Starting February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo will be implementing security changes aimed at preventing spam for those who send external bulk emails through third-party email marketing platforms. If you send bulk emails from a ‘newschool.edu’ account via a third-party email marketing platform (such as Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Emma, etc.), you will need to take action to prevent Google and Yahoo from blocking and filtering email traffic that does not meet the new requirements.

IMPORTANT

These new rules could have greater impacts on the entire New School community if New School accounts who bulk send external emails via a third-party platform do not take the appropriate action to adjust to these new rules. Please see below for next steps.

What’s Happening (in a Nutshell)

Google and Yahoo are implementing new requirements for bulk senders:

  1. Sender authentication - requires those who send significant volumes of email to strongly authenticate their emails following well-established best practices.
  2. Easy Unsubscribe - requires that large senders give Gmail and Yahoo recipients the ability to unsubscribe from commercial email in one click, and that they process unsubscription requests within two days.
  3. Lower Spam Rate Threshold - enforcement of a clear spam rate threshold that senders must stay under to ensure Gmail recipients aren’t bombarded with unwanted messages. The New School must stay under a 0.3% spam threshold. In other words, we need to ensure that no more than 0.3% of the emails we send as a university are marked as spam either by Google or Yahoo directly or by the recipients. 

What is Considered External Bulk or Large Volume Email?

Google and Yahoo define bulk emails as more than 5,000 messages a day from one domain or subdomain. For example, our university domain is ‘newschool.edu’ and all external emails (emails to accounts outside of @newschool.edu) sent from this domain in one day count towards the 5,000 messages limit placed by Google and Yahoo. 

What do I Need to Do?

IT has taken the initial steps to ensure our @newschool.edu domain meets these new rules. Those who use third-party email marketing platforms to send communications will need to take the additional steps outlined below to ensure that these new requirements do not cause a major impact on our university. 

Set up DKIM Email Domain Authentication with Your Vendor

To ensure proper authentication, we will need you to:

    1. Locate your vendor’s Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) documentation on email or domain authentication or reach out to your vendor directly for instructions. Instructions for handling sender authentication may vary from vendor to vendor. For example, Mailchimp provides these instructions.
      • While you may see reference to this in vendor documentation, changes to the New School Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record are neither a supported option nor necessary to meet authentication requirements.
    2. Submit a ticket to IT Central at itcentral@newschool.edu letting us know the vendor, if you are communicating to accounts outside of the @newschool.edu domain, and provide information from the provider of what New School IT needs to do to set up the DKIM record. 

      Follow Best Practices to Avoid Being Marked as Spam

      While we can’t control if external Google and Yahoo accounts mark emails from The New School as spam, there are some things that you can do as a sender to prevent this from happening.

      Provide Unsubscribe Button
      With Google and Yahoo’s new requirements, you must provide clear and easy unsubscribe options. Since Google will be requiring one-click unsubscribes starting June 2024, we recommend that you offer one-click unsubscribes. If not currently possible with the vendor you are using, we recommend that you work with your vendor to ensure that unsubscribing from your emails is as easy as possible for the recipient.

      If you are not using a third party email vendor but are still sending bulk emails to accounts outside of the @newschol.edu domain, make sure you include clear instructions for how someone can unsubscribe from future emails. 

      Quickly Honor Unsubscribe Requests
      Google and Yahoo require you to process unsubscribe requests within 2 days. Third-party vendors should have an automated way of doing this, but if you are concerned about the timeliness of this automation, please reach out to your vendor. If you are not using a third-party vendor, make sure you are taking the necessary steps to remove the accounts that have requested to be unsubscribed from the mailing list prior to sending your next email. 

      Avoid Clickbait

      • Don't mix different types of content in the same message. For example, don't include promotions in sales receipt messages.
      • Don't impersonate other domains or senders without permission. This practice is called spoofing, and Gmail may mark these messages as spam.
      • Don't mark internal messages as spam. This can negatively affect your domain's reputation, and future messages might be marked as spam.
      • Don't purchase email addresses from other companies.
      • Don't send messages to people who didn't sign up to receive messages from you. These recipients might mark your messages as spam, and future messages to these recipients will be marked as spam.
      • Avoid opt-in forms that are checked by default and that automatically subscribe users. Some countries and regions restrict automatic opt-in. Before you opt-in users automatically, check the laws in your region.

      Have questions?

      If you have any questions about these new requirements and how they may impact your ability to send bulk emails, please contact IT Central at itcentral@newschool.edu.