As part of Google and Yahoo!’s Bulk Sender requirements, emailers are required to provide a clear mechanism that allows a recipient to unsubscribe their email address from the sender’s mail lists with a single click conforming to RFC-8058. One-click unsubscribe leverages the Email Header to provide a standardized approach including a secure URI for processing the unsubscribe request and a method to identify the recipient to unsubscribe. If the email is trusted (contains a valid DKIM signature), then the Inbox Provider will surface this unsubscribe mechanism to the recipient
Benefits to Recipients
Recipients get an easy way to reduce their unwanted email. They simply click on a link or button in their Inbox Provider’s UI and their email address is immediately unsubscribed from the campaign or they are taken directly to a page where they may select unsubscribe options.
Note: This RFC requires that there be no intermediary login pages or cookies to track the incoming request. They must go directly to an unsubscribe options page that includes a global unsubscribe option or be unsubscribed immediately with a confirmation page.
Benefits to Senders
Simplifying the unsubscribe process is actually very beneficial to senders. You improve the quality of the contacts in your email database and improve your email reputation. Removing low quality, poor performing email contacts allows you to focus your efforts on better prospects.
Improving your email reputation with major inbox providers is extremely important. Recipients that do not want your email have several options: ignore it, delete it, unsubscribe or mark it as spam. When an email is marked as spam, it impacts your reputation with that Inbox Provider. By making the unsubscribing process as easy as marking the email as spam, recipients are more likely to unsubscribe to your legitimate email rather than classify it as spam. A high rate of recipients marking your email as spam can classify all email from your domain as spam with an Inbox Provider..
Implementing 1-Click
Implementation of 1-Click Unsubscribe can be simple. Many bulk email service providers have their own Unsubscribe systems. These conform to CAN-SPAM and typically enable a simple single-click-to-unsubscribe mechanism that also meets the 1-Click requirements. Simply follow the instructions for using the unsubscribe setup in your chosen bulk email service and you should be covered. In addition, you will need to have a valid DKIM signature for email from this system.
If you are using more than one bulk email sending service or have other email sending services (Order Management, Customized Newsletters, etc), you may need to create your own 1-Click Unsubscribe system. To be RFC compliant, this mechanism must:
- Have a URI that does not require a login to reach
- Can accept a unique opaque identifier for the user/email and campaign.
- Unsubscribes automatically or provides a Global Unsubscribe option
You must then configure the headers of all outbound emails with the following parameters:
- List-Unsubscribe: The HTTPS URI the Inbox Provider will direct the recipient to including the unique opaque identifier.
- List-Unsubscribe-Post: List-Unsubscribe=One-Click
The email from these systems must also be DKIM compliant for the 1-Click Unsubscribe mechanism in the email header to be trusted.
How can MxToolbox Help?
Tools like MxToolbox Delivery Center provide deep insight into your DMARC, SPF and DKIM configurations allowing you to meet basic requirements for Bulk Senders. But, more importantly, our Inbox Placement feature will analyze your DKIM headers to ensure that they are 1-Click Compliant and tell you if your campaigns are being sent to the Spam/Junk folders or actually making it to inboxes, as well as which Inbox Provider(s) you are having trouble sending to.
MxToolbox is the Expert on email delivery. We offer a wide range of email delivery services, including a fully managed email delivery service, so be proactive now and take advantage of them before these Bulk Sender guidelines affect your email.