Summary
When Gmail blocks emails after users request a quote and subsequently receive marketing emails, a multi-faceted approach is required to address the issue. Key strategies include obtaining explicit consent for marketing communications, ensuring email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and actively managing sender reputation. Engaging and relevant content, segmentation, and providing clear unsubscribe options are essential for maintaining user engagement and minimizing spam complaints. Technical considerations involve monitoring sender and IP reputation through tools like Google Postmaster Tools, avoiding deceptive subject lines, maintaining clean email lists by removing bounces, and considering separate IPs for transactional vs. marketing emails. Additionally, experts caution against business models that rely on selling PII and emphasize the importance of building genuine relationships with subscribers. If issues persist, examining SFMC rejection messages and potentially migrating to a new domain/IP may be necessary.
Key findings
- Explicit Consent: Obtain explicit consent before sending marketing emails; users should actively opt-in.
- Authentication: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to authenticate your emails and prevent spoofing.
- Reputation Management: Monitor sender and IP reputation regularly using Google Postmaster Tools.
- List Hygiene: Clean email lists by removing bounces and inactive addresses to improve deliverability.
- Content Relevance: Create engaging and relevant content tailored to user interests; avoid generic marketing.
- Transparent Practices: Ensure clear and transparent privacy policies; avoid selling PII to third parties.
- Engagement Measurement: Use clicks as a primary metric for user engagement instead of opens.
- Separate IPs: Use separate IPs for transactional and marketing emails to protect critical communications.
Key considerations
- User Expectations: Align sending practices with user expectations; avoid sending frequent marketing emails immediately after a quote request.
- Business Model: Re-evaluate business models that rely on aggressive co-reg lead generation; focus on building genuine relationships.
- SFMC Rejections: If using SFMC, obtain and analyze rejection messages to diagnose deliverability issues.
- Escalation: If the domain/IP is severely damaged, consider migrating to a new domain/IP with improved practices.
- Email Design: Avoid misleading subject lines and ensure content provides value.
- Form Validation: Implement validation measures (e.g. CAPTCHA) to prevent form bombing and list bombing attacks.
- Permission: Ask if users want to be contacted again about services/offers. Or have a opt-in checkbox.
What email marketers say
9 marketer opinions
After users request a quote, sending marketing emails can lead to Gmail blocking those emails. Several strategies can help mitigate this issue. Firstly, obtaining explicit consent for marketing emails is crucial, as sending unsolicited messages increases the risk of spam complaints. Reviewing and refining your email marketing strategy to ensure relevance and value to recipients is also essential. Segmentation and personalized content are recommended to increase engagement. Maintaining a clean email list by removing inactive or invalid addresses can improve your sender reputation. Providing easy unsubscribe options can decrease spam complaints. Separating marketing and transactional emails onto separate IPs to protect critical communications is advised, and monitoring your sender reputation using tools such as google postmaster tools is also important.
Key opinions
- Explicit Consent: Obtain explicit consent for marketing emails to avoid being marked as spam.
- Email Strategy Review: Review your email strategy to ensure emails are wanted and provide value.
- List Hygiene: Regularly clean your email list to remove inactive or invalid addresses.
- Unsubscribe Options: Provide clear and easy unsubscribe options to reduce spam complaints.
- Segmentation and Personalization: Tailor content to match user interests and behaviors through segmentation.
- IP Separation: Separate marketing and transactional emails onto different IPs.
Key considerations
- Relevance: Ensure marketing emails are relevant to users who requested a quote.
- Value Proposition: Provide value beyond the initial quote request to maintain engagement.
- Privacy Policy: Have a transparent and user friendly privacy policy.
- Reputation Monitoring: Constantly monitor your IP and Domain reputation.
- Offer Based Lists: Consider if offer based lists will work in the long term.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Mailjet recommends providing clear and easy ways for users to unsubscribe from your emails. High unsubscribe rates are better than high complaint rates, as they indicate that users are actively managing their subscriptions rather than marking your emails as spam.
