How to get your emails to land in Gmail's primary tab
To offer an uncluttered email experience for their users, Gmail introduced inbox tabs, an ingenious technique that segregates emails into three tabs: Primary, Promotions, and Social. Gmail uses complex algorithms and email engagement metrics to organize emails into these tabs.
Though Gmail users welcomed this, marketers found it difficult to land their emails in the Primary tab. Instead, their emails kept landing in the Promotions tab. Though the Promotions tab has increased deliverability and reduced spam markings, only active contacts frequently check their Promotions tab for emails from their favorite brands. Fortunately, if you want your emails to land in the Primary tab instead of the Promotions tab, you can achieve it by implementing a few techniques. Let's take a look at them.
Moving emails to the Primary tab
You can land your emails in the Primary tab by asking your contacts to do the following:
- Drag and drop your emails
- Use the "Move to tab" option
- Adding your email address to the address book
Drag and drop emails
You can ask your contacts to drag your emails from the Promotion tab and drop them in the Primary tab. If your contacts drag and drop your emails from the Promotion tab to the Primary tab, they will get the following message:
When your contacts click Yes, your future emails will be placed in their Primary tab. This technique will work because Gmail makes inbox decisions based on email engagement. When a lot of their users move your emails to the Primary tab, Gmail will understand that their users prefer viewing your emails in that tab and may start delivering your emails accordingly.
Use the "Move to tab" option
Your users can perform the following steps to move emails from their Promotions tab to the Primary tab:
- Hover over the email they would like to move to the Primary tab
- Right click and select Move to tab > Primary
When a lot of their users move your emails to the Primary tab, Gmail may start regularly placing your emails there, making them more likely to be seen.
Entering your contact's address book
You can ask your contacts to add your email address to their address book or their safe sender's list. When your contacts do so, Gmail will understand that your recipients trust your emails and may start delivering your emails directly to the Primary tab.
Best practices to land your emails in the Primary tab
Whether or not your recipients choose to do any of the previously mentioned things is ultimately beyond your control. There are some best practices you can do on your end, though, to boost your chances of landing in their Primary tab.
Authenticate your sender domain
The best way to improve deliverability is by authenticating your sender domain. Most of the major mailbox providers—and specifically Gmail—offer inbox placement only for emails from an authenticated sender domain. Authenticating your sender domain not only protects your emails from being tampered with during transit, but it also earns a positive reputation from mailbox providers and anti-spam services.
Click here to learn more about domain authentication.
Keep your contacts engaged
Gmail gives a lot of weight to email engagement while making inbox decisions. The best way to land your emails in the Primary tab is by keeping your contacts engaged. Do this by offering content that is relevant to their needs and interests. You can analyze your contact's purchase history and the links they've clicked in your previous emails to understand what interests them. You can also implement a target marketing strategy to cater to your contact's needs.
Monitor your email volume
When sending emails to contacts who use Gmail, ensure you don't send all the emails in a single strike. When Gmail's filters receive a huge volume of emails all of a sudden, they might consider it suspicious. We recommend you split up the email volume into multiple batches. This approach will avoid triggering spam filters and will prevent emails from landing in the other folders of the inbox.
Don't send heavy HTML emails
When Gmail filters scan incoming emails, they verify the size of the email. If the size of the email is heavy, they might classify it as spam. We always urge our users to craft light HTML emails and not to use heavy graphic content.
Be careful with the links you use in your email
The links you use in your email will also be one of the factors that influence inbox placement, so we always recommend you be cautious in this area. We urge you to use links relevant to the email message and not use links that have multiple redirects.
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