How useful are Verizon Media's engagement feeds to ESPs and clients?
Matthew Whittaker
Co-founder & CTO, Suped
Published 21 Apr 2025
Updated 18 Aug 2025
8 min read
For years, email marketers and Email Service Providers (ESPs) have relied on various signals to understand how their campaigns perform and, more critically, how mailbox providers perceive their sending reputation. One significant development in this landscape was when Yahoo, formerly Verizon Media, introduced its engagement feeds. These feeds promised a new level of insight into subscriber interactions.
The introduction of these feeds was met with a mix of excitement and skepticism within the deliverability community. On one hand, the idea of getting direct engagement data from a major mailbox provider like Yahoo (which also encompasses AOL) was highly appealing. It offered a potential alternative or supplement to traditional engagement metrics, many of which were becoming less reliable due to privacy changes like Apple Mail Privacy Protection.
However, questions quickly arose about the granularity of the data, its applicability for specific client needs, and how it would integrate with existing deliverability strategies. The feeds primarily provide aggregated, anonymized data, which is useful for macro trends but less so for drilling down into individual subscriber behavior.
Understanding Yahoo's engagement feeds
Verizon Media's engagement feeds, now under the Yahoo brand, offer a unique perspective on how users interact with emails. Unlike traditional tracking pixels, which measure opens, these feeds directly reflect a mailbox provider's internal assessment of engagement, based on a multitude of factors. This includes not just opens, but also clicks, deletes, replies, and spam complaints. The feeds provide a signal to ESPs that can indicate campaign health.
These feeds became particularly relevant as the email ecosystem evolved. With the rise of privacy features that obscure pixel-based open rates, direct signals from mailbox providers became even more valuable. Yahoo's initiative was a proactive step to help senders understand their email performance in a more robust way, moving beyond potentially misleading metrics. For more on how data has changed, review our guide on how Yahoo data changed for email marketers.
The feeds are typically accessed through a Postmaster Tools interface or via direct data integrations. They offer a holistic view of engagement by domain and IP address, which is crucial for identifying patterns and potential issues that might affect deliverability. This data helps in maintaining a positive sender reputation and avoiding email blocklists (or blacklists). Email experts often highlight the importance of understanding these signals for inbox placement.
Benefits for ESPs
For ESPs, these feeds are a valuable addition to their suite of deliverability tools. The aggregated data can provide early warnings about declining engagement across client accounts, allowing ESPs to proactively address potential issues before they escalate into widespread deliverability problems or getting blocklisted. It's a layer of insight that complements existing feedback loops and authentication reports like DMARC. Many ESPs are looking for how to access these feeds.
The ability to see trends in complaints, spam trap hits, and overall engagement directly from Yahoo helps ESPs fine-tune their sending infrastructure and provide more accurate advice to their clients. This data is particularly useful for identifying campaigns or sending practices that are consistently underperforming or generating negative signals. For instance, a sudden drop in engagement might indicate an issue with list hygiene or content relevance. This is a key part of how ISPs track email engagement.
While aggregated, the data can still provide actionable insights. For example, if a specific IP range or sending domain shows consistently low positive engagement, it signals a need for a deeper dive into the sending practices associated with that sender. This allows ESPs to maintain higher overall deliverability rates across their platform. Understanding what ESP capabilities are essential for leveraging this data is key.
Pros for ESPs
Proactive detection: Identify negative trends early, mitigating potential deliverability issues before they impact all users. This helps with understanding why Yahoo and AOL rates drop.
Reputation management: Use data to advise clients on best practices and improve overall sending reputation across the platform. This is a critical aspect of how email blacklists actually work.
Enhanced insights: Supplement traditional metrics with direct mailbox provider signals for a more accurate picture of performance.
Value for clients
While ESPs benefit from the aggregated view, the utility for individual clients (the actual senders) can be more nuanced. The feeds provide macro-level trends that help clients understand their overall sender health with Yahoo properties. This is particularly useful for large-volume senders who need to monitor their email program's performance at scale. It offers a general health check, alerting them to significant shifts in how their emails are being received by Yahoo (and Verizon) users.
However, clients often seek granular data to optimize specific campaigns or segments. The aggregated nature of these feeds might not satisfy this need directly. For example, a client might want to know why a particular segment responded poorly, or which specific email creative led to an increase in spam complaints. The feeds generally don't offer this level of detail. This requires ESPs to layer the feed data with their own internal metrics to provide a more complete picture to the client. This is where good email engagement thresholds become important for deliverability monitoring.
