How does starring a promo email in Gmail affect deliverability and inbox placement?

Key findings

• Engagement signal: Starring an email tells Gmail that the recipient finds the message important, contributing to overall engagement data.
• Personal organization: For individual users, starring emails primarily serves as a way to mark messages for later attention or easier retrieval within their inbox.
• Potential primary tab shift: Some users observe that starring a message can cause that specific email to appear in the Primary tab, though this might not consistently apply to all future emails from the same sender.
• Aggregated impact: While one star is minor, many subscribers starring emails from a sender could cumulatively signal strong user interest, potentially influencing future inbox placement for that sender. Read more about how email clicks improve deliverability.

Key considerations

• Direct versus indirect: Starring is an indirect signal, contributing to overall engagement metrics rather than being a primary, direct lever for deliverability.
• Importance marker distinction: Gmail has a separate 'Importance Marker' feature which explicitly aims to teach the system what is important, distinct from manual starring.
• Algorithm complexity: Gmail's algorithms consider numerous factors, and no single action guarantees improved placement. Factors like sender reputation are critical.
• Focus on overall engagement: While starring helps, focusing on broad positive engagement (opens, clicks, replies, not marking as spam) is more impactful. For more information, check this article on Gmail deliverability.

Key opinions

• Positive signal: Any positive user action, like starring an email, is generally considered beneficial for deliverability and inbox placement. This affects a sender's sender reputation.
• Limited individual impact: A single star from one subscriber is unlikely to cause significant changes in deliverability for a campaign.
• Collective influence: If a large number of subscribers consistently star messages from a specific sender, it could cumulatively signal strong interest to Gmail and potentially affect future inbox placement for those users and others.
• Primary tab potential: Some marketers observe that starring can move an email to the Primary tab for the user who starred it, impacting its visibility. Learn more about the impact of Gmail's primary versus promotional tabs.

Key considerations

• Practicality of prompting: It is uncommon for marketers to explicitly ask users to star emails due to the low perceived impact compared to more direct calls to action.
• Focus on broader engagement: Marketers should prioritize fundamental engagement metrics like opens, clicks, and replies for a more robust deliverability strategy. More info on improving inbox placement.
• Gmail's internal logic: The exact weighting Gmail assigns to starring as a signal remains proprietary and subject to change.
• User behavior: User behavior around starring emails is highly personal and driven by individual organizational habits, making it less predictable as a marketing lever.

Key opinions

• Engagement component: Starring an email contributes to the overall engagement signals Gmail uses to assess sender reputation and email relevance.
• User interface function: Starring primarily serves as a personal organizational tool within the Gmail interface, often moving messages to the top or to a dedicated 'Starred' view for the individual user.
• Potential for primary tab visibility: Some experts acknowledge that starring a message might cause it to appear in the Primary tab, but this effect is often limited to that specific message or user, and not necessarily a global deliverability factor.
• Distinction from importance markers: Experts highlight that Gmail has a separate 'Importance Marker' feature, which is a more direct signal to Gmail's algorithms about a message's importance.

Key considerations

• Limited direct deliverability impact: While positive, starring is generally considered a weak signal compared to more explicit engagements like replies or moves to the primary inbox. This is also true for other subtle signals like how email image sizes affect deliverability.
• Scale matters: A widespread, consistent pattern of starring from many users would be required to significantly influence overall deliverability. Learn more about deliverability and Gmail expert insights.
• Gmail's undisclosed algorithm: The precise mechanics of how Gmail's algorithms interpret and weigh such signals are not publicly disclosed by Google.
• Not a primary strategy: Experts typically advise against relying on starring as a core deliverability strategy, focusing instead on content quality, list hygiene, and broader engagement.

Key findings

• User-centric purpose: Google's own documentation often states that starring emails is intended to help users mark messages as important for their personal organization and later review. It's a personal productivity feature.
• Aid to recall: The feature primarily serves as a reminder system, allowing users to easily find emails they need to revisit quickly. This improves the user's workflow.
• Filtering and display: Starred messages can be easily filtered or displayed at the top of certain views within Gmail, enhancing user navigation.
• Implicit versus explicit signals: While actions like starring *could* implicitly feed into broader engagement models, explicit signals like moving to primary, replying, or marking as 'not spam' are more directly indicated as influencing deliverability. For context on this, see how Gmail's promotion tab works.

Key considerations

• Lack of explicit deliverability claim: Official documentation does not explicitly state that starring an email directly improves a sender's deliverability or inbox placement for future emails. This indicates it's not a primary factor.
• Importance marker function: Google provides a separate, AI-driven 'Importance Marker' feature that learns from user behavior to automatically mark important emails, which is distinct from manual starring. This separate feature suggests different algorithmic weight.
• Engagement signal inference: Any positive interaction can be interpreted by algorithms as a sign of value, but starring's specific weight in deliverability is not defined. It's one of many signals.
• Complex ecosystem: Deliverability is affected by a multitude of factors, and starring is likely a very minor component within a complex system of engagement metrics and sender reputation. Understanding what causes emails to land in the promotions tab involves many variables.