Navigating Gmail and Yahoo Changes? Halon Engage 12 Delivers Compliance and More

The launch of Halon Engage 12 is a significant moment, particularly for large-scale email senders navigating the new requirements from Gmail and Yahoo. At Halon, we understand the importance of compliance, and this update empowers you with advanced controls to handle traffic seamlessly in light of these new requirements. Beyond compliance, Halon Engage 12 also focuses on enhancing your overall user experience. Let’s dive into the major improvements in this new release:

Discover the key features and improvements: 

• One-click unsubscribe: offers a readily accessible unsubscribe option within email headers.
• Queue management plugin: proactively checks email authentication before delivery and queues emails that fail authentication separately to avoid impacting sender reputation.
• Cassandra support: seamlessly import and export between Halon Engage and your Cassandra database with our brand-new plugin.
• Email address internationalization in DKIM/DMARC: this release leads the charge on this standard with support for unicode email addresses in DKIM and DMARC authentications.
• Added visual cues in halontop: With enhanced visual cues, we’ve improved the readability of our handy command-line tool for monitoring queues and deliveries in real-time. 

Gmail and Yahoo compliance made easy with one-click unsubscribe and smart queue management plugin

Gmail and Yahoo recently implemented stricter requirements for large-scale senders. To maintain good deliverability and avoid impacting your email campaigns, senders must adhere to the following:

• Domain authentication: Implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC protocols.
• One-click unsubscribe: Provide a readily accessible unsubscribe option within email headers.
• Low spam complaint ratio: Maintain a spam complaint rate below 0.3%.

Halon Engage 12 includes two powerful features to help you meet Gmail and Yahoo’s compliance requirements: One-click unsubscribe and Queue Management Plugin.

• One-click unsubscribe
  This feature automatically inserts the List-Unsubscribe header with a one-click unsubscribe URL within your emails. This is used by mailbox providers to trigger an unsubscribe request when the user clicks on the “unsubscribe” button in their interface.
• Queue management plugin (for ESPs and Martech platforms)
  This plugin safeguards the reputation of your sending infrastructure by proactively checking email authentication before delivery. It queues emails that fail authentication separately to avoid impacting your sender reputation. It also allows you to configure actions for emails in the failed queue, such as discarding, sending alerts, or delivering from a different infrastructure. This protects your main IPs and domains from potential reputation drops.

Seamless import and export functionality with new Cassandra support plugin

Halon Engage 12 expands the existing portfolio of external connections with the brand-new Cassandra plugin. This exciting addition provides seamless import and export functionality between Halon Engage and your Cassandra database.

Future-proof email authentication with unicode email address support

Halon has supported SMTPUTF8 since 2017. However, this release adds support for unicode email addresses in DKIM and DMARC authentications. Although this standard is not widely used yet, and most email infrastructure or MTA platforms do not support it, we are at the forefront of compliance with standards to ensure you are future-ready.

Added visual cues in halontop for improved readability

halontop is a handy command-line tool for monitoring queues and deliveries in real-time. To enhance the visual cues, we've added colors to improve the readability of the output. This subtle change makes the experience more delightful.

Halon Engage 12 goes beyond simply addressing compliance. It equips you with the tools to streamline data management through Cassandra support and paves the way for the future of email with pioneering Unicode support in DKIM and DMARC. This release empowers you to work more efficiently, embrace evolving standards, and ensure the continued success of your email service. For a full list of improvements, please see the changelog.

If you want to speak to us about this new release, reach out to us directly at support@halon.io.