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How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

blog.mailchimp.com

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Re: How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

#71

Post by robertfw »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #27
kzahel wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tabs feature is a godsend. It's definitely affecting my email behavior and making me a happier person. Instead of deleting individual marketing emails or sometimes trying to unsubscribe, I can now just ignore them completely!

But how much confidence do you have in the classification? I find myself polling all the tabs so I don't miss anything important. An example: my Amazon seller notifications go the the Promotions tab.

I'm finding it faster to do the tab polling than it would to extract out the items I want to bin from one unified inbox. Definitely making my morning email cull faster.

Re: How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

#72

Post by kbenson »

tobtoh wrote: post #61
matthewmacleod wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this attitude; every email sent through services like MailChimp contains an explicit and obvious unsubscribe link, and their policies regarding unsolicited email are pretty strict. If you don't want to receive these emails, then unsubscribe - or, better yet, don't subscribe in the first place. This new feature seems excruciatingly pointless anyway. I want all of my emails to arrive into my inbox, w…

Just because it comes from Mailchimp and/or includes an obvious unsubscribe link doesn't mean it's not spam. There are countless sites whose default behaviour goes like this: * require an email address to create an account to use their service * without stating this, automatically assume that they now have permission to send you whatever email they want - admin emails, special offers, partner promotions etc * assume…

> Just because it comes from Mailchimp and/or includes an obvious unsubscribe link doesn't mean it's not spam.

No, but it's VASTLY more likely not to be (if the unsubscribe link is real and working).

> There are countless sites whose default behaviour goes like this:

> * require an email address to create an account to use their service

> * without stating this, automatically assume that they now have permission to send you whatever email they want - admin emails, special offers, partner promotions etc > * assume that because they provide an unsubscribe link, those emails are automatically not spam. > It's those sites which I'm really glad Gmail automatically filters them out. Providing an email address because that's a requirement to have an account is not the same thing as giving approval to receive all your marketing and promotion spam.

Well, if it's in their TOS (and on most the sites it probably is), then it probably is okay, and you have nobody to blame but yourself (as do we all). The current state isn't optimal, but it's what the public wanted. The race to low cost/free services subsidized by advertising has led to this.

If you really want to not be contacted for a promotion from a company, put your money where your mouth is and choose services where their business plan doesn't require pestering you to use them more.

edited to lighten the accusatory stance of "blame", as it didn't convey my real intent accurately

Re: How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

#74

Post by heyitsnick »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #54
matthewmacleod wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this attitude; every email sent through services like MailChimp contains an explicit and obvious unsubscribe link, and their policies regarding unsolicited email are pretty strict. If you don't want to receive these emails, then unsubscribe - or, better yet, don't subscribe in the first place. This new feature seems excruciatingly pointless anyway. I want all of my emails to arrive into my inbox, w…

"Subscribing in the first place" almost always consists of forgetting to uncheck the "default opt-in" -- also known as opt-out, to normal people. There are also services (including Google) who unilaterally change your preferences from opted-out to opted-in. Personally, I consider any promotional mail that was not double-opted-in (that is I had to take some affirmative action to receive a confirmation link, and then I…

>"Subscribing in the first place" almost always consists of forgetting to uncheck the "default opt-in"

Citation needed. Mail Chimp strongly recommends double-opt in, I think it's the default. I very much doubt its "almost always" single opt-in.

Re: How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

#75

Post by dangrossman »

Ricapar wrote: post #16

For some reason, this paragraph irked me more than it should have: If the subscriber has tabs but they didn’t opt to include the Promotions tab, Gmail will deliver to Primary instead. That’s good news. Other than that, we’re definitely testing the new inbox and trying to figure out how it works. My sense is that Gmail wants all marketing email to go to the Promotions tab. Even if we did find a tricky way into the Pri…

I don't consider language/framework/library group lists, local developer groups/meetups, security/vuln announcement lists, and my family's discussion list to be promotional. But they can all be sent through MailChimp and other services that also send promotional mails.

Re: How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

#76

Post by bdunn »

glesica wrote: post #52

"For marketers who are trying to establish a personal relationship with their customers..." Isn't that kind of an oxymoron? How can the relationship be "personal" when one side of it (the marketer's side) is really just algorithmically-generated (and by that I do not necessarily mean "computer-generated") and the conversation is one-way?

I get what they're saying. I run a weekly newsletter, and often my "call to actions" are asking people to reply. Of the 6.5k people on my list, I've probably chatted in one way or another with at least 20% of them.

It's definitely relationship building at scale, and while I know it's "write once, send N-times", myself and most of the people on my list see a distinction between my newsletter and a grid of items on sale.

Re: How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

#77

Post by cloudwalking »

dangrossman wrote: post #75
Ricapar wrote: post #16

For some reason, this paragraph irked me more than it should have: If the subscriber has tabs but they didn’t opt to include the Promotions tab, Gmail will deliver to Primary instead. That’s good news. Other than that, we’re definitely testing the new inbox and trying to figure out how it works. My sense is that Gmail wants all marketing email to go to the Promotions tab. Even if we did find a tricky way into the Pri…

I don't consider language/framework/library group lists, local developer groups/meetups, security/vuln announcement lists, and my family's discussion list to be promotional. But they can all be sent through MailChimp and other services that also send promotional mails.

I suspect Gmail is filtering based on content, not based on email service.

Re: How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

#78

Post by thrownaway2424 »

jbail wrote: post #49
pisarzp wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

THIS! Another quote from article: "I’ve heard a lot of people asking how they can get out of the Promotions tab and into the Primary tab." There is a reason why I enabled Promotions tab and I don't want you'r emails! If you will end up in my Primary by tricking me I will unsubscribe immediately to not see them at all!

I didn't even know there was a promotions tab until reading this article. I just enabled it. It's exactly where I want marketing emails to go and am really glad to see Google innovating in this space. (BTW, I love how Gmail will attempt to unsubscribe you when you mark a marketing email as spam, which is also very nice)

This only works for senders with decent reputation. For borderline spam, manual markings will not trigger the unsubscribe.

cite: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/unsubscribing-made-eas...

Re: How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

#79

Post by dangrossman »

malandrew wrote: post #66

"I’ve heard a lot of people asking how they can get out of the Promotions tab and into the Primary tab." You should have told them that if they are in the promotions tab then that is probably where they should be. Sending promotional bulk emails and wanting to be in the primary tab is antithesis to what customers want. Being a promotional email in the primary tab I would imagine would be more likely to be marked as s…

I'm seeing transactional mail like signup confirmations and password resets in the promotions tab. There are lots of lists I subscribe to that are "bulk" but not promotional as well. MailChimp has over 3 million users, and zero of them are affiliate marketers. Not all of their users' mail belongs in a promotions tab.

Re: How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates

#80

Post by ErikHuisman »

tobtoh wrote: post #61
matthewmacleod wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this attitude; every email sent through services like MailChimp contains an explicit and obvious unsubscribe link, and their policies regarding unsolicited email are pretty strict. If you don't want to receive these emails, then unsubscribe - or, better yet, don't subscribe in the first place. This new feature seems excruciatingly pointless anyway. I want all of my emails to arrive into my inbox, w…

Just because it comes from Mailchimp and/or includes an obvious unsubscribe link doesn't mean it's not spam. There are countless sites whose default behaviour goes like this: * require an email address to create an account to use their service * without stating this, automatically assume that they now have permission to send you whatever email they want - admin emails, special offers, partner promotions etc * assume…

If you do this using Mailchimp and have a suspicious high unsubscribe / marked as spam rate your account will be suspended.
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