You can select multiple lists. So as long as those contact lists have the same field, and there's data in there. If you select multiple this and there's, you know, they don't have the same fields, then you're not gonna get a lot of information back. So just make sure that if you select multiple lists that they have the same fields in them.
We're gonna go down. We selected the monthly newsletter.
And let's title this. Let's look at my contact list of what I have. I'm gonna do Let's do backpack and hiking.
Let's see here.
Give it a name.
We're gonna go save in this.
Thank you some time to load here.
Okay. Now we're gonna select the criteria. So I know that a white contact list, I have a field titled item purchase, and I also have an interest. So let's first go with item purchase, and then I'm gonna do equals backpack.
And then I'm gonna add a second field because now I wanna target specific people who are interested in hiking, for example, and maybe they purchased a backpack.
So I'm gonna go to interest, add criteria, and then add in the data.
And then now it's telling me that there's eleven contacts that match this. So I, right now, it's already created a segment for me and it's ready to use when I send out an email. So let's now that I've showed you how create a segment, how to create a custom field. Let me show you how you can now send to this specific segment instead of sending to your entire contact list.
Okay. So we're gonna go over to the emails dashboard. And the whole reason why we're segmenting is because we're doing what we call consider personalization.
So personalization is more than just like, you know, the first name in the subject line. You can also personalize the type of content that you're sending to your specific contact list. So this is what we're gonna show you now. So here's an email that I have that I've created specifically for running gear. And I know that I created a segment for hiking, but I also have a segment specifically for people who are interested in renting or they first purchased running shoes, for example.
So we're gonna go here to this email and before I move into editing my email, I do wanna show you how you can personalize in the subject line. So here, if you notice I have, hey, and then I added a merge tag. So this merge tag here is just gonna say, Hey, I ring gear up for success check out our new Reading gear. This is one, you know, it's gonna give your recipients a first impression like, hey, they know my name And then this kinda creates a sense of trust, you know, just by including a a context first name in there. You necessarily don't have to do that, but you can if there is no first name in that a context information, then it's just going to say, Hey, it's not going to, you know, show the merge side that we see here, it's just gonna show, hey.
So let's go over now into the email editor and show you how you can take this a step further and personalize more.
So here's the email that I created earlier. And as you can see, we have Here. So this was something I copied over. I'm gonna go ahead and delete this so I can show you how to first.
Let's add a greeting to this email. So we're gonna go to more personal ways. Let's add a greeting and we're gonna say, dear Irene. So, dear first name, we'll hit insert If you wanna add a comma, you certainly can.
You just do your little back space there.
Yeah. So if you notice in the first line, I have ready to take some action. We've got you covered. And then there's also something here that says item purchased.
So in that line, I wanna say something along the lines. We've got the perfect whatever item they purchased to fuel your passion for, you know, whatever. So how to add this in here is good. It's going to pull whatever data you have in that contact list.
So let me remove this and show you how I added that here. Let's get that out.
We're gonna go to a personal ways and we're gonna go to contact details. So in the contact details, this email is already connected to the contact list that I created.
So I'm gonna do item purchased.
That's how I added that there. So when I send this email out and let's say I received it, it's going to tell me I have the perfect running shoes to fuel my passion. So this is another way that you can personalize the data that your customers are going to receive and of course it doesn't be related to retail. It can be anything. Any kind of data that you have in your contact list can be plugged in to the email.
So so far, we've created an email specifically for people who are interested in this, in let's say hiking or running and now we selected that contact list. We're only gonna send to them and we're now adding data specific to them as well. So let me hit save and close.
If you click on preview, it's going to show you what this email could look like. Now So in this case, it's pulling up a contact who has purchased the bathing suit. So I just have to go back and make sure that I'm selecting the right segment. And let me show you how to do that. But if you notice, it did pull up the correct name.
And we're going to now go to the next step, which would be the email checklist before you send the email out and you can select a contact list to send you. So right now it's selected all of my contacts but let's say I only want again to send to a specific group. So earlier I showed you how to create a segment And now you can see here. So all of these other all of these here are considered list and we also have the segments. You'll know it's a segment if it has this little lines here to the right and I'm gonna select the running segment and I'm going to uncheck the monthly newsletter. So what's going to happen when I send this email is only going to send to those eighteen people.
