THE NEW GMAIL INBOX TABS

Transcription

1 SUCCESS GUIDE THE NEW GMAIL INBOX TABS What It Is, What It Means for Marketers, and What to Do About It

2 PUBLISHED BY US Headquarters StrongView Systems, Inc Island Drive, Suite 200 Redwood City, CA P: +1 (650) F: +1 (650) UK Headquarters StrongView Systems UK Ltd. Adelaide House Perth Industrial Estate Slough Berkshire SL1 4XX United Kingdom P: +44 (0) APAC Headquarters XCOM Media Unit 1 15 Lamington Street New Farm Queensland 4005 Australia P: Copyright 2013 StrongView Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of StrongView Systems, Inc. STRONGVIEW and the STRONGVIEW logo are registered trademarks in the United States, other countries or both. All Rights Reserved. StrongView Systems UK, Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales at 5 New Street Square, London EC4A 3TW. Reg. No VAT # GB Trading Address: Adelaide House, Perth Industrial Estate, Slough, Berkshire, SL1 4XX, United Kingdom.

3 Table of Contents THE SITUATION... 4 WHAT IT MEANS FOR MARKETERS... 5 WHAT MARKETERS SHOULD DO ) Quantify the Effect Find Out What s Happening to Your Campaigns...6 2) Call Out the Change Educate Your Consumers...7 3) Stand Out in the Inbox Grab Attention with Your Subject Lines...8 4) Stay Current Use Dynamic Content to Ensure Messages Are Always Fresh...8 5) Don t Rely on Only Embrace a Cross-Channel Approach...8 6) Don't Forget the Basics Earn the Primary Tab in Customers' Minds...9 ABOUT STRONGVIEW... 10

4 THE SITUATION Between May and July of 2013, Google introduced a new tabbed inbox for Gmail their latest interface for desktop and mobile that automatically sorts incoming s into five inbox categories: primary, social, promotional, updates and forums. Gmail Tabs Desktop Android iphone As shown above, by default the new tabs structure separates users inbox views into the following five tabs: Primary Promotions Social Updates Forums Messages from friends and family, as well as any other messages that don t appear in other tabs. Your deals, offers and other promotional s. Messages from social networks, media-sharing sites, online dating services, gaming platforms and other social websites. Notifications such as confirmations, receipts, bills and statements. Messages from online groups, discussion boards and mailing lists. How does it work? All Gmail users have now been rolled over to the five tabbed inbox interface as the default view, but users can choose to customize their tabs experience. They can configure their inbox to enable a specific selection of the five tabs, or choose to disable them completely and revert to the classic view Gmail will auto-sort the inbox based on these individual user settings. The auto-sort algorithm for the new Gmail tabs also adapts to user preferences the same way Gmail s spam filter and Priority Inbox do. For example, you can dragand-drop s from the Promotions tab to the Primary tab, and Gmail will prompt you to create a filter for all future s coming from that sender to appear in the Primary tab. So why did Google introduce this new inbox interface? In short, to try and improve the user experience. The latest in a long line of efforts by providers to offer a more curated inbox experience (think Outlook.com s sweep functionality introduced in 2012 and Google s own tabs precursors, the Priority Inbox in 2010 and colored labels in 2007), the new Gmail tabbed inbox is designed to make management easier for the many users who are inundated with an ever increasing quantity of daily s, yet don t bother to customize their own inboxes. As Google describes it, the new tabbed inbox "put[s] you back in control so that you can see what's new at a glance and decide which s you want to read and when." 4 Success Guide: The New Gmail Inbox Tabs

