Holiday Deliverability Survival Guide: Expert Insights from Matt Vernhout
About this episode
In this episode of Audience Bridge Insights, Chris Miquel sits down with one of the most respected deliverability experts in the world — Matt Vernhout, Principal Consultant at Email Industries, founder of EmailKarma, co-chair of the BIMI Working Group, and a 20-year veteran in email policy, authentication, and sender reputation.
We dive deep into what’s really happening inside Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft right now, how authentication is changing, and the new rules every sender needs to follow heading into Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the 2025 holiday season.
Matt breaks down:
🔹 Why more emails are landing in Gmail Promotions (and why that’s not bad)
🔹 The #1 misconception newsletter operators have about deliverability
🔹 How authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) really affects inboxing
🔹 What DKIM2 and DMARC 2.0 (“DMARCbis”) mean for the future
🔹 How AI is changing filtering, classification, and spam detection
🔹 Why warmup services are failing — and when they might still help
🔹 How subdomains and sender domain strategy impact your reputation
🔹 How to prevent cross-contamination across teams, tools, and ESPs
🔹 The right way to run reactivation + winback campaigns
🔹 What every sender MUST do in the next 2 weeks before Black Friday
🔹 Why data hygiene, validation, and new-user segments matter more than ever
🔹 How to avoid destroying your domain reputation in Q4
🔹 What’s coming next in email protocols and global platform policy
If you run a newsletter, send marketing campaigns, or rely on email revenue — this episode is packed with strategic, tactical, and future-focused insights that will save you time, headaches, deliverability failures, and lost inbox reach.
🔗 Connect with Matt Vernhout:
🔗 Learn more about Audience Bridge:
- Website → https://www.audiencebridge.io
- Newsletter → https://www.audiencebridge.io/subscribe
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