NorthStar’s 2008 Email Summit session made two points that still hold in November 2026. B2B email performs better when it is targeted tightly than when it relies on urgency, and you should agree on success metrics with sales and leadership before any campaign goes out. What has changed is measurement and compliance. Apple Mail Privacy Protection has inflated open rates since iOS 15 in September 2021. Since February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo have required bulk senders to use SPF, DKIM and DMARC and keep spam complaints below 0.3%. Google has also required one-click unsubscribe on marketing mail since June 1, 2024, and Microsoft Outlook added similar authentication rules for high-volume senders on May 5, 2025.
Before the session: an interview with NorthStar’s Vicki Morris
This piece was written on the morning of day two of MarketingSherpa’s 2008 Email Summit, which ran February 24 to 26, 2008, at the InterContinental Hotel in Miami. Before the day’s sessions began, there was a chance to talk with one of the presenters.
That presenter was Vicki Morris, Vice President of Marketing for NorthStar, a B2B company that sold wealth management software to financial services institutions. Her session covered B2B segmentation strategies and how her company doubled its number of client engagements in a single year with an aggressive email marketing program. The questions below were put to her ahead of the presentation.
Targeting drove the results
The headline result of the session was how NorthStar doubled its client engagements within one year. The testing was built around how the company targeted each email send. Results improved with every send, and the data showed that the more targeted the email, the better it performed.
As a marketing idea, this sounds obvious. In practice it gets forgotten whenever a team decides the message has to go out urgently to everyone. NorthStar’s results showed that a narrower audience with a more relevant message beat broad, urgent blasts.
Seen from 2026, the lesson matters even more. Unsegmented sends to cold or uninterested contacts produce spam complaints, and Google and Yahoo now treat a complaint rate of 0.3% as the line bulk senders must stay under. Targeting is now a deliverability requirement as well as a way to lift response.
Set metrics before you launch
Morris was firm on this point: “…metrics are an increasingly important part of every successful marketing project. I strongly encourage all marketing executives to establish clear metrics and expectations with sales and executive teams before launching any e-marketing campaign.”
Most industries run on tight deadlines. Even so, a campaign launched without agreed metrics gives you nothing to measure against, and the results are of little use when you plan the next round of campaigns and tactics.
The advice still holds, but the metrics have changed. Opens were a reasonable signal in 2008. Today Apple Mail Privacy Protection preloads tracking pixels, which records “opens” whether or not anyone read the email. Click metrics are not affected the same way. For a B2B program like NorthStar’s, the numbers worth agreeing on with sales are those closest to revenue: clicks, replies, meetings booked, opportunities created and pipeline influenced.
What came next
Morris covered more in the interview than fits here, including the detailed procedures behind NorthStar’s segmentation strategy, and her full presentation took place later that day in Miami.
How the 2008 advice translates to 2026
The two core ideas carry over directly. The tools and the rules around them have changed. The table compares the 2008 approach with what a B2B email team works with now.
| Area | 2008 practice | November 2026 reality |
|---|---|---|
| Core success metric | Opens and clicks | Clicks, replies, meetings and pipeline. Opens are inflated by Apple Mail Privacy Protection |
| Segmentation inputs | Industry, job title, list source | Role, industry, account stage, product interest and recent engagement |
| Authentication | Optional for most senders | SPF, DKIM and DMARC required for bulk senders to Gmail (Feb 2024), Yahoo (Feb 2024) and Outlook.com (May 5, 2025) |
| Unsubscribe | Link in the footer | One-click unsubscribe (RFC 8058) for marketing mail to Gmail and Yahoo, honored within two days |
| Complaint threshold | No published limit | Keep below 0.3% at Gmail and Yahoo, ideally below 0.1% |
| Reading environment | Desktop clients | Mostly mobile, with dark mode and Gmail’s tabs shaping how messages look and where they land |
Google counts you as a bulk sender once you send about 5,000 messages to personal Gmail accounts in a single day. That status is permanent. If you are setting up authentication for the first time, a starting DMARC record looks like this, and you can move it to p=quarantine or p=reject once your reports show that all legitimate mail passes:
_dmarc.example.com. TXT "v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:[email protected]"
Morris’s 2008 advice to agree on metrics before launch now has a second half. Agree on deliverability metrics too, especially the spam rate shown in Google Postmaster Tools, because a campaign that lands in spam never gets a chance to hit its sales targets.
FAQ
Does B2B email segmentation still work in 2026?
Yes, and it matters more than it did in 2008. Targeted sends get more clicks and replies, and they also keep complaint rates low, which mailbox providers now enforce. Start with a few segments that change the message, such as role or account stage, before you build anything more complex.
Which email metrics should B2B teams report now that open rates are unreliable?
Lead with clicks, replies, meetings booked and pipeline influenced. Apple Mail Privacy Protection preloads tracking pixels and records machine opens, so treat open rate as a rough trend at best. Also add spam complaint rate and bounce rate, because they tell you whether future campaigns will reach the inbox at all.
What are the Gmail and Yahoo bulk sender rules?
Since February 2024, bulk senders must authenticate with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, and since June 1, 2024, Google has required them to offer one-click unsubscribe on marketing mail. Google says unsubscribe requests must be honored within two days. They must also keep user-reported spam complaints below 0.3%. Google defines a bulk sender as one that sends around 5,000 messages a day to personal Gmail accounts and recommends staying under 0.1% complaints.
Do these rules apply to B2B email sent to company addresses?
Google’s sender requirements apply to mail sent to personal Gmail accounts, so a list made up only of corporate addresses is not directly covered by them. Corporate mail systems such as Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace still check SPF, DKIM and DMARC when they filter mail. Most B2B lists also include some personal Gmail, Yahoo or Outlook.com addresses, so it makes sense to meet the bulk sender standard anyway.
Does CAN-SPAM apply to B2B email?
Yes. The FTC’s CAN-SPAM guide says the law makes no exception for business-to-business email. Your commercial messages need honest headers and subject lines, a valid physical postal address and a working opt-out, and you must honor opt-outs within 10 business days.
How should marketing agree on metrics with sales before a campaign?
Pick one primary goal per campaign, such as meetings booked or demo requests, and agree on a target number and a time window before launch. Agree on how leads get handed over and attributed, so both teams count results the same way. Then review the numbers together after each send, as NorthStar did when it refined its targeting one send at a time.
Sources
- Google: Email sender guidelines FAQ
- Yahoo Sender Hub: FAQs
- Microsoft Tech Community: Strengthening email security, Outlook’s new requirements for high-volume senders
- Microsoft Outlook.com Postmaster: Policies, Practices, and Guidelines
- FTC: CAN-SPAM Act, A Compliance Guide for Business
- Litmus: Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection, what it means for email marketers
- MarketingSherpa: 2008 Email Summit Expo and Awards