[Gmail] Promotions Grid View
Last week Gmail made a change to the Promotions Tab.
In a nutshell; for a trial period for those members who have the Promotions Tab enabled, they will now have the option to view the images nested within the emails in a more visual way. Potentially this could be huge for marketers and from a Deliverability perspective this could also be used to build a better reputation amongst your community. Image below from Google:
Whats everyone saying ?
Clickz created a good article which explains in detail the changes made and what you could expect, see here. This was original based on the article over at zettasphere.com and gives you some insight into why gmail might be doing this.
What does inboxplacement.com think about it?
If you’re sending Promotional type emails this should get your ATTENTION.
In this instance if there is any additional way to influence or engage your subscribers then if you can’t beat them join them.
One of the key take aways here is to go and get yourself a google + account and setup your + page. There are a few things you need to ensure you have to benefit from this, such as signing your emails with adequate authentication (DKIM/SPF), and send over 1000 emails from your sender domain. Why do this? doing this you can display your logo or image(s) on the Promotions Tab, again reinforcing your brand; if your users trust you, they are more likely to open your content and click through.
Another advantage to the Grid view, is to ensure your subject line and initial marketing line is up to 75 characters long (combined), to ensure your subscribers are given as much catchy information as possible and there is an incentive. So your thinking if you don’t have many images in your email why bother? in this instance you can always point Google to a default image you’d like to display in cases where your email doesnt include them.
Summary
– Request a trial for Grid View, you might be lucky before it rolls out
– Resuest a Google + account and setup your page
– Start to trial images, or atleast setup a default image for Grid View
– Ensure you have a subject line/marketing line of up to 75 characters for your email
– Create tests to see if it makes a difference for your campaigns (eg: type of image, GIF, JPG, small, large etc)
Google seems to be treating email with the respect it deserves, ensure you respect the new possibilities, maybe it wont change much for you, maybe it will help maintain your place inside the Inbox
