Why has my Yahoo email delivery rate decreased and what can I do about it?

Email marketer from HubSpot recommends segmenting email lists to target specific audiences with relevant content. Higher engagement rates signal to Yahoo that your emails are wanted, improving deliverability. Segmenting can be based on demographics, behavior, or purchase history.

Marketer from Email Geeks shares that Yahoo has been deactivating mailboxes that haven't been logged in for over 12 months for a while now and wonders if a new wave of deactivations is coming like it happened last year

Marketer from Email Geeks explains that Double Opt-In would prevent these from getting on your list. If it’s transactional, people might be entering typo-ed addresses in your checkout. Either way, you have some prevention and cleaning up to do.

Email marketer from Litmus explains that email design impacts deliverability. Coding emails properly, optimizing images, and avoiding broken links or excessive HTML can improve deliverability. Ensuring emails render correctly across different devices and email clients is crucial for a positive user experience and better engagement.

Email marketer from Mailjet Blog explains that Yahoo and Google are requiring senders to authenticate their email with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Senders must have a DMARC record set up for their sending domain and that Yahoo is advising senders to ensure their sending practices are up to par and they are following email authentication best practices.

Email marketer from Reddit shares personal experiences about deliverability. The Reddit user shares that they saw a drop in Yahoo deliverability after a recent campaign and improved it by cleaning their list and warming up their IP address. They suggest focusing on engagement and removing unengaged users.

Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum suggests that monitoring sender reputation with Google Postmaster Tools can indirectly help with Yahoo delivery. Since Yahoo and Google often share spam filtering techniques, insights from Google Postmaster Tools provide a view of sending reputation and potential issues impacting deliverability.

Marketer from Email Geeks shares that Yahoo is asking the users to unsubscribe automatically from emails which have not been opened for last 2-3 weeks and he received a notification for the same on his Yahoo app on mobile, which should also increase potential unsubscribes.

Email marketer from Email on Acid explains that avoiding spam trigger words is essential for bypassing Yahoo’s spam filters. Using overly promotional language, excessive capitalization, or certain phrases can cause emails to be flagged as spam. Reviewing email content for such triggers is crucial.

Email marketer from MailerLite suggests warming up IP addresses especially for new senders or those with low sending volumes. Gradually increasing sending volume over time builds a positive reputation with Yahoo and improves deliverability. This involves starting with small batches of highly engaged subscribers and progressively increasing the volume.

Email marketer from GlockApps Blog explains that maintaining a clean email list is critical to deliverability to Yahoo. Removing inactive subscribers, correcting typos, and avoiding purchased lists are key steps. They also suggest using double opt-in, verifying email addresses, and segmenting lists based on engagement.

Email marketer from Campaign Monitor suggests that using double opt-in ensures that subscribers genuinely want to receive emails. This reduces the likelihood of spam complaints and bounces, leading to a healthier email list and better Yahoo deliverability. Double opt-in involves sending a confirmation email after the initial signup.

Email marketer from SendLayer Blog explains that decreased Yahoo deliverability can be caused by a poor sender reputation (due to spam complaints, low engagement, or sending to invalid addresses), not authenticating emails (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), high bounce rates, being blocklisted, or sending spam content. They suggest monitoring sender reputation, authenticating email, cleaning email lists, and avoiding spam triggers.

Expert from Email Geeks shares that they’ve been getting messages over the last few weeks that if they don’t log into their Yahoo email addresses, they’re going to stop delivering mail to them, which may be affecting addresses that have been on the list for a long time.

Expert from Spam Resource explains new email authentication requirements from Yahoo and Gmail. The changes involve authenticating your sending domain using SPF, DKIM and DMARC. It also involves keeping your spam rate below 0.1% and providing one-click unsubscription.

Expert from Word to the Wise emphasizes that focusing on subscriber engagement is crucial for improving Yahoo deliverability. They advise segmenting lists to target active subscribers and suppress unengaged ones, as low engagement rates negatively impact sender reputation.

Expert from Email Geeks explains that seeing what Yahoo is saying in the bounce messages is the first step, and that Yahoo isn’t known to lie about bad mailboxes. It indicates a need to fix the address collection process to stop getting so many fake addresses input into it.

Documentation from DMARC.org explains that a DMARC policy allows senders to tell receiving mail servers (like Yahoo) what to do with emails that fail authentication checks. Implementing DMARC helps protect your domain from spoofing and phishing, and ensures Yahoo treats your legitimate emails as you intend (accept, quarantine, or reject).

Documentation from Validity (previously Return Path) explains that sender reputation is a key factor for Yahoo delivery. A positive reputation, built by sending wanted mail to engaged users, leads to better deliverability. Negative factors like spam complaints and bounces damage reputation. Regularly monitoring and improving reputation is essential.

Documentation from IETF explains that Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an email authentication method that helps prevent spammers from forging the 'From' address in emails. Specifying authorized mail servers in your domain's SPF record can prevent unauthorized servers from sending email on behalf of your domain, which helps improve deliverability.

Documentation from RFC explains that SMTP status codes provide information about why an email was rejected. Analyzing these codes from Yahoo bounces can reveal the specific reasons for delivery failures, such as invalid addresses, spam filtering, or technical issues. The codes are 3-digit numbers and can be categorized into success, transient failure, and permanent failure.