Google’s Update to Inactive Accounts
The latest update at Gmail has gone into effect this month, and as result you may see higher hard bounces on your regular email sends.
Why is gmail marketing emails as dormant?
Starting this December of 2023, Gmail has begun to reclaim dormant accounts. If an account has had no activity for two years, Gmail considers this account inactive, and is pulling it off the shelves.
Because email addresses associated with these accounts have also been reclaimed, they technically “no longer exist.”
As someone who has always wanted to secure naomi@gmail.com - I am overjoyed that I could potentially snag this gem in the next couple of months. Aside from that, as a Marketer I’m also thrilled that Gmail is pushing others to clean their lists. At the same time, doing their part to keep things organized on their side as well.
What happens when I email these accounts?
A hard bounce. And, if noticed in bulk by clients like Gmail, a hit to your reputation.
What should I do about it?
First off, if you are a small sender, don’t panic that your reputation will be tanked by a handful of hard bounces (ie. 5-10). Take a deep breath!
It is the continual sending of emails in large volumes to these hard bounces that will signal to email clients that you do not care about your audience and are fine with blasting your messaging to whatever database you have access to. Luckily most ESP’s or Marketing Automation Platforms do automatically exclude recipients once they have hard bounced, from future sends.
The cause for concern is for those with larger audiences that primarily take the batch and blast approach. When hard bounces are seen in large volume, it’s no bueno and can absolutely impact your future deliverability.
It’s absolutely imperative to practice some form of list health that removes those who do not engage with your emails after a certain period of time.
My recommendation is only to include those in your larger email campaign sends that have:
Opted-in (truly, the bar is low here)
Been added to your list within the past 6-months
Have engaged with your emails (preferably a click) in some capacity in the last six months if they don’t meet the above criteria.
If you are primarily a newsletter sender who doesn’t have a large-scale call to action that would prompt the above clicks, start thinking about how you can communicate to your audience that they need to engage with you to remain on your list.
I also strongly urge all senders to set up Google Postmaster. Because Gmail doesn’t provide a feedback loop to ESP’s (ie. that spam % complaint rate will not include data from Gmail), setting up Google Postmaster is the only way to get this type of insight into how this email client looks at your reputation. It’s well worth the 10-minute set up, and free to do so.
Happy emailing!