Why is Gmail adding an 'Expired' tag to my non-expired offers?
Michael Ko
Co-founder & CEO, Suped
Published 24 Apr 2025
Updated 16 Aug 2025
7 min read
It can be frustrating when your carefully crafted email offers suddenly appear in Gmail with an 'Expired' tag, especially when the offer is still active. This isn't just a minor visual glitch, it can significantly impact your campaign's performance, leading to missed opportunities and reduced engagement. Understanding why Gmail does this is crucial for maintaining your email deliverability and ensuring your messages are perceived correctly by your recipients.
Gmail's Promotions tab is designed to help users manage marketing emails, and part of its functionality involves displaying dynamic offer information, including expiration dates. While this feature is meant to be helpful, misconfigurations or misinterpretations by Gmail's systems can lead to the 'Expired' tag showing prematurely, causing confusion for your subscribers.
How Gmail's promotions tab interacts with offers
Gmail utilizes annotations in the Promotions tab to enhance the visibility of promotional emails. These annotations pull specific details like deal percentages, promo codes, and importantly, expiration dates directly into the inbox preview. This dynamic display aims to make offers more appealing and actionable for recipients. The information is typically embedded using Schema.org markup within the email's HTML, allowing Gmail's systems to parse and display relevant data.
When you include Schema.org markup for your offers, Gmail looks for properties such as validThrough to determine the offer's end date. If this date has passed, or if there's any discrepancy in how the date is formatted or interpreted, Gmail might automatically tag the offer as 'Expired'. This can happen even if the offer is still live on your website or through other marketing channels.
It's important to note that Gmail's system for extracting deals and offers can operate with or without explicit Schema.org markup, though using it provides the most control. Their machine learning algorithms are constantly analyzing email content to identify promotional elements, and sometimes, these automated guesses can be incorrect, leading to an 'Expired' tag being applied erroneously. This is why it is so critical to adhere to Schema.org where possible.
Why Gmail might incorrectly tag offers as expired
There are several reasons why Gmail might incorrectly apply an 'Expired' tag to your current offers. The most frequent culprit is often related to the Schema.org markup itself. Even a slight error in the date format or an oversight in updating the validThrough field can trick Gmail into thinking the offer has concluded.
Another common factor is caching. Gmail's servers may cache older versions of your email's markup, or there might be a delay in processing updates. This means that even if you've corrected the validThrough date in your email template, Gmail might still be displaying information from a previous send. Time zone differences between your server and Gmail's processing systems can also lead to premature expiration tagging.
While less common, general email deliverability issues, like your emails ending up in the wrong tab, can sometimes indirectly contribute to offers being mislabeled. If Gmail's algorithms are already struggling to categorize your email correctly, they might also misinterpret embedded offer data.
Correct schema implementation
Ensure your Schema.org markup (specifically Offer type) is correctly implemented with precise validThrough dates in ISO 8601 format (e.g., YYYY-MM-DD). This is the most common cause of premature expiration tags.
Troubleshooting and preventing incorrect expiration tags
If you're encountering the 'Expired' tag prematurely, the first step is to inspect the email's HTML. Look for any script tags or microdata referencing offer details and their expiration dates. This is typically found within the head or body section of your email. Ensure the date format used for validThrough (or similar properties) strictly adheres to the ISO 8601 standard, like YYYY-MM-DD, to avoid misinterpretation.
Example of correct Schema.org markup for an offerjson
If you suspect issues beyond simple markup errors, Gmail provides troubleshooting resources for Promotions tab annotations. Additionally, using Google Postmaster Tools can provide insights into how Gmail perceives your sending practices, which can indirectly affect content processing. While Postmaster Tools primarily focus on deliverability and sender reputation, consistent issues with offer tagging might be a symptom of broader trust signals.
For ongoing prevention, establish a rigorous testing process for all promotional emails, including a final check of the Schema.org markup just before sending. If you frequently find your emails appearing in the Promotions tab, consistent and accurate markup can help reinforce proper categorization and prevent mislabeling of your offers.
Broader impact on email deliverability
An 'Expired' tag on a live offer can significantly damage subscriber trust and engagement. Recipients are less likely to click on or redeem an offer they perceive as invalid, even if the content within the email is correct. This can lead to lower open rates, click-through rates, and ultimately, reduced ROI for your email campaigns.
Beyond immediate campaign performance, consistent mislabeling can negatively impact your overall sender reputation. If users frequently see your emails with incorrect information, they might start marking your messages as spam or simply ignore them. This negative engagement can signal to Internet Service Providers (ISPs), including Gmail, that your emails are not valuable, potentially leading to your domain or IP being added to a blocklist (or blacklist).
Impact on engagement: Misleading 'Expired' tags reduce subscriber confidence and willingness to interact with your emails.
Sender reputation risk: Repeated issues can lead to lower sender scores and potential placement on an email blacklist or blocklist.
Deliverability challenges: A compromised reputation means your emails are more likely to land in spam folders or face rejection, even for non-promotional content. Learn more about email deliverability issues.
Views from the trenches
Best practices
Always include accurate and up-to-date Schema.org markup for offers in your promotional emails.
Use the ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ssZ) for all date and time properties.
Test your emails in various Gmail environments to ensure annotations display correctly.
Monitor your email deliverability metrics and Gmail Postmaster Tools regularly.
Common pitfalls
Failing to update the Schema.org validThrough date for recurring offers or extended promotions.
Using incorrect date formats, leading to misinterpretation by Gmail's parsing algorithms.
Relying solely on Gmail's machine learning to detect offers without providing explicit markup.
Overlooking time zone discrepancies that can cause offers to appear expired prematurely.
Expert tips
If Gmail's machine learning misinterprets offer dates, providing explicit and correct Schema.org markup is essential to guide their systems.
For ongoing issues, review your overall email authentication and domain reputation, as these factors can indirectly influence how Gmail processes your content.
Consider a phased rollout for new promotional email templates to catch any tagging issues before a full send.
Don't confuse AMP for Email with Promotions tab annotations; they are distinct features for enhancing email content.
Marketer view
A marketer from Email Geeks suggested that Gmail might be trying to be helpful by indicating offers have passed their expiration.
2023-05-12 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
A marketer from Email Geeks wondered if annotations were being used, as senders often include expiration dates with them, and noted that AMP content expires after 30 days but falls back to HTML.
2023-05-12 - Email Geeks
Key takeaways for accurate offer display
Dealing with Gmail adding an 'Expired' tag to your non-expired offers can be a head-scratcher, but it's typically a fixable issue. The key lies in understanding Gmail's reliance on structured data for its Promotions tab features. By ensuring your Schema.org markup is precise, up-to-date, and consistently formatted, you can guide Gmail's systems to correctly display your offers.
Proactive monitoring and testing of your email campaigns are essential to catch these issues early. By paying close attention to technical details and leveraging available tools, you can ensure your promotional emails not only land in the right inbox tab but also present your offers accurately, maintaining subscriber trust and maximizing your campaign's effectiveness. This attention to detail is vital for strong email deliverability.
