Summary
Gmail's Top Promotions feature is a dynamic display within the Promotions tab of the Gmail mobile app (and soon desktop), designed to highlight key promotional emails for users. It aims to improve user experience by surfacing relevant deals and updates, but its exact mechanics and influencing factors are not fully transparent, leading to much discussion among email marketers and deliverability experts.
Key findings
- Engagement-driven: The feature heavily relies on a user's past engagement with a sender's emails. Higher personal engagement typically increases the likelihood of an email appearing in the Top Promotions section.
- Not advertisements: Emails displayed in Top Promotions are not paid ads. They are organic emails that Gmail has already categorized and delivered to the Promotions tab, now given elevated visibility.
- Annotations matter: Senders can enhance their emails with email annotations, allowing for richer previews with images, deals, and expiration dates. These annotations are crucial for standing out in the Top Promotions carousel.
- Part of the inbox: The Promotions tab, including Top Promotions, is an integral part of the Gmail inbox, not a spam folder or an indication of poor deliverability. Many users actively check this tab for deals.
Key considerations
- Sender reputation: Maintaining a strong sender reputation is foundational. Gmail's algorithms assess sender trustworthiness to determine email placement, including visibility within the Promotions tab.
- Content relevancy: While promotional in nature, the content should still be highly relevant and valuable to the recipient to encourage engagement and avoid being marked as spam or ignored.
- Mobile optimization: Since Top Promotions originated on mobile (Android and iOS), ensuring emails are mobile-friendly is critical for a positive user experience and increased interaction.
- Testing and monitoring: Continuously test and monitor your email performance to see how your campaigns are landing and engaging with users, especially in Gmail's categorized inboxes.
What email marketers say
Email marketers often approach Gmail's Promotions tab with mixed feelings. Some view it as a necessary evil or even a 'spam trap,' while others recognize it as a valuable opportunity for engagement. The introduction of Top Promotions has further spurred discussions about how to optimize campaigns to gain this elevated visibility, with many focusing on the role of subscriber engagement and content optimization.
Key opinions
- Perceived as ads: Some marketers initially mistook Top Promotions for paid advertising, questioning its impact on organic reach. However, it's clarified that these are not ads but rather highlighted promotional emails.
- Engagement is key: There's a strong consensus that individual user engagement is a primary driver for an email to appear in Top Promotions. Senders with higher open and click rates from a specific user are more likely to be featured.
- Not a spam folder: Many marketers reiterate that the Promotions tab is part of the inbox, not a dumping ground for unwanted emails. Users check it for deals, making visibility there still valuable.
- Opportunity for standout: The feature, especially with annotations, provides a new way for brands to stand out in a crowded promotional inbox, offering a richer preview experience.
Key considerations
- Optimizing for annotations: Marketers should consider implementing schema markup to enable Gmail annotations for their promotional emails to maximize visibility and appeal in the Top Promotions carousel.
- Focus on engagement: Prioritize strategies that boost user engagement, such as sending relevant content, segmenting audiences, and managing inactive subscribers to improve overall inbox placement and Top Promotions visibility.
- Content relevance: Even within the Promotions tab, the content of the email plays a significant role. Generic or irrelevant content may lead to lower engagement and thus reduced chances of appearing in Top Promotions.
- Avoid spam trigger words: While it’s the promotions tab, overtly spammy language can still negatively impact overall sender reputation and potentially prevent emails from being highlighted.
Marketer view
A marketer from Email Geeks notes that they recently observed the Top Promotions feature and found that while many displayed emails were from brands with high engagement, some were from senders they had forgotten about. This indicates that engagement is likely a significant factor, but it may not be the sole determinant. The presence of emails from less-engaged sources suggests that other algorithms or broad sender reputation metrics might also play a role in initial visibility.
Marketer view
A marketer from Email Geeks questioned whether the Top Promotions feature was simply a new way for Gmail to present ads. This reflects an initial confusion among some users and marketers about the nature of this new functionality, distinguishing it from traditional advertisements. The distinction between organic promotional emails and paid advertisements is crucial for understanding its impact on email marketing strategies.
