What We Learned From a Promotions Tab Experiment

May 2, 2023

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Email service providers are committed to providing their users with the best possible experience, increased security and safety measures may come at the expense of content creators’ success. A content creator’s biggest fear may be their emails landing in the spam folder, but emails landing in the promotions tab is also a major worry.

The promotions tab is determined by Gmail’s ever-changing and unpredictable algorithm. While these messages are not technically labeled as spam, they imply to your audience that there is promotional or advertising content inside. While the promotions tab is meant to organize users’ inboxes, creators fear that it might tarnish their engagement and the audience relationships they’ve worked so hard to build.

In this episode, Alyssa and Melissa discuss what the promotions tab is and how to avoid it, why you shouldn’t try to beat the algorithm, and what you should focus on instead to improve your deliverability metrics.

Key Takeaways

[07:25] - What is the promotions tab?
[12:32] - Sender best practices to help you avoid the promotions tab.
[15:20] - Alyssa reveals her big secret.
[17:50] - Key insights from Alyssa’s experiment.
[24:59] - Why you should focus on what you can control.
[27:20] - One thing deliverability experts can all agree on.

Quotes

[14:55] - “Senders can underestimate the effectiveness of just being honest with your subscribers.” ~ @mel_lambert_

[19:43] - “The primary promotions tab placement algorithm isn't a human.” ~ @alyssa_dulin

[27:19] - “Focus on what you can control and do not lose sleep over where your email is placed.” ~ @alyssa_dulin

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