For many Gmail users, your inbox is separated into sections: Primary, Promotions, Updates, and Social. This is designed to sort your emails into priority groups, so you don’t need to see sales promotions when you’re waiting on something important. Google made the change from a single inbox in 2013 to help reduce spam and increase open rates on emails that readers find important. However, sometimes emails end up in one of the tabs when we don’t want them there. You can select anywhere from no tabs to all 5 tab categories for your inbox. Google will automatically adjust filtering to match your preferences based on your tab selections and how your filter your email.
What is the Promotions Tab?
The Promotions tab is a place for mass emails, like mailing lists, marketing, promotions, and more. People who use Google’s tabbed inboxes open these emails by checking the Promotions inbox. A lot of Gmail users who utilize tabbed inboxes follow this tab to find out about updates from their favorite businesses, stores, and organizations.
But what if I don’t want my email to go to the Promotions Tab?
Email senders cannot control which inbox their marketing email lands in; however, there are some changes email recipients can make to keep emails out of the Promotions tab, or do away with tabbed inboxes altogether.
How can I end up in a contact’s Primary inbox?
A contact can choose to move your email from the Promotions tab to the Primary inbox. That’s easily done by dragging and dropping the email from one to the other. Once a user moves your email from the Promotions to the Primary inbox, they’ll have the option for all future emails from you to go to their Primary inbox. You’ll need to ask your subscribers/recipients to do this in their accounts.
You can also recommend your clients add your email address to their contact list to help ensure the delivery of your messages as well.
How can I get rid of tabs?
Users can disable the tabbed inboxes if they prefer just a single inbox. To do that,
-
Go into Gmail and click the settings gear icon. Choose “See all settings” from the drop-down menu.
-
In the "Inbox type" section, select Default. Note: To hide all tabs, select another inbox type.
-
In the "Categories" section, check the boxes of tabs you want to show. Note: You can't make new tabs; you can only show or hide existing ones.
-
Scroll to the bottom, then click Save Changes.
As a sender, is there anything else I can do?
Here are a few tips that could help you out.
-
Ask subscribers to add your “From” email address to their list of contacts. For your PhotoBiz Marketing emails, you'd want to have your client add your email marketing notification address to their list of contacts. Emails from a subscriber’s contacts always go into their Primary inbox. You can send yourself a test email to find this in the email header, it will appear similar to yourname@mailbiz1.photobiz.com.
-
Personalize your emails. Include the contact’s name in the email so it looks like a personalized email and not marketing or spam.
-
Don’t make your headline look like spam. Be thoughtful in how you address your audience.
-
Check your spelling. Spelling and grammar mistakes in your email could land you in a spam folder.
-
Make your emails engaging. No matter which tab they land in, users will open an engaging email.
Asking your users to take a few simple steps will help keep your emails from going to Gmail’s Promotions tab. Email delivery will always be up to the end-user to make those changes, but ending up in the Promotions folder isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Users come to expect certain emails to end up there, and will check that tab for discounts, updates, etc.
For more information on how to use email marketing, check out our Email Marketing Guide.
0 Comments