The How and the Why of Leveraging Gmail Feedback Loop Identifiers

The How and the Why of Leveraging Gmail Feedback Loop Identifiers

It’s been just over a year since Gmail went live with their new sender requirements, which included the edict to “keep spam rates reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.1% and avoid ever reaching a spam rate of 0.3% or higher” (see Gmail Sender Guidelines). I’ll admit it, this new requirement made email deliverability nerds ecstatic for two reasons. First, we’d been recommending the 0.1% threshold for spam complaints for as long as we could remember. Second, the announcement was all the ammo we needed to get those few remaining senders who had been dragging their feet to finally set up Google Postmaster Tools.

The new requirements may have felt scary at first, but the truth is that Gmail has done us all a favor by being upfront about their spam thresholds and by surfacing important email feedback in a digestible format via Google Postmaster Tools. Gmail’s compliance dashboard keeps getting more informative, and the spam complaint visuals in particular have been improved to really help senders hone in on spam complaint issues. 

What fewer senders know is that Google Postmaster Tools also gives senders the ability to get granular feedback about spam complaints, all the way down to the campaign ID level. Gmail feedback loop identifiers take a bit of work to implement, but the payoff is beyond worth it. We’ll walk you through what the Gmail feedback loop is, how to implement identifiers using the Feedback-ID header, and why it’s so critical for senders to make use of this feature.

What is the Gmail FBL?

The Gmail FBL is a feature of Google Postmaster Tools that allows you to tag individual campaigns, (for our ISV clients) senders, and/or “other” parameters within a mailstream with unique identifiers via the use of a Feedback-ID header. Once that header is properly implemented, you are able to see which unique identifiers are associated with high complaint rates in Google Poster Tools. Take the example below, where Gmail complaint rates exceeded 0.1% on a number of days, and there were particularly egregious complaint threshold violations on March 10th and 11th:

This example is from a brand that manages multiple senders, so they needed to know which of their clients caused the major complaint spikes. Because they have the Gmail Feedback-ID header implemented, we navigated to Feedback Loop from the GPT menu and saw complaint rate values by date and by unique identifier. We sorted by “Spam rate” to see the highest complaint rates surfaced, and voila, we were able to see which unique sender IDs were associated with the high complaint rates.

How to Implement Gmail Feedback-ID

Getting access to this invaluable data is as easy as embedding a new header into your campaigns. Gmail spells out the header format and guidelines for implementing on their Feedback Loop help page:

The only required field is SenderId, and this must be consistent across all campaigns from your brand. Gmail then allows for up to 3 optional identifiers to be used, so spend some time thinking about what identifiers will most help your brand pinpoint a source of complaints. Gmail warns that senders should not choose any identifiers that would be unique across individual emails, such as message IDs. 

Brands that manage multiple senders should certainly include unique customer or user IDs in the header. Brands that manage their own mailstreams should consider leveraging campaign and mail type (promotional, newsletter, product update) identifiers. Gmail provides the below sample to help illustrate what data points you could ingest to GPT via the Feedback-ID header. 

Why Implement Gmail Feedback-ID

From a reputation standpoint, nothing is more harmful to a healthy email program than spam complaints. Spam complaints are a mailbox provider’s only direct line of communication with their users about whether a particular brand’s emails are wanted or unwanted. Providers like Gmail react quickly to spikes in spam complaints, and mailstreams with consistent complaint issues are guaranteed to see inbox placement decline or even delivery failures over time. It’s crucial, then, to understand where your spam complaints are coming from so you can work to address underlying issues.

Most mailbox providers have traditional feedback loops that your email service provider will have already set up for you. These feedback loops allow you to run reporting on things like what domains complaints are being logged through and what subject lines complaints are associated with, all information that is critical to understanding how to address potential underlying problems. Gmail doesn’t have a traditional feedback loop, so without GPT, you’re fully shooting in the dark trying to diagnose a complaint issue.

GPT alone will give you complaint rates and dates, but if your brand is sending more than one type of content or more than one subject line from a single domain on any given day, you’re going to need the extra granularity that the Feedback-ID header gives you. This feature is particularly helpful for brands that are managing multiple senders on a single domain or platform, but direct senders should be leveraging it, too, to better understand which mailstreams may be negatively impacting overall Gmail reputation.

Once the source of complaints is identified, you can start to investigate what sending behaviors triggered the negative pushback from your recipients. Below are some common scenarios that drive spam complaints:

• Emailing recipients that did not give you explicit permission to send to them. Remember, implied consent is not consent! Use clear and direct opt-in always, and remember that sending to people that didn’t opt in is against Twilio’s email policy.
• Sending to inactive recipients: Send emails to engaged recipients only. Need some help figuring out how to identify unengaged recipients? Check out Engagement Based Sending in a Post-MPP World.
• Sending email too frequently, or sending an unexpected volume of email. Avoid email fatigue among your recipients, make sure expected email frequency is laid out at the point of sign up, and give your recipients the option to “opt-down” via a preference center.
• Sending from an unrecognized friendly-from or domain. Keep branding consistent, avoid affiliate marketing, and don’t go changing your friendly-from on random campaigns to make it look like the email came from a person at the company.
• Unsubscribe process is unclear or difficult. Remember that Gmail and Yahoo now require one-click unsubscribe. Don’t try to hide your unsubscribe link or force people through multiple forms. If the unsubscribe process is not straightforward, the recipient’s next best option is to hit that “report spam” button.

Looking for some additional guidance when it comes to Gmail complaint monitoring, or email reputation in general? Our Professional Services team is a group of email industry experts here to help you optimize your email program. Reach out and let us know how we can help!