Google Reaching Out Directly to Senders Regarding Unsubscribes

Google Reaching Out Directly to Senders Regarding Unsubscribes

When Google released their compliance dashboard in Google Postmaster earlier this year, senders were able to verify they were compliant with a list requirements defined by Google. One of those requirements, ‘Honor Unsubscribe’ has been marked as ‘Coming Soon’ for the past few months. In the past few days, Google has made some moves in this regard. 

Check your inbox

In the past few days, Google has started reaching out to senders regarding the handling of unsubscribe requests with the following subject line: “[Action Required] Issue with Unsubscribe Requests for your Domain”. The emails are coming from the email address ‘Noreply-gmail@google.com’. The emails from Google are being sent to the owner of the Google Postmaster account for each sending domain. 

What does it mean?

It’s important to note that not all senders are receiving emails from Google regarding their unsubscribe process. Google is reaching out to senders in cases where it seems recipients who have requested to be unsubscribed are still receiving emails from the same sending domain. As Google states in their Email Sender Guidelines, ‘Letting people opt out of your messages can improve open rates, click-through rates, and sending efficiency’. 

To simply adhere to the CAN-SPAM Act or GDPR, senders need to successfully opt a subscriber out of future emails within ten days of unsubscribing. That really should be seen as doing the bare minimum. Put yourself in your subscribers shoes. Would you want to continue to receive emails for several days after trying to unsubscribe? Best practice is to remove subscribers immediately after they unsubscribe from your email program. 

What action should senders take?

In the email, Google is letting each sender know that they want to help identify and fix any problems that might be preventing their unsubscribe process from working as intended. The email includes a link to a form senders need to fill out to provide Google with more information regarding their unsubscribe process. Senders should fill out that form and await further feedback from Google. 

If your email program is not compliant with any of Google’s list of sender requirements, or if you're having trouble filling out their questionnaire, our professional services team is here to assist.