Comply with New Google Email Sending Requirements: What You Need to Know

Did you know Google and Yahoo are trying to make email safer? If you or your company have not read about the email security changes Google and Yahoo are implementing, now is a good time to learn about it. The changes will affect the deliverability of the emails your company sends, and any other service that sends from your company domain, like LoyaltyLoop, your CRM, your marketing automation tool, and others.

For reference, here are 3 great links from Google to pass along to your email administrators and teams who manage your company email: Original Google support post, Google Sender Guidelines, and Google Sender Guidelines FAQs.

Google and Yahoo will be enacting email authentication requirements for all senders to Gmail, Google Workspace, and Yahoo inboxes. Google Gmail inboxes are easily identifiable since they end @gmail.com, but Google Workspace are branded email addresses and not so easily identifiable. For example, our email service (@loyaltyloop.com) is Google Workspace. Since pretty much every company sends email at one time or another to a person with a Google or Yahoo inbox, you'll want to pay attention to these changes to ensure your company is in compliance.

To be compliant, your company will need to implement well-known, existing email security practices. In the past, these email security practices were recommended by Google, but now they will require and enforce them, starting gradually in February 2024 and increase during the year. Everyone except bad actors will benefit from these changes, as they're designed to make the entire email ecosystem safer, with less spam. Senders will now be required to have both SPF and DKIM records on your sending domain, and possibly a DMARC policy.

Relative to your LoyaltyLoop service, most customers have their service configured to send survey invitation emails and related service emails from an email address of a person at your company domain (e.g. mycompany.com). This makes your LoyaltyLoop emails more personal, relevant, and appear to the recipient like any other transactional email they might receive from your company. To ensure your sending domain used in LoyaltyLoop is in compliance, please instruct the person who manages your domain to confirm or update the following domain records as follows:

SPF Records

1. Add the following to your SPF record: "include:sendgrid.net", or add our sending IP address 168.245.62.234 if using an SPF flattening service.

2. Remove our legacy SPF entry from your SPF Record (unless used by a service other than LoyaltyLoop): "include:worldapp.com".

DKIM Records

3. Please email our Support Team (888-552-5667 option 3 or support@loyaltyloop.com) to request your domain's unique DKIM keys to add to your DKIM record.

DMARC Policy

Optional.Consult your email or IT professional. Consider adding a DMARC policy as follows: Host = "_dmarc.{yourdomain}, Value = "v=DMARC1; p=none;"

If you or your IT team have questions relative to this matter, please contact our Support Team (888-552-5667 option 3 or support@loyaltyloop.com). Don't delay. Take the steps required to ensure your emails continue to be delivered to Google and Yahoo inboxes.