What deliverability trends can you expect to see in the coming months?

The rules of the email deliverability are evolving at a breathtaking pace. It's important to anticipate rather than be overwhelmed by events. The future of deliverability can't really be read in a crystal ball (although I'd like to), but rather in market signals, in trends that have already begun... and in the evolution of spammers' practices.

In this article, I've tried to summarize the main trends in deliverability that we're likely to see in the coming months. I can't tell you how long it will take, or how big the impact will be... but for some of these deliverability changes, it's possible to get ready. The sooner the better!

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Alexandre Baverel (Deliverability Manager at Sarbacane), Florent Destors (Deliverability Manager at Marigold), Pierre Pignault (CEO at MailSoar) and Marion Duchatelet (Co-managing director of Badsender) who have given me food for thought following a LinkedIn post.

Replay of our livestream on the future of deliverability from November 21, 2024 (in French)

A quick reminder before talking about the future of deliverability

As I'm wont to repeat to my clients in the course of my deliverability audit and coaching missions, deliverability is 10 % of techniques and 90 % of good marketing practices.

In the future of deliverability, this ratio is unlikely to change rapidly. Even if we often tend to talk about technical developments, for example with new deliverability rules introduced by Gmail and Yahoo! in 2024is good the commitment of recipients, which remains paramount.

The more your recipients interact positively with your emails, the better your reputation. The more your recipients interact negatively with your emails, the worse your deliverability will be. This is the most important thing.

Enhanced authentication

Yahoo!, Gmail and others have become stricter on theemail authentication (and require deploy DMARC) in recent months. This strengthening of authentication will continue, and a obligation to switch to "quarantine" or "reject" policy is inevitable. So you need to get started now, because in large organizations, it can take several months of work. You should also expect gradual roll-out (compulsory?) of BIMI.

Other (slightly more technical) nuances may also emerge. Until now, many CRM managers have done a minimalist job on DMARC by adding a record on their sub-domains sending emails. We could see the emergence of a DMARC registration required on root domain and not just on the sub-domains that send the emails.

The impact of artificial intelligence on deliverability

AI will continue to profoundly transform spam filtering and deliverability. We can distinguish 3 types of impact:

• Spam filter evolution Increasing the volume of data analyzed, continuous adaptation to spammers' strategies, improved contextual awareness... Spam filters are set to take another giant leap forward in terms of efficiency. And that's going to hurt some people.
• Use of AI by spammers But when it comes to spammers (the real ones and those who don't know they're spammers), AI can also change the game. Mass tests to better understand (and circumvent) filter logic and deliverability rules, automatic text generation, sophisticated changes to domain names and IP addresses, detection of the best times to send... We're going to have a match between AI and AI.
• Integrating AI into messaging interfaces The email box itself will also evolve. Even if it's not strictly deliverability, messaging systems will increasingly use AI to improve email categorization, provide intelligent reminders of important unread emails, write summaries of message content to improve open decision making... This is for example all the changes expected in Apple Mail with iOS18. The others will follow.

Hyper-customized messages

For message creators, the arrival of hyper-personalization of messages (boosted by AI for a change) could make it possible todrastically improve engagement by reducing marketing pressure and improving message relevance. AI would then be used to boost the age-old rule of direct marketing: The right message, to the right person, at the right time. Used intelligently, this could please spam filters by improving deliverability signals.

Be careful, however, in the building your emailing strategy. Delegating everything to AI could be counter-productive. This is particularly true of writing emails. As in SEO (the deliverability and SEO have a lot in common), spam filters that detect content generated entirely by AI could penalize it. Authenticity, creativity and the ability to generate engagement are essential in an email marketing strategy. Don't delegate everything to the machine.

Sophisticated use of List-unsubscribe

The obligation ofuse of List-unsubscribe "One-click" by Yahoo! and Google has become a widespread feature in mass emails. But List-unsubscribe is much more than an unsubscribe button next to the sender's name in your webmail. It's the possibility for messaging systems to develop more sophisticated functionalities: offer to unsubscribe from senders whose emails you no longer open, preference center integrated into webmail... Some will probably be very creative.

We could therefore see these new features appear in the coming months.

Growing pressure on tracking

As we know, image caching by messaging services has already greatly disrupted the relevance and quality of the reliable opening rates in our emails. We could undergo the same kind of changes to click tracking.

For example, what would be the impact of banning redirects? Just one redirect? Pow! The link no longer works. What about a full-scale attack (stronger than what Apple has already put in place) against advertising IDs?

And it's not just messaging services that are likely to modify tracking constraints. Legislators are also considering how these rules might evolve (opt-in on tracking). There is also the case of robots, which are already very active, especially in B2B and could continue to blur the statistics (even if AI could help us detect them better).

Once again, this is a topic on the bangs of deliverability! But this makes deliverability monitoring and inactivity management more complicated to implement. Without reliable data to compare the differences in performance between estates, it is difficult to understanding a deliverability problem.

Increasingly harmonized legislation around the world

With RGPD in Europe, CASL in Canada, CCPA in California, legal pressure to protect personal data is increasing. These laws, which are relatively similar in spirit, now constitute a kind of global standard from which other laws draw inspiration. The more protective legislation becomes for personal data, the greater the gap between the practices of "good" and "bad" senders. This should facilitate the work of anti-spam filters.

Let's not forget that messenger anti-spam rules often go further than the most restrictive national legislation. So don't not only to respect the law. The recipient must be respected.

Declining power of certification solutions

Used for many years as a "free pass" by some email senders, certification solutions have already lost some of their influence. This trend is set to continue. With the gradual harmonization of basic deliverability rules, these solutions will gradually lose their relevance.

Many advertisers are asking questions. Is it better to invest your budget in certifying your IP addresses or in implementing best practices?

Training needs

Deliverability is becoming less and less a technical discipline. Consent and commitment have been the keys to our success for several years now. to deliver emails properly. Nevertheless, marketers need to understand the mechanics in order to accept that 90% of the responsibility lies in marketing practices and not in technical aspects. No, it's not your emailing tool's fault if your emails aren't delivered.

It therefore seems obvious that CRM teams must continue to learn about deliverability issues And, if possible, involve their management, who sometimes make... risky decisions 😉

The arrival of quantum computing?

Not in the next few months anyway, but some are thinking about post-quantum cryptography. In the next few years, there is a real risk that these technologies will be used to circumvent DKIM keys. For the time being, they remain unaffordable for massive attacks. But such attacks are already possible.

Any conclusions?

Not really! Except that certain technological developments will accelerate the pace of change. It's going to continue to be complicated. Difficult to keep up with when it's not your job.

I'll try to update this document regularly as new trends emerge in the sector.