For many Gmail users, your inbox is separated into sections: Primary, Promotions, Updates, and Social. This is designed to sort your emails into priority groups, so you don’t need to see sales promotions when you’re waiting on something important. Google made the change from a single inbox years ago to help reduce spam and increase open rates on emails that readers find important. However, sometimes emails end up in one of the tabs when we don’t want them there.
What is the Promotions Tab?
The Promotions tab is a place for mass emails, like mailing lists, marketing, promotions, and more. People who use Google’s tabbed inboxes open these emails by checking the Promotions inbox. A lot of Gmail users who utilize tabbed inboxes follow this tab to find out about updates from their favorite businesses, stores, and organizations.
But what if I don’t want my email to go to the Promotions Tab?
Unfortunately, email senders cannot control which inbox their email lands in; however, there are some changes email users can make to keep emails out of the Promotions tab, or do away with tabbed inboxes altogether.
How can I end up in a contact’s Primary inbox?
A contact can choose to move your email from the Promotions tab to the Primary inbox. That’s easily done by dragging and dropping the email from one to the other. Once a user moves your email from the Promotions to the Primary inbox, they’ll have the option for all future emails from you to go to their Primary inbox. You’ll just have to ask your users to do this on their accounts.
How can I get rid of tabs?
Users can disable the tabbed inboxes if you prefer just a single inbox. To do that,
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Go into Gmail and click the settings gear icon. Choose “See all settings” from the drop-down menu.
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In the "Inbox type" section, select Default. Note: To hide all tabs, select another inbox type.
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In the "Categories" section, check the boxes of tabs you want to show. Note: You can't make new tabs; you can only show or hide existing ones.
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Scroll to the bottom, then click Save Changes.
As a sender, is there anything else I can do?
Here are a few tips that could help you out.
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Ask subscribers to add your “From” email address to their contacts. Emails from a subscriber’s contacts always go into their Primary inbox.
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Personalize your emails. Include the contact’s name in the email so it looks like a personalized email and not marketing or spam.
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Don’t make your headline look like spam. Be thoughtful in how you address your audience.
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Check your spelling. Spelling and grammar mistakes in your email could land you in a spam folder.
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Make your emails engaging. No matter which tab they land in, users will open an engaging email.
Asking your users to take a few simple steps will help keep your emails from going to Gmail’s Promotions tab. It’s mostly up to the end-user to make those changes, but ending up in the Promotions folder isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Users come to expect certain emails end up there, and will check that tab for your updates.
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