Gmail Deliverability Overview

Tip: Are you looking for information about Constant Contact’s Email and Digital Marketing product? This article is for Constant Contact’s Lead Gen & CRM product. Head on over to the Email and Digital Marketing articles by clicking here. Not sure what the difference is? Read this article.

The Promotions Tab

One of the most common concerns when sending emails is landing in Gmail’s Promotions tab. There is a great deal involved with Gmail tabs and how they apply to emails. When Gmail’s tab system was implemented in 2013, email marketers feared the Promotions tab would be a wasteland where their emails would end up, never to be read by willing recipients. In response, marketers have tried to beat the Google algorithm and place their emails in Gmail's Social, Updates, and Primary tabs.

You cannot avoid the Promotions tab as an email marketer. Gmail parses the language and origin of all emails that come through as part of their gateway and spam filtering, and Google's algorithm looks for certain phrases and word combinations to decide which tab an email should land in. With millions upon millions of emails going through this algorithm each day, Google has become quite skilled at identifying your promotional and marketing emails.

Essentially, in order to not land in the Promotions tab, you would need to keep from sending marketing emails—or at least send an email so strange that the algorithm would not pick up on any promotional language. At this point, it is best to do nothing about the Promotions tab—and that is fine.
 

Inbox Configuration

In 2015, Return Path released an analysis of 3 million Gmail users—including 400,000 inbox configurations and 55 million email messages—to figure out how the Promotions tab is affecting engagement with marketing messages. Return Path's analysis found that only 0.3% of all commercial messages make it to the Primary tab, and that the Promotions tab receives 90% of all commercial messages.

More than that, box configuration plays a key role. Return Path found that, before inbox configuration took place, messages that are placed in the Promotions tab are read at a similar rate. However, those messages were read at a higher rate than when they were placed in the Social tab.

What this amounts to is that, with a configured inbox, 93% of marketing messages were sent to the inbox's Promotions tab. Without configuration, 77% of these message types were sent to the Primary tab. Additionally, the number of spam complaints for the messages sent to the promotional tab were less than half of those for those messages sent to the Primary tab.

Return Path's analysis reveals that the trade-off for messages in the Promotions tab is a significantly higher delivery rate with vastly lower spam complaint rates—all while having little effect on engagement and reading rates.
 

Delivering to the Primary Tab

The Promotions tab is far less damaging than it appears. Emails that are sent to the Promotions tab are not only mostly harmless, but they actually provide better delivery rates while receiving fewer spam complaints.

That said, there are three ways to have your messages delivered to the Primary tab. However, they are dependent upon your recipient:

• Your recipient adds your From address to their contact list. If the contact is in the address book, Gmail will override the promotional email configuration and drop them into the Primary tab.
   
• Your recipient moves the email into the Primary tab. If the contact moves the email from the Promotional tab into the Primary tab, subsequent emails will follow suit and will be inboxed there.
   
• Your recipient stars the email. Emails that are starred will be moved into the Primary tab. Since starring an email places it in the Starred category and deems the email as important, follow-up emails may also be placed into this tab.

Google Apps and Google Domain Deliverability

For many email marketers, Gmail tabs are only the start of deliverability. Personal and business Gmail addresses hosted through Google Apps often correspond up to 40% of their lists. This means that the deliverability to these domains can dramatically affect the overall performance of your marketing program.

To maximize deliverability to Google domains, consider the following:

• Follow Google’s Bulk Senders Guidelines. Gmail spam filters are highly tuned to engagement. You want maximum positive engagement (folks opening, clicking, spending a while reading your content, flagging you as a trusted sender), and minimum negative engagement (low opens, low clicks, high spam complaints, and high unsubscribes). This is achieved by sending engaging, relevant content that folks sign up for—and continue to want. 

• Sign up with Google Postmaster Tools. This allows you to check your own up-to-date email reputation. Google delivers mail for trusted senders. New senders, and marketers with poor sender histories, may see their mail blocked or delayed. You can see your sender reputation along several different dimensions using Postmaster Tools.

Google's DMARC Policy

In October 2015, Google announced changes to its DMARC policy, which became effective as of June 2016. Now, when sending messages using a from address with @gmail.com to send mail from Lead Gen & CRM, these messages will bounce or go to the recipient's spam folder.

In addition, Google recently announced that starting in February of 2024, they will tighten requirements on inbound email to their users. One of these requirements is that all emails sent to their users must come from a domain that is authenticated and has a published DMARC policy. 

Gmail’s DMARC policy is consistent with many other major email providers, such as Yahoo and AOL, who have had longstanding DMARC rejection policies. 

DKIM Authentication

As email continues to evolve as a major method of communication, ISPs are looking to see if the emails you are sending are actually coming from you. ISPs reward DKIM Authenticated email with better inboxing—meaning you get better open rates and more conversions because more people will see your message.

To set up DKIM, you will need to have access to your DNS settings, which are located outside of Lead Gen & CRM. Currently, nearly every major ISP has some method of email authentication. Contact your ISP for more information on what kind of email authentication they provide.

1. Setting Up DKIM and SPF
2. Setting Up DKIM with GoDaddy
3. Setting Up DKIM with Namecheap
4. Setting Up DKIM with Host Gator

In certain cases, you may have to contact your administrator or IT specialist to get DKIM fully set up and configured.

Next Steps

To help ensure your email gets delivered to Google domains, Lead Gen & CRM requires the following: 

• Use your own domain (such as @mycompany.com) as the from address for sending email in Lead Gen & CRM. Avoid using free email domains, such as Yahoo, AOL, or even Gmail.
   
• Review your existing Lead Gen & CRM email templates, including those triggered by automation, and adjust the from address as needed.
   
• Set up DKIM for your domain.
   
• Include a DMARC record for your domain. 
   

Did this article answer your question?