Here's my take on how to avoid the Promotions Tab in Gmail
Few things are worse than spending hours crafting a fantastically witty email only to have the open rates plummet because - waahhh wahhhhhh - you’re stuck in the promotions tab.
I read a great post the other day from Kasey Luck of Bold & Zesty. Kasey had some great tips for avoiding the dreaded Promotions Tab in Gmail.
Kasey shared some easy changes like limiting the number of links in an email, keeping your formatting simple, and avoiding overly promotional language that can tip off the spam filters. She also shared some more advanced changes you can make within your email service provider to improve deliverability.
You can find the original post here and read all of Kasey’s tips for yourself.
Since I am the queen of email copy for entrepreneurs, I wanted to give you my take on the topic, too.
While Kasey shared some great tips, there’s even more you can do to land in the Primary Tab. Here’s a few more best practices for staying out of the Promotions Tab:
Ask People to Reply
This is my number one tip for getting your emails in the main tab of Gmail. People don’t reply to boring promotional emails. They reply to emails from friends, family, and people they want to hear from. If people are regularly hitting reply and engaging with your emails, Gmail will see your emails as important and deliver them to the Primary tab.
The best part of this strategy is that you don’t even need everyone to reply to make it work. Even if just a portion of your subscribers hit reply, it helps the rating of your whole list.
My favorite way to do with is with your welcome email. Ask a question and tell people to hit reply. You’ll get people engaging with your list as soon as they join. WIN!
Don’t Use Bit.ly Links
Link shorteners can send your emails straight to the spam folder. Bit.ly links are used by a lot of spammers to mask the links they share. Most ISPs have blacklisted Bit.ly links because of this, so if you use them in your emails they’re more likely to end up in spam. Instead, just use a full link or an HTML link in your copy.
Keep a Clean List
The quality of your list impacts your overall deliverability. Your subscribers’ behavior affects how Gmail categorizes your emails. Just like a positive interaction like a reply can help you, negative interactions can hurt you.
If you have subscribers who mark your emails as spam or delete them without opening, Gmail thinks you’re sending spammy or promotional content. People who aren’t engaging with your emails tell Gmail that people aren’t interested in your content. Then your emails get sent straight to Promotions Tab purgatory.
This doesn’t just affect the people who aren’t opening your emails - it impacts your entire list. Even the people who open your emails every week will start to see them ending up in Promotions. Sad!
Clean your list every 3-6 months to delete subscribers who are no longer interested. Keeping a lean and clean list boosts your open rates and positively impacts your deliverability.
You saw Kasey’s take on the topic. And I’ve shared my take on the topic. Now I want to know your take on staying out of the Promotions Tab. Let’s continue the conversation over on Facebook - find me here!