#2 - IOS 17 Updates + GMAIL/YAHOO New Sender Requirements

They say it takes 66 days for a new habit to form.

We’re done with week 1 of the newsletter, so that’s 66 - 7 = 59 days left to go before this newsletter starts chugging along smoothly? 🤔

Good morning/afternoon/evening to ya, and welcome to our second edition of “The Weekly Scoop w/ Chronos“.

I’m Miles, your designated driver for today. It’s been nearly 5 years since I’ve stepped foot into Chronos, and I drive (no pun intended) a lot of our client’s strategy as the Senior Client Strategy Manager.

Oh! And I’m also an avid baker, running my own micro bakery/café business, serving up freshly baked bread and third-wave coffee to our locals (some crookies I baked the other day below!)

And now onto business…

Gmail + Yahoo New Sender Requirements

Did you know that Gmail/Yahoo will be implementing new guidelines to ALL marketing senders?

If you’re a bulk sender (sending >5k emails daily), pay special attention. This will affect you more v.s. the non bulk senders.

Here’s a couple of changes we’ll be rolling out for our clients 👇

1) Setting up DMARC authentication for their sending domains
I’ve attached some Google specific guidelines here you can reference. Make sure you run a Litmus test to see if your DMARC is authenticated.

2) Align your ‘From:’ header with your domain
This means you need to switch to a dedicated sending domain, and that your domain in your from email ([email protected]) needs to match your actual domain (abcbrand.com).

3) Make unsubscribing easier
Stop hiding the unsubscribe button from your customers. If they want to, let them. We include a one step unsubscribe link in our footers, as well as an unsubscribe link in our message body.

This helps us in keeping spam rates low, which in turn protects our domain reputation.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
Please don’t implement these changes in the midst of Q4. Like we mentioned in our previous newsletter, you do not want to be testing/rolling out new changes during this period (unless you enjoy shortening your lifespan).

Apple IOS 17 Updates

Apple first drove owners/advertisers into a panic with IOS 14, turning off ‘God mode' that we’ve enjoyed since the early days of Facebook/META.

Gone were the days of ‘easy’ tracking/attribution, as we scrambled to get used to the ‘new normal’.

With IOS 17 out for roughly 2 months now, here are some things that I thought would be useful for you to know.

Link Tracking

Expect all UTM parameters to be stripped if your customers are browsing on Safari’s private mode, or if they share links in Messages or Mail.

I don’t think it’s a big deal for now, considering that most of our customers browse normally, but knowing Apple, it’s only a matter of time.

Email & SMS are still ‘safe’ for now, and according to Klaviyo:
“Klaviyo uses a link redirect to track clicks for SMS and email and appends any UTM parameters after the redirect.” (which means that tracking click rates from your marketing emails and SMS messages will not change within Klaviyo).

Stop Playing on Rented Land | Learn About Your Customers

Facebook/META, Instagram, Google.etc are all amazing sources of acquisition.

However, you’re only one freak accident away from getting an ad account banned, and scrambling to contact your customers.

That’s why zero/first party data has become even more crucial in today’s digital landscape.

Email & SMS should be a MUST have for any brand, as they provide mediums of communication with your customers. How do you collect them though?

Think pop-ups, quizzes, surveys. Basic I know, but I’ve seen a ton of brands, even the bigger ones that don’t have their basics setup right (leading to a shaky foundation).

And that’s a wrap!

Feel free to send any thoughts on the newsletter my way, as well as questions you might have. I can’t promise to respond to everyone (due to how swamped we are), but I’ll definitely try my best!

Have an amazing day :)