Embrace the Promotions Tab in Gmail

Most of us have experienced or heard about the new promotions tab in Gmail. As you might expect, many marketers fear the promotions tab and don’t view it as the same as the inbox. However, this isn’t the case.

The promotions tab is still the inbox.

And for marketers, the promotions tab is actually better than the traditional inbox vs. spam options! Here are some reasons why:

• It keeps most marketing messages out of the spam folder. The promotions tab allows marketers to send bulk, promotional mailings that are delivered to the inbox without having excellent engagement. By this I mean, if Gmail were using the standard inbox vs. spam folders, a lot of messages that now go to the promotional tab would actually be sent to the spam folder.

• This means marketers' messages are more trusted and more seen. Once a brand's message lands in the spam folder, it's unlikely to even be seen by the recipient. If it is, there is a loss of trust with the brand and their emails.

• Subscribers are less likely to mark the message as spam or unsubscribe. Messages in the promotions tab don't send push notifications to subscribers' phones, and they don't contribute to the count of messages in the inbox. We all know the stressful feeling of seeing our message count grow and grow. With the promotions tab, subscribers are not as notified, and potentially annoyed, by a brand's regular promotional emails as they would be if they went straight to the primary tab.

And Gmail has added even more value to the promotions tab within the last few days! Check out https://developers.google.com/gmail/promotab/ to see all of the new features.

Summary

Landing in the promotions tab is still landing in the inbox. There are also many perks that come along with the new promotions tab. It's good for marketers and subscribers alike.