5 WHAT IT MEANS FOR MARKETERS First off, let s look at where marketing and other promotional s are landing in the inbox. Only the people at Google understand the exact functionality of the algorithm that determines which tab a particular will appear in. Just as with SEO tactics, we have glimpses of what affects the categorization, but no clear definitions. That said, it is likely that if you are a brand marketer sending , that will appear in the Promotions tab of your recipients inboxes unless they opt to disable the tabs interface or indicate that they want to receive your s in the Primary tab. The next big question is: how does this affect campaign performance? The answer to that will depend on your particular business model, the specific marketing strategies you employ and the behavior of your target customer segments. Reports from the industry on the impact of Gmail tabs on campaign performance to date have varied. Most organizations claim a modest decline in open rates, but some claim an actual increase. While it s too soon to predict the long-term impact that Gmail s tabbed inbox will have on marketing at large, it is safe to say that this is just the latest development in the general trend towards inbox foldering. Gone are the days of single, user-filtered inboxes. Approaching are the days of inboxes curated automatically by clients based on historical engagement. It s important for the marketer to future-proof their marketing strategies to make sure that their messages continue to be seen in the emerging world of inbox foldering. The following section will show you how. What s important is how Gmail s tabbed inbox is affecting your campaign performance. 5 Success Guide: The New Gmail Inbox Tabs

6 WHAT MARKETERS SHOULD DO 1) Quantify the Effect Find Out What s Happening to Your Campaigns First and foremost, find out what's happening to your campaigns. Identify who in your contact lists have gmail.com addresses. For frame of reference, StrongView clients are finding that gmail.com addresses compromise about 20% of their contact lists on average. In addition, it s important to note that not everyone who has a gmail.com address reads their on Gmail s web or mobile app, and therefore may not experience the tabs interface. Bottom line the portion of your contact list that is affected by Gmail tabs is likely fairly small. However, you still want to understand what s happening to that segment. Start by looking at the performance of the following metrics: Open Rate Are you observing a decline in open rates for your gmail.com segment over the past few months? Did this decline begin after July 5th, 2013 (the date Google began rolling out the tabs interface to all Gmail users)? Are there any other factors that could explain the drop? Be sure to consider things like varying volumes and other factors (i.e. transactional vs. batch s, day of the week, etc.). Time-to-Open Rate Are you observing increased time-to-open rates for your gmail.com segment? One possible effect of the new tabs format is a delay in opening s filtered into the Promotion tabs. While not necessarily a negative, such delays are important to track, especially if your promotions contain time-sensitive offers. Click-Through Rate Are you observing a drop in clicks as a percentage of delivered s? Or have they risen? Also look at your click-to-open rate; this will allow you to see if a drop in open rate has corresponded with a drop in engagement as well. It s possible that your falling open rate may be merely the effect of unengaged users no longer occasionally opening one of your s as they come across them in the inbox. If your s are now appearing in the promotions tab, unengaged users are less likely to casually open those s. Revenue Per Even if you see drops in your open or click rates, first check to see if your revenue per or other relevant performance metric has decreased before taking any corrective action. Once you ve looked at your metrics, you may find that the change hasn t caused any big shifts. Continue to report on this segment for the next few months to make sure you capture longterm trends, but don t take unnecessary actions to correct a problem that isn t there. If you are seeing a significant drop in your metrics, it s time to take action. The remaining steps 2 through 6 outline a strategic plan for getting your marketing engagement back on track. Review key Gmail engagement metrics to understand the impact to your brand 6 Success Guide: The New Gmail Inbox Tabs

7 2) Call Out the Change Educate Your Consumers Several brands have had success educating their Gmail subscribers about the new Gmail tabs experience and providing simple instructions on how subscribers can make their s easier to access. Consider sending a separate to all of your subscribers with a gmail.com address prompting them to redirect your s to the Primary tab. Another option would be to dynamically populate the pre-header of your s to Gmail subscribers with the same instructions, replacing the old add us to your address book approach. In the example below, StrongView client zulily combined a Gmail tab message with a promotion of a relevant sale event to encourage customers with Gmail addresses to take action. 7 Success Guide: The New Gmail Inbox Tabs

