How to deal with Gmail’s new Promotions Tab
Early this week, Gmail announced they were trialing a new functionality for their promotions tab for desktop. From the get-go, our entire Dev team signed up to kick the tires. We were lucky enough to get early access to do some testing so we can allow you to implement this efficiently and effectively, should Gmail…
Early this week, Gmail announced they were trialing a new functionality for their promotions tab for desktop. From the get-go, our entire Dev team signed up to kick the tires. We were lucky enough to get early access to do some testing so we can allow you to implement this efficiently and effectively, should Gmail decide they want to roll this out widely.
1. Understand Grid View Structure
The grid view will display 4 main pieces of information to recipients about the email. Two of these – sender image and feature image – are of course visual, your main assets for brand recognition. These can also be used as calls to action, and engagement with the email.
2. Optimise your Text
The sender name should be less than 20 characters; the subject line should be less than 75 characters to avoid it being truncated within this feature.
3. Set up your ‘Featured Image’
The feature image creative needs to be at least 580px by 400px. Bigger images will be resized to satisfy at least one of those dimensions, so your image might get cropped if not optimised. You could just allow the Gmail algorithm to decide on the best image but again, it could pick something that could get cropped
Markup
The markup code simply needs to be dropped into the header of your email’s source code. In dotMailer you can do this in ‘View Source Code’ under ‘Properties’. The text in red is what you tailor to your company.
- “name” – refers to content in the sender name field
- “url” – a direct link back to your website
- “url/googlePlus” – a link to your Google+ page, which scrapes the sender image
- “image” – where the featured image you want to use is hosted
In context, the first two fields – your brand information – are then displayed in the right rail in Gmail’s interface, along with a follow button.
Your featured image must be on a open host – either within the dotMailer environment, or something like WordPress.
This feature is fantastic, as it allows you to quickly build up your Google+ community – something that a lot of brands have been finding hard to do. A strong and engaged Google+ presence works wonders for your SEO, but we also have heard of some exciting things in the pipeline that will allow you to organically segment your social audiences via circles.
Check out Google’s full documentation here
4. Setup your Sender Image Setup
In short, if you want a sender image, you are going to have to have to be on Google+ – your page will need to be verified with the website domain that you’re sending your emails from. Google has this to say on the subject:
“the sender’s domain for the email must match that of the verified website. If your website is verified as http://www.example.com, the email must be sent from the @example.com domain. If you send email from a subdomain of your verified domain (such as @xyz.example.com), we’ll match it to your page unless there’s a different Google+ page associated with that address.”
Verifying your domain is very straightforward – here’s Google’s ‘how to’ – you can only verify one domain per company on Google+. If you’re unsure if your dotMailer Send domain is set up under your Mainsite domain, get in touch with your account manager.
5. Understand the Fallbacks
If your image is too small, or can’t be found by Gmail automatically, your email ‘panel’ will look like this. It will pull the header text or alt text for the featured image, your ‘from’ field as the sender, and keep the subject line the same. The sender image, if undefined, will take the first letter of your ‘from’ field.
6. Additional Features
(Okay, it’s not a step, per sé) So far we’ve seen the following on the new layout:
- Once the email is read, the card is greyed-out
- The trash-can icon in the card’s top corner allows for a very quick ‘bin’ action
- Additional actions (sorting, move to folder, etc) can be accessed from a mouse-over of the top-right of the card
7. Get your customers to sign up and adopt the new trial
This feature layout can only be viewed if you’ve signed up for the trial. It might be worth trying to get your customer-base to adopt. Create a filter in dotMailer in your address book for Gmail users; send them a targeted email inviting them to sign up.
From a customers’ perspective, it’s simply a more beautiful way to look forward to offers from you, and a quicker way to consume your content.
8. Test, test and test again
Testing is the cornerstone of any digital strategy. At dotMailer we will continue to test and release any updates and additional findings as this feature develops. The possibilities are endless – wizard tools, dynamic content and segmentation may take on a completely new dimension!
A nod to…AOL?
I believe a special shout out to AOL in is order for this development. Back in 2012 they released ALTO, which is a pretty awesome client for sorting emails, that sits on top of all major email clients. The similarities with Gmail’s new grid view are very similar – but don’t sue me for saying so!
Only time will tell to see how successful this change is for Gmail. But people need to remember, Email was the original Social Media, and Google may just have sparked its renaissance.