Prevent Emails From Landing In Gmail’s Promotions Tab
Using This Checklist, You Can Prevent Emails From Landing In Gmail’s Promotions Tab, check it out.
Image Source: Google
Not loving Gmail’s promotions tab? Many email marketers are not, learn how to keep your emails in the inbox, keep reading.
Things have never been the same since Gmail followed Google’s lead in 2013 and implemented message categorization into primary and social, ads, forums, and notifications. Although many Gmail users considered the new interface to be extremely useful, advertisers were less pleased because 84.5 percent of promotional emails ended up in the promotion tab, which had a 19.2 percent open rate. Landing in the promotions tab after putting a lot of work into creating a beautiful marketing plan, sensitive HTML email templates, and copywriting is probably every marketer’s worst nightmare.
Email marketers and algorithms have been playing a cat and mouse game to get their messages into the primary inbox. Many marketers invented a variety of strategies to escape promotion tabs, but only a few were effective, and the majority were not. Today, I’ll reveal my top-secret checklist for avoiding the promotion tab in 2021 and landing in the primary inbox.
#1 Mailing List Hygiene.
Aliexpress offers to ensure that your subscribers are truly interested in your goods or services, you can use a double opt-in form from the start to keep your list clean. When creating your ongoing marketing strategies, you can also use lead qualification. Also, use tools like Email Verifier to sanitize your mailing list on a regular basis.
#2 Request that your email address be added to their whitelist by your subscriber.
Request that your subscribers add you to their whitelist, since this is the most effective way to reach their primary inbox. This sends a clear message to Gmail that your emails are important to the recipients. Provide them with step-by-step instructions, such as the one below:
#3 Adhere to Best Practices in Subject Lines
To start, keep the subject line as brief as possible. It should be good to use a subject line of 40-50 characters. Make it interesting and clickable. Emojis have different meanings in different cultures, so avoid using them. Make it personal for each subscriber by using their first names and keeping it relevant.
#4 Make Your Emails More Personal
Gmail’s algorithms are really good at detecting email blasts and other popular campaigns. To ensure that your personalization and segmentation activities are important to your subscribers, keep your automation workflows in order. Unless you consistently provide value to your subscribers, they will not open your email. Furthermore, 72% of customers claim they just open customised texts. If you’re going to use a free HTML email template, make sure it allows for personalization.
#5 Maintain visual consistency as well as the HTML/text ratio.
Use only web-safe fonts that are approved. Your emails can end up in the promotion tab if you use fancy fonts. Maintain continuity in colour scheme and graphics as well, as Google is likely to classify excessively colourful email as promotional. To ensure that your message appears as intended on any platform, use sensitive HTML email templates. Your email can also look as though it were a one-on-one communication written and submitted manually to avoid the promotion tab. This will necessitate finding a balance between text and HTML formatting.
#6 Don’t use too many links, be overly promotional, or use spammy words.
Using promotional or spammy terms would almost certainly land you in the promotions or, worse, the spam tab. Words like free, lottery, and jackpot should be avoided. It’s best to keep the number of outbound connections to a bare minimum. Instead, redirect all of the links to a landing page. In the footers of your HTML email templates, however, always provide an unsubscribe connection.
#7 Keep an eye on your header and footer, and don’t use too many photos.
Links like “View in web browser” and “Unsubscribe” are typically created and embedded by your email service provider in headers and footers. You’ll usually end up in the promotions tab if you use these words. You shouldn’t fully delete them because the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 allows you to provide an unsubscribe connection. To stop it, transfer the links to the bottom of your message with your signature. Also, make sure they don’t appear too conspicuous. Maintain a 20:80 image:text ratio in your personalised free HTML email templates as well.
#8 Pay Attention To The CTA And The Copy Length
If you want to stay out of Gmail’s promotions tab, keep it brief.
Long content is thought to send your email to the promotion page, so it’s best to be safe and keep content duration to a minimum. Gmail algorithms would classify your message as promotional because CTA buttons like “Buy now” are too obvious. Use your imagination when writing CTA text, as seen in the example below:
#9 Be Consistent With Your Timing And Leverage A/B Testing is a method of comparing two options.
One of the most significant factors affecting your email’s open rate is the time it takes to send it. The best submit time varies by industry; however, weekdays starting on Tuesday are a safe bet, and the best times are 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. A/B split checking is easily one of the most effective methods for avoiding the promotion tab. All variables that may influence categorization, such as content duration, promotional terms, and the subject line to a new (never used before to test) email address, must be A/B tested.
Finally, I’d like to suggest that you use a good ESP tool because it will help you prevent any mistakes. Although landing in the promotion tab is inconvenient, it saved 93 percent of promotional emails from ending up in the spam folder. All you have to do now is step up your efforts to get to the primary inbox, and using this checklist will help you along the way.
