What changed in 2024?
Google and Yahoo published sender requirements that took effect in February 2024 (Google Workspace Admin Help, "Email sender guidelines"). For anyone sending 5,000 or more messages a day to Gmail addresses, and in practice for anyone who wants reliable delivery, they require the sending domain to be authenticated with SPF and DKIM and to publish a DMARC record, a one-click unsubscribe in marketing email, and a spam complaint rate kept under 0.3 percent, with 0.1 percent the target. Mail that fails is delayed, sent to spam or rejected. Microsoft followed with the same three records for Outlook in 2025.
What are the three records?
They are lines of text you add at the company that manages your domain name, and your email tool writes them for you.
| Record | What it proves | In one line |
|---|---|---|
| SPF | Which servers are allowed to send email for your domain | "Mail from yourbusiness.com.au may come from Mailchimp's servers and Google's" |
| DKIM | That the email was not altered on the way, with a signature the receiver can check | "This message was signed by yourbusiness.com.au" |
| DMARC | What a receiver should do with mail that fails the first two, and where to send reports | "If it fails, quarantine it, and tell us" |
Mailchimp, Klaviyo and the other tools have a page called domain authentication or sending domain that shows the exact records and tells you when they are live. The common mistake is doing it for the email tool and forgetting the website's own forms and invoices, which send from the same domain through a different server and need to be in the SPF record too.
What does poor deliverability cost? (example figures)
A Townsville removalist sends a quote follow-up and a monthly email from a free Gmail address to 1,400 past customers and enquiries, with no records set up.
| Before: free address, no records | After: own domain, SPF, DKIM and DMARC, one-click unsubscribe | |
|---|---|---|
| Sent | 1,400 | 1,400 |
| Reached the inbox (Postmaster Tools and the tool's report) | About 900; the rest to spam or rejected | About 1,350 |
| Clicked | 21 | 44 |
| Jobs booked from the email | 2 | 5 |
| Revenue at $1,100 a job | $2,200 | $5,500 |
The email did not change. The list did not change. Five hundred more copies reached a person, and the owner's hour was worth two and a half times as much. The records took the web host's support desk fifteen minutes.
How do you check where your email lands?
Google's Postmaster Tools, free, shows your domain's reputation, spam rate and authentication results for mail sent to Gmail, which in Australia is most of a consumer list. Your email tool's report shows bounces and complaints per send. And the plainest test: send the campaign to your own Gmail and Outlook addresses first and see which folder it arrives in. A complaint rate creeping toward 0.3 percent is the early warning, and the usual cause is a list with people on it who never asked.
What does Cora do with deliverability?
CoraVision does not read your email tool, so deliverability is work you do in Mailchimp or Klaviyo with Mabel or Kai, their specialists in CoraVersity, talking you through the domain authentication page on your own screen when an email tactic is in your action plan. Once Google Analytics 4 is connected, CoraVision reads the visits and sales that arrive from email every night, which is where a deliverability fix shows up: more people reach the page, and the email channel's line on your numbers rises.
Questions
My emails go to spam for Gmail users. Where do I start?
With the three records. Open your email tool's domain authentication page and follow it: it gives you the SPF, DKIM and DMARC records to add at the company that hosts your domain name. Most small-business deliverability problems end there.
Does sending from a Gmail address hurt?
For a newsletter, yes. Gmail and Yahoo's 2024 rules expect bulk mail to come from a domain you control with the records set up, and a free address cannot carry them. Send from you@yourbusiness.com.au.
How many complaints are too many?
Google's line is a spam complaint rate under 0.3 percent, and it asks senders to stay under 0.1 percent. Three complaints per thousand emails puts you at the line. The fix is sending to people who asked, and an unsubscribe link that works in one click.