23 Oct 2024 - Mailjet
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks advises to move on and try again with new everything if a domain/ip is dead to Google. Keeping in mind the advice about opt in/selling the data.
14 Jul 2023 - Email Geeks
What the experts say
11 expert opinions
Sending unsolicited marketing emails after a user requests a quote often leads to Gmail blocking those emails. Experts emphasize the importance of explicit consent for marketing communications, avoiding frequent mailings, and ensuring recipient engagement. A sustainable model involves respecting user preferences and tailoring content to meet their needs. Additionally, experts recommend obtaining rejection messages from SFMC for troubleshooting and data segregation for better sender reputation. They caution against business models reliant on selling PII to third parties and suggest focusing on building genuine relationships with subscribers. Accurate engagement tracking should rely on clicks rather than opens, and precautions such as CAPTCHA should be used to prevent list bombing.
Key opinions
- Explicit Consent: Explicit consent is vital; unsolicited marketing emails after a quote request are likely to be marked as spam.
- Data Segregation: Segregating data, domains, and IPs helps maintain a good sender reputation.
- Engagement Metrics: Rely on clicks, not opens, to accurately measure user engagement.
- Sustainable Model: A sustainable model focuses on respecting user preferences and providing relevant content.
- Review Rejection Messages: Obtaining and reviewing rejection messages from SFMC provides essential troubleshooting information.
- Form Protection: Implementing CAPTCHA or other form validation can mitigate list bombing.
Key considerations
- Recipient Intent: Recognize that recipients primarily want the quote, not necessarily ongoing marketing.
- Privacy Practices: Avoid business models that heavily rely on selling PII to third parties, as they harm sender reputation.
- Frequency: Mailing too frequently, even on your own site, can lead to spam complaints.
- Sender Reputation: Monitor and maintain a positive sender reputation to avoid being deferred by Google.
- Email Content: Always ensure the content of emails will be well received and is appropriate.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks advises to segregate data, don't share data, and totally segregate domains. They guess the sender is getting endlessly deferred by Google either due to low domain rep or low IP rep (probably domain rep). Also suggests that this kind of stuff doesn't do that great via a platform like SFMC when there's no ongoing connection to subscribers.
14 Jul 2021 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks shares that recipients just want the quote and not ongoing mail and Google listens to their users. It’s a tough business model and they’ve never had success getting Google to deliver it.
11 Aug 2024 - Email Geeks
What the documentation says
6 technical articles
To resolve Gmail blocking emails after quote requests, technical documentation emphasizes authentication and reputation management. Key actions include implementing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for email authentication, regularly monitoring sender and IP reputation using tools like Google Postmaster Tools, and avoiding deceptive subject lines. Maintaining a valid SPF record and correctly setting up DMARC are essential. Addressing bounces by removing hard-bouncing email addresses from lists helps maintain deliverability and prevents sending to invalid addresses.
Key findings
- Email Authentication: Use SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to authenticate emails.
- Reputation Monitoring: Monitor sender and IP reputation via Google Postmaster Tools.
- Avoid Deception: Avoid deceptive or misleading subject lines and content.
- Valid SPF Record: Ensure a valid and correct SPF record exists.
- Correct DMARC Setup: Set up DMARC properly and monitor reports.
- Bounce Management: Remove hard-bouncing email addresses from mailing lists.
Key considerations
- Alignment with Expectations: Align sending practices with user expectations to avoid spam flags.
- DMARC Monitoring: Regularly monitor DMARC reports to identify and address any authentication issues.
- Reputation Impact: Understand that neglecting reputation management can lead to deliverability problems.
- Authentication Importance: Without correct authentication, email delivery may be negatively affected.
- Email Content: Content is important so make sure it matches the email's subject.
Technical article
Documentation from Gmail Help explains that senders should authenticate their email using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. They should also ensure that their sending domain or IP address isn't listed on any blocklists and that their sending practices align with user expectations.
19 Feb 2025 - Gmail Help
Technical article
Documentation from AWS discusses managing bounces, advises that you should be removing these from your list. Amazon SES automatically removes email addresses that hard bounce from your sending list.
19 May 2022 - AWS
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