Today I offer up a recap of recent deliverability news, as my travels last week to the Email Sender and Provider (ESPC) meeting in Washington DC left me with little time to queue up tons of new blog content. (Things should return to normal here soon.)
I had a great time seeing folks and presenting at this one-day mini conference, where we focused on challenges related to email deliverability, email authentication and email marketing. My presentation was specifically on the current state of BIMI and Google's new support for Common Mark Certificates (CMCs), and of course, answering a lot of questions about Apple Business Connect's new logo functionality, and I also spent a lot of time talking through the challenges around driving broader adoption of DMARC to better protect the email ecosystem against phishing and spoofing.
Thank you to everyone involved at ESPC, and in particular, thank you Reed Freeman, Gene Gusman, and Tara Natanson for inviting me to collaborate and present.
Let's recap what's going on at the big end of the mailbox provider space, shall we?
Thank you to everyone involved at ESPC, and in particular, thank you Reed Freeman, Gene Gusman, and Tara Natanson for inviting me to collaborate and present.
Let's recap what's going on at the big end of the mailbox provider space, shall we?
What's going on at Gmail?
Google recently announced changes to their support for BIMI logos. For your Brand Identifiers for Message Identification (BIMI) logo to display in Gmail inboxes previously, you were required to purchase a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC), and you were also required to have a trademarked logo; verified as part of that certificate purchase process.
Google recently announced changes to their support for BIMI logos. For your Brand Identifiers for Message Identification (BIMI) logo to display in Gmail inboxes previously, you were required to purchase a Verified Mark Certificate (VMC), and you were also required to have a trademarked logo; verified as part of that certificate purchase process.
Google's announcement indicates that Gmail will now show logos that have either a VMC associated with them, or a Common Mark Certificate (CMC), a different type of certification that is a bit easier to get in that your logo does not need to be trademarked; it only needs to be verifiably in use for at least a year.
Read more about Google's new support for CMCs here.
Read more about Google's new support for CMCs here.
Also, I sat down recently with Dan Oshinsky of Inbox Collective and we had a fine chat about BIMI, CMC vs VMC, how CMC support opens BIMI up to more senders, but still could contain hurdles for some newsletter senders (including yours truly). He does a great job of putting it all into context for smaller senders.
What's going on at Apple?
Apple has made significant changes affecting Apple Mail as of late. The first relates to Apple Business Connect, an existing program (launched in 2023) to allow businesses to manage branding and detailed information. As part of a recent update, Apple's adding email sender logo support to Apple Business Connect. How does it work and how is it different from BIMI? Learn more about that here.
That's not the only big Apple change marketers will want to be aware of: There's also categories (aka a tabbed inbox) and A.I. summaries covering up pre-headers. The inbox experience for iCloud users in Apple Mail is beginning to change. Some of these changes will affect only users on iPhone 15 Pro (or newer) devices, requiring extra computing power for Apple Intelligence A.I. support, and it's also not entirely clear if some of these changes affect only users with iCloud inboxes, or if they'll touch any mail, from any mailbox provider, as it lands in Apple Mail. But here's what I do know so far.
Note that Apple Business Connect's support for sender logos does not mean that Apple has abandoned support for BIMI. Apple continues to support the BIMI logo standard.
What's going on at Yahoo?
Cable provider Cox has moved all of their consumer email inboxes over to Yahoo Mail; that means that Cox is now effectively a Yahoo email domain, if you pay attention to that sort of thing for segmentation or MTA configuration purposes. (Which reminds me, it's time for me to generate a new Yahoo domains list; stay tuned, that will come soon.)
Yahoo launched a new portal for senders to self-register and configure domains for the Yahoo CFL (Complaint Feedback Loop) aka feedback loop (FBL). If you have never registered your domains via this new portal, spam complaints (FBL reports) will have stopped flowing until you register. FBLs are a helpful feedback mechanism to help email send platforms and their customers identify which campaigns or customers are driving the highest complaint rates. Not all FBL feeds are free nowadays; Yahoo's CFL and Microsoft's JMRP are the two largest still-free ones and a good sender (or their email marketing platform) should be signed up for both of them.
What's going on at Apple?
Apple has made significant changes affecting Apple Mail as of late. The first relates to Apple Business Connect, an existing program (launched in 2023) to allow businesses to manage branding and detailed information. As part of a recent update, Apple's adding email sender logo support to Apple Business Connect. How does it work and how is it different from BIMI? Learn more about that here.
That's not the only big Apple change marketers will want to be aware of: There's also categories (aka a tabbed inbox) and A.I. summaries covering up pre-headers. The inbox experience for iCloud users in Apple Mail is beginning to change. Some of these changes will affect only users on iPhone 15 Pro (or newer) devices, requiring extra computing power for Apple Intelligence A.I. support, and it's also not entirely clear if some of these changes affect only users with iCloud inboxes, or if they'll touch any mail, from any mailbox provider, as it lands in Apple Mail. But here's what I do know so far.
Note that Apple Business Connect's support for sender logos does not mean that Apple has abandoned support for BIMI. Apple continues to support the BIMI logo standard.
What's going on at Yahoo?
Cable provider Cox has moved all of their consumer email inboxes over to Yahoo Mail; that means that Cox is now effectively a Yahoo email domain, if you pay attention to that sort of thing for segmentation or MTA configuration purposes. (Which reminds me, it's time for me to generate a new Yahoo domains list; stay tuned, that will come soon.)
Yahoo launched a new portal for senders to self-register and configure domains for the Yahoo CFL (Complaint Feedback Loop) aka feedback loop (FBL). If you have never registered your domains via this new portal, spam complaints (FBL reports) will have stopped flowing until you register. FBLs are a helpful feedback mechanism to help email send platforms and their customers identify which campaigns or customers are driving the highest complaint rates. Not all FBL feeds are free nowadays; Yahoo's CFL and Microsoft's JMRP are the two largest still-free ones and a good sender (or their email marketing platform) should be signed up for both of them.
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It was good seeing you too, and your session on BIMI was excellent!
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