Gmail’s move to segment by type emails sent to its subscribers has caused shock waves in the email marketing industry. Now, rather than sending all emails to a subscriber’s email inbox, Google will divide emails up by type, and send promotional emails and emails regarding social media updates into folders separate from the main email inbox. Naturally, such a dramatic change by one of the biggest email providers in the world has raised concern among bulk email marketers as to the effect this inbox segmentation will have on their campaigns. Below are some things to consider in evaluating and dealing with the changes to Gmail.
Open Rates Have Remained Stable
Perhaps the single most important metric for email marketers is the open rate, reflecting the percentage of emails sent out which have been looked at by recipients. You can’t sell product if nobody reads it, so this is a metric that can make or break an email marketing campaign. The good news is that so far reports are showing that open rates for promotional messages sent to gmail subscribers have remained fairly stable. However, it is still early, so this is a metric that will need to be watched closely as more time goes by to see if it continues to stay stable.
Adjusting to the Changes
Email marketers who remain concerned by the changes can make adjustments to their campaigns to account for the changes. One approach is to ask recipients to drag emails from the promotional folder over to their main inbox to avoid the promotional label altogether. Check your email marketing software to see if it allows for varying a campaign by email service provider if you go this route.
The Bright Side
Some in the email marketing community believe that the changes to Gmail could even prove beneficial, assuming open rates don’t fall dramatically. This is due to the theory that with promotional emails arriving in a special folder, recipients may be less likely to unsubscribe from receiving emails as readily as they otherwise might be if they were worried about the emails clogging up their main inbox.
Under this theory, what little email marketers might give up in terms of overall open rates could be gained back by increasing the size of their target audience. It’s still too soon to say how the Gmail changes will turn out, but at first glance they don’t seem to be ruining email blasting, just changing the mechanics by which consumers interact with it to some degree.