If you log into your Open Leads account with Yahoo.com email address, you may have noticed you are having trouble getting mail sent from Open Leads delivered to your contacts. Why? Last month Yahoo changed their authentication process which has effected every single Email Service Provider like Open Leads. When email is sent from your Open Leads account, we configure it so that it appears to the end user as though it came from the email address you log in with (by default) or from the “From” address you enter when composing the email message, although the message is actually sent from our email system.

With the changes Yahoo has implemented, this email process no longer validates when received by certain other ISPs, such as AOL, Hotmail, Gmail and Comcast, among others). Messages sent to addresses at these domains will most likely bounce immediately, even thought the email addresses are valid.

This new policy not only affected Open Leads, but other companies that provide email marketing services, such as Constant Contact, MailChimp, etc.

The solution for at this point is to not use your Yahoo address as the from address in any messages you send from your Open Leads account. The best solution is if you have an email address at your domain (i.e. “you@yourcompany.com”) – or, if you do not have access to that, you can use one that is not an actual address (such as “no_reply@yourdomain.com”) – however using this method means that any response from the recipient will not be received. If you do not have access to a company email account, then your best bet is to use another free email service, such as Gmail and avoid Yahoo altogether.