How to avoid the Gmail Promotions Tab this Black Friday

Here's every insight & trend I'm seeing right now to avoid the Gmail Promo Tab ever since Google's MASSIVE algorithm update that has taken more senders out of the inbox than ever before.

(This advice comes from sending millions of emails per day & generating over $250M in the last several years. I say this because there's a lot of confusion on what helps & what doesn't. Plus I wanted to give some free advice in addition to my paid services)

1. Having a HIGH Domain reputation is the most important factor to landing in the Primary Inbox - but it's not a guarantee.

If you haven't already, you need to set up your domain on Google Postmaster to track your Domain Reputation, IP Reputation, and Spam Rate.

If you haven't done this yet, it may take weeks for any data to load in at all (and it won't allow you to see anything unless you've authenticated properly according to the February 2024 Gmail Update).

But once the data does load, you're most likely stuck in the Promotions Tab if your Domain Reputation isn't on HIGH.

And if you're still stuck in the Promo Tab, it's because you haven't been on high long enough.

The only domains I'm seeing right now that didn't get hit by Promo Tab problems are ones that have been on HIGH reputation for at least a year. If you didn't start a year ago, the 2nd best time to start is today.

Google RARELY tells you how their algo's work - this is as close as it gets. So take advantage.

2. Your IP Address's History matters as much as its reputation.

Google Postmaster will also show you the reputation of your IP address, which is owned by the platform you send emails from. It's great to have a high reputation (which is earned by having great open rates & low spam complaints), but a high reputation on a platform like Klaviyo is not the same as a high reputation on a platform like Sendgrid, for example.

This is because nearly everyone on Klaviyo's IPs is sending incredibly promotional content. So even if you have a high reputation, Google knows that IP pool is sending millions of promotional emails per hour.

That's why ActiveCampaign is getting worse too. They're going after more corporate customers now & are experiencing this same issue as as a result. I used to love ActiveCampaign. Maybe it'll recover after Black Friday, but it's tough to say.

I still think it's a good platform to build on, but under poor management & weakening IPs. And now they're increasing prices with no grandfathering for most customers.

I'm actually switching to GHL myself, but using an external SMTP (not LeadConnector or MailGun) because that gives me better control over my IP for 2 reasons:

A. It's more complex, so newbie senders with poor sending practices stay away.

B. A lot of companies use external SMTP for transactional emails, call booking confirmations, etc. AKA the stuff that gets opened & isn't ridden with promos. So it's a higher quality IP pool in general.

So far in my small-scale testing with a new domain, I'm getting better results on an external SMTP.

As for dedicated IP addresses, that will help in general, but it may not solve Promo Tab problems - especially if it's a pre-warmed IP address. Someone had to warm it - and you don't know who that 'someone' was. It's like buying a used car. And if you buy one that's not pre-warmed, it's going to take months to fully warm up. No bueno for Black Friday.

3. You ABSOLUTELY need to test every email before you send it.

The simplest way to do this is to send your test email to a Gmail inbox that you don't often open emails in. See where it lands before you send your email to your whole list. This will answer your question of "Where are my emails landing? Do I have a Promo Tab issue?" Wonder no more.

However, there are a couple extra tools that will take a little extra time but will be more accurate:

A. MailGenius .com, which is the best free email spam tester on the internet. We put out 2 new features recently. One will tell you if your email landed in the inbox or spam in Outlook. Outlook has historically been harder to inbox than Gmail, so if you pass that test, you should feel good about Gmail. The other feature will point out all the words that could be seen as "spam triggers".

B. Glockapps .com, which isn't free & takes a little extra time - but is currently the most accurate because it will tell you how your email inboxed across 80+ inboxes. And they include Promo Tab placement as well.

4. In general, longer emails inbox better.

If your email is short, you're betting on your Domain & IP reputation (because there's not much written content for the algorithm to grade). And if you have 1 potential spam trigger, it's going to weight more heavily into the algorithm's decision on where to place your email (it's a bigger piece of the pie).

Longer emails (assuming they're not chock-full of photos, buttons, spammy words, and unnecessary HTML) are going to inbox better if you keep them clean using the tools I mentioned above.

The next point below will talk about what to do if you need to send a short email. Because sometimes, you have to.

5. Make sure your domain's open rate average is over 40%. Get clicks. Get replies.

That number used to be 20%. But since iOS 15 has falsely inflated open rates, you'll want your numbers to show 40%+. Again, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The 2nd best time is today. The longer you have this history, the better off you will be on everything I'm talking about today. So start now. And send 2 emails per day if you have to. Prune unengaged subscribers for now - you can re-engage them later.

Even though longer emails inbox better, you can use the previous tip to help you inbox when you need to send a short email. Because, at least once per week, you will want to send 'click' and 'reply' emails. Usually these emails are only a few sentences. Hit them with something curious and drop the link (you guys are great at that lol). Or ask them a simple Y or N question & tell them to reply. Plus you can have your setters start a script on them after they reply. Use it to your advantage. Most companies don't do that.

6. One word subject lines are working great right now if you have a spam problem.

Keep it simple. For obvious reason, subject lines carry more weight than your email copy. Give the algo FEWER reasons to sentence you to spam jail. I've also noticed little random things that hurt that you'd never expect - like using a number at the beginning of your subject line. So keep tabs on that (no pun intended).

7. Spam rates matter more than ever. please pay attention to yours in google postmaster.

Google is now mandating that you stay below 0.3% and PREFERS that you stay under 0.1% average across your domain. That means only 1 out of every 1,000 emails can be marked as spam.

... Which isn't fair to marketers because the definition of spam is: Unwanted emails that the recipient didn't opt in for.

But Google has decided to let the masses (AKA those not-so-smart subscribers, to put it nicely) rename the definition to: Emails they don't want.

So even if they opted in for your list & decided they don't want your emails anymore - they can unjustly file a spam complaint with the click of a button. Now you better hope the next 999 people don't.

So make it EASY to unsubscribe. If they don't want to be on your list, let them go Jack, Titanic-style.

Focus on the people who want to hear from you & you'll make way more money anyway. Don't let the loss aversion get the best of you.

And as your reputation improves, Google includes their own unsubscribe link at the top of your emails to help you avoid complaints.

8. Use this info.

Black Friday is coming up fast. Implement. Please don't read this & do nothing. Everything you need to get started is on this post.

Hope you found this helpful.

Now go crush your Black Friday. And have FUN. This is an exciting time of year for marketers. And this year you GET to learn new email skills, whether you wanted to or not :p

Troy Ericson

CEO e-mailMarketing.com