What the experts say
Deliverability experts largely agree that Gmail's Top Promotions feature is an extension of its existing inbox categorization, driven primarily by user behavior and a sender's overall reputation. They often highlight that this tab is an important part of the inbox experience, not a de facto spam folder, and that senders should focus on foundational deliverability practices and engaging content to improve their chances of visibility.
Key opinions
- User-based engagement: A Google representative source confirmed that the feature is based on individual user engagement with a brand's emails. The more a user interacts with a sender, the higher the chance of their emails appearing in Top Promotions.
- Initial global view: While individual engagement is the long-term goal, it's suggested that Top Promotions might initially consider global engagement data for a sender, particularly as the feature rolls out and Google gathers more user-specific data.
- Promotions tab is part of the inbox: Experts stress that emails landing in the Promotions tab means they are delivered to the inbox, not sent to spam. This distinction is crucial for marketers to understand for accurate deliverability assessments.
- Evolution of feature: The feature has been live on Android for some time and is gradually rolling out to iOS and desktop, indicating Gmail's continued investment in refining the promotional email experience.
Key considerations
- Build strong sender reputation: Focus on improving your overall sender reputation through consistent sending practices, email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), and positive engagement.
- Prioritize engagement: Implement strategies that foster regular and positive subscriber engagement, such as sending personalized and valuable content, as this directly influences Top Promotions visibility.
- Monitor placement: Regularly use tools like Gmail Postmaster Tools to monitor your inbox placement and reputation, helping to identify and address any issues that might affect your visibility in the Promotions tab.
- Understand Gmail's filtering: A deep understanding of Gmail's filtering mechanisms (which categorize emails into Primary, Social, Promotions, etc.) is essential. This knowledge helps marketers align their email content and strategy with Gmail's expectations.
Expert view
An expert from Email Geeks notes that FreshInbox previously published content about Gmail's testing of subject line images with promotional cards. They indicate that there aren't many specific details available on how Gmail determines which messages receive top billing, suggesting the process is still somewhat opaque to the public. This highlights the ongoing challenge for senders in deciphering Gmail's complex algorithms for promotional email placement.
Expert view
An expert from Email Geeks suggests that Gmail's Top Promotions feature likely starts by using a global view of engagement. They predict that over time, it will probably shift towards an individual user's view once sufficient data is gathered, indicating a phased rollout approach for the algorithm. This evolution would make the feature even more personalized and responsive to individual subscriber preferences.
What the documentation says
Google's official documentation provides insights into how the Promotions tab works and how senders can optimize their emails for it. The focus is heavily on email annotations, which allow for a richer, more engaging experience directly within the Promotions tab, making emails more appealing and discoverable to users who are actively browsing for deals and content.
Key findings
- Annotations enhance visibility: Email annotations (via schema markup) allow messages in the Promotions tab to feature images, deals, and expiration dates, bringing them to life and increasing their click-through potential.
- Specific properties: Developers are encouraged to use specific properties within the email's HTML to enable these enhancements, such as logo, product images, discount codes, and offer expiration dates.
- User-centric design: The feature is designed to help users quickly identify and interact with relevant promotional content, improving the overall user experience within Gmail.
- Categorization accuracy: Gmail's algorithms automatically classify emails into categories, including Promotions, based on content and sender characteristics. Senders should understand this classification to optimize for the Promotions tab.
Key considerations
- Implement schema markup: Marketers must correctly implement the necessary schema markup in their HTML emails to enable the visual enhancements for Top Promotions.
- Regularly update deals: For time-sensitive offers, ensuring that expiration dates are correctly annotated and updated can drive urgency and engagement.
- High-quality visuals: Utilize compelling and high-resolution images for annotations to capture user attention within the Top Promotions carousel.
- Test annotations: Before full deployment, thoroughly test your annotated emails to ensure they render correctly and provide the intended user experience in Gmail.
Technical article
Documentation from Google for Developers indicates that email annotations are designed to enhance messages within the Promotions tab with features like images, deals, and expiration dates. This technical capability aims to make promotional emails more interactive and visually appealing to the recipient directly from the tab view, thereby increasing engagement.
Technical article
Documentation from Customer.io specifies that supported annotations include various elements such as images, logos, promo codes, and expiration dates on deals. This provides clear guidelines for senders on what types of rich content they can include to optimize their promotional emails for the Gmail Promotions tab, including Top Promotions.
Related resources
12 resources
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