If your open rates have quietly dropped, or clients are telling you your emails never arrived, Gmail and Yahoo's stricter bulk-sender requirements are very likely the reason. Since these rules tightened, a growing number of Australian businesses have been getting silently filtered into spam — often without realising anything changed.
What actually changed
Gmail and Yahoo now require anyone sending meaningful volumes of email to properly authenticate their domain, keep spam complaint rates below a strict threshold, and provide a genuine one-click unsubscribe. Miss any of these and delivery quietly degrades — emails don't bounce, they just land in spam or promotions, invisible to the sender.
SPF, DKIM and DMARC — set them up properly, not partially
These three DNS records are the core of email authentication. SPF lists which servers can send on your domain's behalf, DKIM cryptographically signs your emails to prove they weren't tampered with, and DMARC tells receiving servers what to do if a message fails those checks — and gives you visibility into who's sending as your domain. Having only one or two of the three is a common, quietly damaging gap.
A DMARC policy that's actually enforcing
Many domains have a DMARC record but set to 'p=none' — monitoring only, not actually protecting anything. Moving to a proper enforcing policy (with SPF and DKIM correctly aligned first) is what actually improves deliverability and stops spoofing, not just a record that exists for the sake of existing.
Spam complaint rate is the metric that matters most
Keep your spam complaint rate below roughly 0.3%, and ideally much lower. This means: never buy lists, make unsubscribing genuinely easy and instant, and stop emailing people who've gone cold rather than hoping they'll re-engage eventually.
List hygiene beats list size
A smaller, genuinely engaged list that opens and clicks consistently protects your sender reputation far better than a large, stale one. Regularly remove hard bounces and long-term non-engagers — a bigger list that damages your deliverability is worse than no list growth at all.
Warm up new sending domains and IPs properly
A brand-new sending domain or a big sudden jump in volume looks suspicious to spam filters. Ramp up gradually — start with your most engaged subscribers and build volume over weeks, not days.
Content still matters, just less than authentication
Avoid spam-trigger patterns (excessive caps, spam-flagged words, image-only emails with no text), but understand that in 2026, authentication and reputation are doing most of the filtering work — good content with broken authentication still lands in spam.
Check your actual status
Free tools like Google Postmaster Tools and mail-tester services show you exactly where you stand today, rather than guessing. If you want your domain properly authenticated and your email program brought back into compliance, our digital marketing team can audit and fix your setup — get in touch for a deliverability check.