How will the Gmail inactive account purge in October affect email senders and CRMs?

Email marketer from Sendinblue responds that the purge highlights the significance of permission-based email marketing. Acquiring explicit consent from subscribers ensures that your email list consists of engaged users, reducing the likelihood of sending to inactive accounts.

Email marketer from Neil Patel explains that Google's new inactive account policy could impact your email list. It emphasizes the importance of regularly cleaning your email list to remove inactive subscribers and maintain a healthy sender reputation.

Email marketer from Litmus shares that the Gmail inactive account purge will likely lead to a temporary increase in bounce rates as previously deliverable addresses become invalid. This underscores the necessity of having robust bounce management processes in place.

Email marketer from Email Vendor Selection shares that ESPs need to enhance their list cleaning tools. This means providing better ways to segment, identify, and remove inactive users, as well as more robust suppression capabilities.

Email marketer from StackExchange answers that CRM's should implement stronger double opt-in processes. This change forces better data collection practices and should lead to higher quality lists in the long run.

Email marketer from Email on Acid explains that the Gmail purge could affect personalization efforts. If inactive users make up a significant portion of your list, your segmentation and personalization strategies might need adjustment to avoid inaccurate targeting.

Email marketer from Email Geeks suggests that the Gmail purge won't have a significant impact if you maintain list hygiene, and even a slight increase in hard bounces won't be a big deal. Suppressing bounced emails will resolve the issue.

Email marketer from Email Geeks shares they are glad Gmail is doing this, as cleaning Gmail lists has been a challenge with clients. Redacting dead addresses improves timely delivery.

Email marketer from Reddit suggests that the purge is a good thing for overall email ecosystem health. Cleaning lists will improve sender reputation, and focusing on engaged subscribers will yield better results.

Email marketer from Marketing Forums shares that they are preparing clients for a potential increase in unsubscribe requests as people try to clean up their old accounts before they get deleted. It's a good opportunity to improve data privacy.

Email marketer from Mailjet responds that the Gmail policy change reinforces the importance of email list segmentation. By categorizing subscribers based on engagement levels, senders can tailor their messaging and avoid sending emails to inactive accounts, improving overall campaign performance.

Expert from Email Geeks shares that an increase in hard bounces to inactive accounts is not a major concern and that these addresses should have been removed from lists long before a two-year inactivity period.

Expert from Email Geeks states that Gmail's purge of inactive accounts is not unusual and shouldn't affect operations. It might cause panic for those who don't understand their list demographics or reporting. If it impacts your metrics, you’re probably measuring the wrong metrics.

Expert from Email Geeks advises to retire inactive addresses, respect bounces, and remain calm regarding the Gmail purge.

Expert from Spam Resource shares, in the article about cleaning your list to get better inbox placement, that this type of purge will make you get a spike of invalid email addresses and bounces. Senders should clean lists regularly. This should be part of your regular maintenance, and a purge like this is a reminder to get going.

Expert from Email Geeks explains the only thing that's going to happen is senders will actually get data back from Google about which accounts have been abandoned. If the account is shut off, the email will bounce and you remove it - there is absolutely nothing to do differently.

Expert from Word to the Wise explains that one of the impacts is going to be folks who might lose access to an account that is tied to a gmail address. Also, mail will hard bounce and then you can remove it from your list, but no email re-engagement campaign in the world that can make someone log into an account that they haven't logged into in more than 2 years.

Documentation from RFC Editor details how Require-Recipient-Valid-Since can be used, it specifies the addition of a timestamp to email messages, indicating how recently the recipient address has been validated. This allows senders to identify and remove outdated or invalid addresses, enhancing deliverability and reducing the impact of inactive accounts.

Documentation from Xfinity shares details of how a table can be used to determine the amount of emails/connections allowed based on a sender score and reputational system, which may cause throttling to occur. This has implications for the time it takes to reach the inbox.

Documentation from Validity responds by detailing best practices for bounce management. It emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between hard and soft bounces and setting up automated processes to handle them effectively in response to the Gmail purge.

Documentation from Google explains that Google will delete Google Accounts and their content if they haven’t been used for at least 2 years. This includes Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet, Calendar, and Google Photos. This policy change means that email senders may see more hard bounces as these addresses become invalid.

Documentation from Spamhaus answers by explaining Spamtraps are used to identify senders who are not following best practices in list management and are potentially sending unsolicited email. Google does not use Spamtraps