Email Deliverability 2025: The New Gmail and Apple Rules Every E-commerce Brand Must Know

“If your emails aren’t getting into the inbox, all the subject lines, design and list growth in the world won’t save your ROI.”

— Litmus, The Ultimate Guide to Email Deliverability

Since 2024, there’s no more ignoring email deliverability. If you’re a brand interested in growth, deliverability is a strategic lever—you either optimize it or bleed revenue. In this article, I’ll break down the new Gmail and Apple rules, explain how they impact your analytics, and share a case study from the vape niche to show what’s at stake.

What does “email deliverability” mean in 2025

Before diving into rules and tactics, let’s align on what deliverability actually means today. Simply put, deliverability tells you whether it landed where it should — the inbox.

In 2025, email deliverability is about:

• Whether ISPs like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook accept your emails.
• Whether those emails land in the inbox rather than spam or promotions.
• Whether your sender reputation and engagement levels signal trust.

With Apple’s privacy features and stricter Gmail/Microsoft filters, traditional signals like open rate are less reliable. This shift forces us to rely more on engagement (clicks, conversions) and on technical hygiene.

The new provider rules every e-commerce brand must know about

Now let’s look at what Gmail, Apple, and Microsoft have changed — and why it matters not just for compliance, but for analytics and performance reporting.

Data & trends: Why this matters more than ever

Before we get into the tactical checklist, it’s worth noting how the landscape has shifted. According to Sinch / Mailgun’s State of Email Deliverability 2025 report:

• 78.5% of senders rate deliverability as 8/10 in importance.
• Yet ~70% of senders aren’t using Google Postmaster Tools. (EmailExpert)
• Only 60% clean their lists regularly.
• Among high-volume senders, just 71% enforce DMARC.

This means the competitive advantage in 2025 is not just about content or offers — it’s also about investing in deliverability infrastructure and analytics others ignore.

How to stay compliant and boost deliverability

Having worked with dozens of e-commerce brands, here’s the process I recommend for ensuring strong deliverability in 2025. Each step is more than a technical fix — it’s an analytics upgrade too.

1. Authentication audit & alignment
   Start by reviewing SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Without alignment, Gmail will flag your emails. Once DMARC is in place, you’ll also get access to reports you can analyze — a goldmine for spotting spoofing and improving reputation.
2. Unsubscribe flow
   Don’t bury your unsubscribe link. Add one-click unsubscribe visibly in the footer. This not only prevents spam complaints but also gives you clean data on user intent.
3. List hygiene & engagement segmentation
   Clean your list quarterly. Suppress users with no clicks or purchases in 90–180 days. Engagement-based analytics here are critical — when inactive users are removed, complaint rates drop, and inbox placement improves.
4. Content & frequency optimization
   Review your campaigns for spammy subject lines, excessive capitalization, or misleading CTAs. Consistency in frequency builds trust with ISPs and improves the quality of engagement data you can analyze.
5. Measurement in the MPP era
   Because opens are skewed by Apple MPP, shift KPIs to:

• Clicks (actual engagement)
• Revenue per email (true ROI)
• Complaint rate (critical for Gmail/Yahoo compliance)
• Domain/IP reputation data (from Google Postmaster, Microsoft SNDS)

6. ESP-specific configs (Klaviyo)
   If you’re on Klaviyo, enable a branded sending domain, verify authentication, and use dedicated IP if you’re scaling. Klaviyo’s dashboards can track bounce and complaint data — feed this back into your deliverability strategy.

Sounds too hard? We understand that. At IMPRO Email Agency we are here to cover that while you can develop your business. Contact us for a free initial consultation.

Vape niche case study: From spam folder to inbox

To illustrate the stakes, here’s a recent case with a US vape brand. Sensitive niches like vape are especially vulnerable to deliverability issues due to regulatory scrutiny.

Challenges:

• DMARC not enforced.
• Hidden unsubscribe, leading to high complaint rates.
• Over-reliance on open rate data for segmentation.

Actions we took:

• Fixed SPF/DKIM/DMARC with alignment.
• Implemented one-click unsubscribe in footer.
• Ran re-engagement and sunset flows to clean inactive users.
• Used 60/40 text and image ratio.
• Shifted analytics focus from opens to clicks, purchases, and complaint rates.

Results in 4 months:

• Gmail inbox placement improved by ~20%.
• Complaint rate dropped below 0.2%.
• Revenue per send grew by 25% with fewer but better-targeted campaigns.

The biggest win? Leadership finally trusted the analytics again — because instead of chasing inflated open rates, they were looking at revenue per engaged subscriber.

Additionally, I’d love to share a beauty industry case study on deliverability — the results were awesome! Check it out now!

Final thoughts

I’ve seen brands waste six figures in potential revenue because they ignored deliverability until it was too late. In 2025, inbox placement is no longer optional — it’s a competitive moat. If you want a free deliverability audit for your e-commerce brand, reach out and let’s make sure your emails actually get seen.