Despite these limitations, the feeds are still valuable for clients in a strategic sense. They provide an authoritative, third-party signal from a major mailbox provider, which can validate or contradict insights derived from other sources. If a client sees a consistent decline in engagement signals from Yahoo, it's a strong indicator that broader changes to their email strategy or list management are needed, even if the exact why requires further investigation through other means.
Challenges and limitations
One of the initial discussions around these feeds was whether they would replace or diminish the need for traditional feedback loops (FBLs). FBLs provide specific complaint data, which is essential for list hygiene. While engagement feeds offer a broader view, FBLs remain critical for removing complaining users from lists. It's a question of granularity versus breadth of insight. This also impacts how ISPs provide 'not spam' feedback data.
Another challenge lies in integrating these feeds into existing deliverability monitoring dashboards. ESPs and clients typically use a variety of tools to track performance, from internal analytics to Postmaster Tools from other providers. Adding another data source, especially one that is aggregated, requires careful thought to avoid data overload or misinterpretation. Tools for reporting on these feeds are evolving, but integration remains a consideration.
Moreover, while the feeds offer valuable signals, they don't provide a complete picture of why deliverability issues might be occurring. A sudden spike in blocklisting (or blacklisting) for a domain with otherwise good engagement might point to an issue external to user interaction, such as an IP reputation problem or a misconfigured DNS record. Thus, these feeds are best used as one component within a comprehensive deliverability strategy. The implications of Yahoo's approach extend beyond just engagement.
Views from the trenches
Best practices
Actively integrate feed data into your existing deliverability monitoring dashboards for a comprehensive overview.
Use the aggregated data to identify broad trends and potential reputation issues across your sending infrastructure.
Combine feed insights with your own granular engagement data (clicks, conversions) for richer client reporting.
Educate clients on the value of these aggregated trends, even if individual recipient data is not available.
Common pitfalls
Over-relying solely on engagement feed data without cross-referencing with other deliverability metrics.
Expecting granular, per-subscriber data from these aggregated feeds for campaign-level optimization.
Failing to adapt list hygiene practices just because pixel-based opens are less reliable.
Not considering the feeds in conjunction with other reputation factors like DMARC and spam trap hits.
Expert tips
The engagement feeds are a strong indicator of how Yahoo views your overall sender reputation based on user interaction.
Use changes in feed metrics as triggers for deeper investigation into specific campaigns or client sending behaviors.
These feeds are particularly powerful when combined with other postmaster tools and internal campaign data.
Remember that positive engagement signals are crucial for avoiding blocklists (or blacklists) and ensuring inbox placement.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks says they were very excited about the new engagement feeds and had already applied to gain access.
2020-02-18 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks says they found the aggregated data to be a useful indicator for identifying customers or campaigns that required review, remediation, or further investigation for deliverability.
2020-02-19 - Email Geeks
Maximizing utility of engagement feeds
Verizon Media's (now Yahoo's) engagement feeds are a useful tool for ESPs and clients, but their utility lies in understanding their aggregated nature. They provide a valuable bird's-eye view of sender reputation and engagement trends with a major mailbox provider, which is crucial in an evolving email privacy landscape. For more general advice on getting to the inbox, see our guide on email deliverability issues.
ESPs can leverage these feeds for proactive monitoring and strategic advice, while clients can use them as a high-level indicator of their brand's health with Yahoo users. They are not a replacement for granular engagement data or traditional feedback loops, but rather a powerful complement that enhances an overall deliverability strategy. Using these feeds effectively means integrating them thoughtfully with other metrics and understanding their specific strengths and limitations.
AOL) was highly appealing. It offered a potential alternative or supplement to traditional engagement metrics, many of which were becoming less reliable due to privacy changes like 
Apple Mail Privacy Protection.
Yahoo brand, offer a unique perspective on how users interact with emails. Unlike traditional tracking pixels, which measure opens, these feeds directly reflect a mailbox provider's internal assessment of engagement, based on a multitude of factors. This includes not just opens, but also clicks, deletes, replies, and spam complaints. The feeds provide a signal to ESPs that can indicate campaign health.
Verizon) users.