Another thing that some customers like to do is to school specific group. So let's say that I wanted to send to my entire list, but I didn't want to send to Let's say the running group. Right? So in this case, when I select this, it's going to exclude those people from the email Maybe they're not interested in the type of email content that I'm sending. So this is another way that you can personalize the type of content that you're sending again, not just what email content, but as far as, you know, a contact list that's gonna receive it.
Okay. So let me get out of this area and let's see here. So we showed you how to create the fields, the segment.
The subject line area, you know, how you could personalize this. And then now the last part I do wanna walk you through going to be, you know, that authentication information that Natalie mentioned. So with the coming, requirements for Gmail and Yahoo, you know, senders will need to be authenticated.
And right now, benchmark does have an option for customers to get the SPF and the DQIM records from within their accounts. You'll want a feature that's also coming is going to be to give you the Deepark records that you can use or the demark policy that you can use and add again to your DNS system.
So from your account settings, you're gonna wanna go to domain authentication And this account that I'm in is actually gonna give you a preview of what is to come. This is currently not available in all of the benchmark accounts. Right now, you can only see two records and that's going to be the SPF in the DKM record, which here we go. So you can disregard this page. It's only for testing, but this will give you a sense of what it's going to look like again. So right now in your account, you have access to the SPF and to the DKM record. One that we aren't bringing along is going to be the teamwork record which, in order for you to be completely authenticated, you're gonna need to have all three added to your domain system.
Some customers may not need to add Dmart because they might already have this in place But if you don't have it in place, you need to have at least a p value.
And you can, you know, you can start doing that now. If you have questions with that, you know, feel free to contact us, but this is gonna be released to customers within the coming days and you'll be able to come again to the account settings go to domain authentication.
And when you open this, if you have all green check marks, then great. If you have some that are red, then you're gonna wanna sure that you go to your DNS.
Open that up and, you know, add the correct records to your account. If you have a green check mark, you can disregard this one. You don't have to add anything. This is us, you know, checking on the back end. Does this domain have a demark record If it does, we're telling you that you're good. You don't have to do anything. But if it's a, a red, cross or an x there, then you'll you will have to add domain authentication for that.
But that is it with domain authentication. Again, if you don't have this, you're not gonna be able still will be able to send, but you're not gonna have the best deliverability results. So we recommend that all customers, you know, it doesn't matter how small or big contact list is, you definitely wanna get this in place before February first.
Yeah. That is it for me, Natalie.
Okay.
Let me, share my screen now. Okay.
So We wanna get to the thank you so much Irene First and foremost. That was wonderful. We wanna get to the question portion We actually had a few questions that I already went ahead and answered, but I'm gonna bring them up because they might help other people that have maybe something similar.
Okay.
So let's see here.
Okay. Someone asked, some of my best customers show up as not engaged, not because they are not interested, but because they are not receiving my emails. When I asked, some tell me they didn't receive it while others say they found it in their spam. So I'm not sure how to deal with these.
So, yeah, so that's actually a very good, question. And a lot of the, you know, the tips that we shared today should definitely help it so that your future emails will not go to spam. But if this is happening, make sure you ask anyone who's received your email and wants to continue receiving your email, but they say they found it in their spam folder. To make sure they move those from their spam folder.
So, you know, not marking those as spam because that will ensure that in the future, that will stop continuing to happen. And also obviously sharing, or implementing all the tactics we've shared today will help you kind of improve over time and make sure that those emails aren't continuing to go to spam.
I'm not actually sure about this question.
It's Florence asks what if we are sending communication to our internal employees is domain authentic authentication required. And I believe, yes, I think that domain authentication is I mean, it Obviously, it it kinda depends on the service provider you're using. But if it's Gmail or Yahoo, I would say yes. It is gonna matters. So you're gonna wanna make sure that and I think that this is gonna just kind of be a trend moving forward that it's just gonna be good practice to make sure that you have, domain authentication. So I would say yes.
But that pretty much, is it for all the questions we have today. I wanna thank everyone for joining us. And I also wanna make sure everyone knows we're gonna be sending out again, the recording, the slides, and I'm gonna also, you know, send some resources for you guys, including our sign up for free. Options.
So if you liked what Irene had to say, you wanna make this easy for yourself, make sure you sign up for a benchmark email. You can do so for free. And we can help, you know, ensure that your deliverability stays high by the features that we've mentioned. And, you know, our platform does really take guess we're kind of it.
So thanks again to everyone for joining us. Thank you Irene, and, me on the lookout for an email either today or tomorrow with all the resources from this webinar.
So thanks everyone, and, have great rest of your day. Bye bye.