How to meet Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft's email sender requirements

This applies to all senders, not just bulk senders.

Don’t use Gmail or Yahoo email addresses in your friendly "from" address. If you are using @gmail.com or @yahoo in the “from” address of your emails, switch the "from" address over to a website domain you own.

In order to meet this requirement, you need an email address that includes your own site domain name. If you are a brand that is just starting out, you may not yet own your own domain. You can purchase your own domain from any domain registrar.

You will need your own website domain to complete the rest of the steps in this checklist.

Branded sending domains (also known as dedicated sending domains) give you better control over your sender reputation. They also improve your branding in the "from" address in the inbox by removing the sent “via klaviyomail.com” disclaimer. Branded sending domains are a great deliverability best practice, and are a requirement for bulk senders who regularly email Google and Yahoo recipients.

Just note that once your branded sending domain is enabled, you may need to gently warm your sending infrastructure for the next 2 – 4 weeks.

Need help? Follow our guide on setting up a branded sending domain.

Configure your DMARC policy

‍DMARC authentication is a protocol policy that servers use to make sure emails are coming from a legitimate sender. Brands use DMARC policies to protect the domain in their sender email address from unauthorized use by bad actors.

DMARC authentication is set up in your DNS provider (like GoDaddy or Cloudflare). If you do not already have a DMARC policy in place, configure a DMARC policy* on your root domain that contains the following:

v=DMARC1; p=none;‍

Recommended but not required: rua=mailto:dmarc-reports@yourbrand.com (set up a dedicated email inbox to receive DMARC status reports)

If you already have a DMARC policy in place, you do not need to make any changes to your p tag value. Just make sure you have an rua tag set up with a valid email address included in your policy. You also only need to configure DMARC on your root domain, you do not need to add an additional policy to your subdomain used for sending.

About DMARC reports

DMARC reports allow you to monitor the email messages sent using your domain, which can help protect you against spoofing and phishing. The rua tag tells inbox providers which email address to send DMARC status reports to.

While you don’t need to actively monitor this inbox right away, it is a best practice to have a dedicated email inbox where you collect DMARC reports so your security or compliance team can easily review them when necessary.

Currently, it is not a requirement from Gmail or Yahoo that senders must have an rua tag in their DMARC policy. But, setting this up now will help future-proof your policy since inbox providers will continue to tighten sender requirements over time.

Explore third-party tools that can help you update and manage your DMARC policy

• DMARCian
• ValiMail
• EasyDMARC

*Note that Klaviyo cannot set up DMARC policies on behalf of customers.

Your friendly “from” address (sometimes referred to by Google as your friendly “from” header) is what your subscribers see in their inbox as your brand’s email address.

In order to be DMARC compliant, the domain in your friendly “from” address must align with the root domain in your branded sending domain.

So, if your branded sending domain is called send.kvyodc.com, the root domain would be kvyodc.com. Therefore, using hello@kvyodc.com as your “from” address would be in alignment with the root domain.
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Avoid using your sending subdomain in your “from” address because you cannot configure an inbox for responses on this subdomain. In this example, you would avoid sending emails from info@send.kvyodc.com. Other subdomains that are not being used for sending are totally fine to use as your “from” address, like hello@notifications.kvyodc.com.

Be sure to double-check all friendly “from” addresses for alignment in your flow emails and campaigns.

To reiterate, if you are a bulk sender, you cannot use a shared sending domain and must have a branded sending domain.

One of the sender requirements is that every email must include a one-click unsubscribe link. The good news? Klaviyo is taking care of this for you. To help every user meet this new requirement, Klaviyo will automatically add a one-click unsubscribe link to the header of every email.

In this case, the term “header” refers to metadata within an email that contains information about the sender and message authentication. Klaviyo has a one-click list-unsubscribe functionality to this code on every message. One-click unsubscribe displays differently across email clients, but see the example from Gmail below for a visual of what this could look like to a recipient.

So your only action item? Audit all of your campaign templates and flow emails to ensure that you have an unsubscribe link somewhere in the body of your email (the footer is usually the most common). This unsubscribe link doesn’t have to be one-click, but it has to be clear and easily accessible.

This one is another requirement that goes for everybody, and has really always been a best practice for marketers. Low spam complaints are a key way to show inbox providers that you are a legitimate sender who follows deliverability best practices.

Visit the deliverability hub in Klaviyo to view your deliverability metrics, or try Google Postmaster Tools to monitor how your sending strategy aligns with Google's requirements.