Posted by To protect everyday users, most email service providers including Gmail, have rules in place to prevent spam and unwanted emails. These guidelines ensure that users aren’t bombarded with irrelevant or potentially harmful messages. Gmail has always had basic rules for bulk senders, but now, Google is introducing even stricter bulk sender guidelines.
These changes are significant, and if you’re running a business or sending large volumes of emails like more than 500+ daily, understanding them is crucial. Not following the new guidelines could hurt your email deliverability, and engagement, and even risk getting your email account blacklisted. That’s not something you want to happen.
So, let’s dive into the key updates and give you the tools to stay compliant and keep your emails hitting Gmail inboxes.
What are Bulk Email Guidelines?
Would you believe that email communication from all these years, verifying the email is still a challenging task? That’s why every major platform has bulk email sender guidelines, google is not an exception from this. These rules are designed by all the platforms to prevent users from being bombarded with unwanted emails.
Bulk email sender guidelines often include this:
Adhering to Anti-Spam Laws
It’s crucial to follow anti-spam laws to maintain ethical and legal email marketing practices. For example, in the U.S., the CAN-SPAM Act sets clear guidelines on what constitutes spam, while the GDPR in the EU focuses on protecting individuals’ data and ensuring consent. Following these regulations not only helps you stay compliant but also builds trust with your audience.
Building a Clean Email List
Make sure you’re only sending emails to people who have explicitly opted in to receive communications. Avoid using purchased or rented email lists, as these can lead to poor engagement, high unsubscribe rates, and potential legal trouble. The best practice is always to build your list organically, ensuring people genuinely want to hear from you.
Email Authentication
To safeguard against fraudulent activity and ensure your emails land in inboxes, it’s essential to set up email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. These tools help verify that your emails are genuinely coming from you, reducing the risk of your messages being flagged as spam.
Handling Unsubscribe Requests
A critical aspect of bulk email sending is respecting recipients’ wishes. Always provide a clear and simple way for users to opt-out if they no longer wish to receive emails, such as an “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of your messages. This ensures that your emails remain compliant and that you maintain a positive relationship with your audience.
Following ESP (Email Service Provider) guidelines if you want to maintain strong communication with your audience. The consequences of ignoring these rules can be quite serious:
- Your email could be marked as spam
- Your ESP might slow the delivery of your messages
- Your Email IP address is blocked by ESP
If you want to send bulk email, you will be required to meet the new guidelines.
How to Send Bulk Emails on Gmail: Best Practices
1. Use Google Sheets and Google Apps Script for Automation
Gmail itself doesn’t offer a direct way to send bulk emails, but you can use Google Sheets in combination with Google Apps Script to send personalized emails. With Google Sheets, you can easily manage a list of contacts and automate email sending without violating Gmail’s limits.
Best practice: Use a Google Sheets add-on like Mail Merge with attachments or Yet Another Mail Merge (YAMM) to send personalized emails to a large list. These tools allow you to track opens and clicks, helping you manage your campaign better.
2. Keep Your Emails Short and Focused
When sending bulk emails, it’s tempting to create long, detailed messages. However, long emails often get flagged by spam filters or ignored by recipients. Instead, keep your emails short, clear, and to the point. Make sure the content is valuable and relevant to your audience.
Best practice: Limit the length of your email body, and include only the essential information. If necessary, use links to direct recipients to your website for further details.
3. Maintain a Healthy Email Frequency
If you’re running a regular email campaign, make sure you don’t send too many emails too quickly. Excessive emailing can trigger Gmail’s spam filters. Aim for a reasonable and consistent frequency that aligns with the expectations of your recipients.
Best practice: For larger email campaigns, space out your email batches to stay within Gmail’s daily sending limits. Avoid sending large volumes all at once.
4. Respect Gmail’s Sending Limits
As mentioned earlier, Gmail has strict daily sending limits. For regular Gmail accounts, the limit is 500 recipients per day, and for G Suite accounts, it’s 2,000. Be mindful of these limits to prevent temporary account suspension.
Best practice: If you need to send more than Gmail’s limits allow, consider using a third-party email service provider like Mailchimp or SendGrid for larger campaigns.
5. Avoid Attachments and Large Files
Attachments, especially large files, can increase the chances of your email being flagged as spam. Gmail restricts the size of attachments to 25 MB, but even smaller files can raise red flags with spam filters.
Best practice: Instead of attaching files, use links to Google Drive or other file-sharing services. This reduces the likelihood of your emails being flagged and ensures quicker delivery.
6. Test Your Emails Before Sending
Before sending a bulk email to your entire list, send test emails to yourself or a small group. This allows you to catch any errors, check formatting, and ensure that your email doesn’t end up in the spam folder.
Best practice: Send test emails to different email providers (Google, Yahoo, Outlook, etc.) to verify deliverability across platforms. You can also use tools to check if your email is likely to be flagged as spam.
Final Words
Sending bulk emails via Gmail can be an effective way to communicate with the audience, but it’s necessary to follow the new ESP guidelines. Although implementing new changes may seem like a hassle, your future campaign will benefit from reduced spam. To ensure strong email deliverability in the future, it’s essential to use a reliable email verification service. Start by trying myEmailVerifier for free and experience how its tools can help you maintain a clean, up-to-date email list and improve your sending reputation.