8 3) Stand Out in the Inbox Grab Attention with Your Subject Lines If your s appear in the Promotions tab, they are more likely to appear with other promotional s and now even in-line ads from Google advertisers that are nearly indistinguishable from bona fide s. This means it s more important than ever to use attention-getting methods to make your subject line stand out in the inbox. There are a number of techniques for optimizing subject lines to garner attention and compel action, including personalization, trigger words and differentiation. For more information on these and other subject line optimization strategies, visit 4) Stay Current Use Dynamic Content to Ensure Messages Are Always Fresh If you re noticing increases in your time-to-open rates within your gmail.com segment, don t panic. This is an opportunity to deepen engagement with consumers by providing real-time content and offers that will capture your recipients' attention when they choose to open their marketing s. One tactic to accommodate this potential time-to-open shift is the use of dynamic content in your s. By embedding your messages with dynamic content that generates relevant information in real-time when a recipient opens your , you ll make certain that the products or discounts offered are always current, ensuring that your recipients never feel like they've missed out. 5) Don t Rely on Only Embrace a Cross-Channel Approach As the trend of a more curated inbox continues, it s time to expand your approach as a brand and move beyond as a stand-alone tool to reach out to current and future customers. remains a powerful channel for engaging customers and driving revenue, but it should be leveraged within integrated cross-channel campaigns that span other key customer touchpoints like mobile, social and display. Cross-channel campaigns have the added benefit of being less fragile to changes in technology, such as the recent introduction of Gmail tabs. Lessen the impact of Gmail tabs with cross-channel lifecycle campaigns that level alongside key channels like mobile Now is the time to take the steps necessary within your organization to create a truly integrated cross-channel marketing experience for your customers. Gmail tabs are just the most recent and largest-scale manifestation of the ongoing inbox foldering trend we ve seen from other providers. The fact is that ISPs have been filtering s for their users for a while now, starting with using past interaction data to determine which s bypass the inbox. Gmail tabs is the latest iteration of ISP efforts to provide consumers with a better inbox experience, and it won't be the last. Bottom line: Conducting marketing in a silo is a risky and outmoded strategy. It s time to think cross-channel. How can you leverage mobile apps, SMS, display and other channels in conjunction with to reach customers at critical points in the customer lifecycle? How can you move between these channels seamlessly so you re not susceptible to changes in any one? This strategy will become even more important as other providers like Yahoo, AOL and Outlook.com follow Gmail s lead and begin automatically filtering incoming s into multiple folders. 8 Success Guide: The New Gmail Inbox Tabs

9 6) Don't Forget the Basics Earn the Primary Tab in Customers' Minds This should go without saying, but the best thing you can do long-term is to be important and relevant to your subscribers. If you re valuable to them, they will make sure they get your message, no matter where it lands in their inbox because they want to. Remember Google did not develop Gmail tabs to harm marketers. They did it to provide Gmail users with a more user-friendly, manageable experience. As marketers we must adapt our marketing strategies to meet the changing needs of our consumers. And what consumers are demanding is interaction with brands when and where they want it on their own schedule and via the channel of their choice. In order to make sure that your messages continue to meet the changing demands of consumers in this post-gmail tabs world, marketers need to commit to the following: Understand how their campaigns are performing Educate consumers on the new Gmail tabs environment Focus on creating relevant and engaging subject lines Use dynamic content to keep promotional s current Embrace a cross-channel approach Continue to make their brand relevant and important to their subscribers Follow these steps and you ll find that the new Gmail tabs can be a marketing opportunity, not a cause for fear. 9 Success Guide: The New Gmail Inbox Tabs

10 ABOUT STRONGVIEW StrongView is the cross-channel marketing software provider that gives enterprise marketers a stronger view of how to acquire and engage customers across , mobile, social, display and web. Combining the strongest technology and proven marketing know-how, StrongView provides enterprise marketers unparalleled insight into how to deepen customer relationships and maximize results. The platform is offered as both SaaS and on-premise, allowing companies to deploy StrongView s technologies in the manner that best fits their needs. Based in Redwood City, CA, and backed by leading venture capital investors, StrongView has been helping global brands in retail, travel, finance, entertainment and online services overcome the limitations of other marketing platform providers for more than a decade. For a stronger view of marketing go to and follow us at and StrongView Toll free U.S. +1 (800) Toll U.S. +1 (650) Toll U.K. +44 (0) info@strongview.com 10 Success Guide: The New Gmail Inbox Tabs