Impact of Gmail Tabs on your Email Marketing
Gmail Tabs Introduced
(Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates, Forums)
User Perspective
- • Better inbox organization
- • Segregates promotional mails
- • Reduces clutter
Marketer Perspective
- • Concern over open rates drop
- • Fear of reduced visibility
Research & Findings
NetGains Research Data
- • 2.9M Emails analyzed
- • 0.49M Opens
- • 0.42K Clicks
- • 43.5K Unsubscribes
- • Open Rate: 13% → 12%
Long-Term Impact
- • Gmail users less overwhelmed
- • Unsubscribes drop during holidays
- • Promotional mails still consumed
- • Win-win for users & marketers
Open Questions
- • How many users have Gmail Tabs enabled?
- • How many have disabled Tabs?
Insights Beyond Opens
- • Opens ≠ Conversions
- • Clicks & revenue matter more
- • Impact depends on subscriber relationship
Conclusion:
Gmail Tabs changed behavior but did not kill promotional email — instead driving healthier user engagement and stable marketing performance over time.
Gmail's introduction of the tabbed inbox has been a significant change in how users manage their emails. This feature allows users to categorize their emails into different tabs, such as Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates, and Forums.
Table of Contents
User's Perspective
From a user's perspective, this is surely a great improvement. Instead of getting the bulk of your email in one single inbox and missing out on some awesome promotions (because these might disappear in the junk folder), the user is able to classify or segregate his/her emails.
Marketer's Perspective
On the contrary from email marketer's perspective, it sounded a panic bell because the first thought that pops in mind is the dip in open rates.
Understanding Google's Intent
What one needs to understand is with this tabs feature, Google is not trying to stop promotional email; rather they want a cut of the action. The fact that Google has put its new email like Ads in the promotional tab means they want, intend and indeed need users to go to the promotional tab.
NetGains Research Findings
The initial research by NetGains Technologies, considering only a few weeks' worth of opens, projected that open rates took a hit. Later, after considering months' worth of various kind of engagement data, the conclusion became clearer.
Research Scope
2.9M
Emails Analyzed
0.49M
Opens
0.42M
Clicks
43.5K
Unsubscribes
Conclusion
Gmail's tabbed inbox is working as intended and Open rates have definitely taken a plunge of 1% from 13% to 12%.
Open Rate Change after Gmail Tabs' Launch
Before Tabs
13%
After Tabs
12%
*This data represents a 25-week period from May to October
Open Rate Change vs Other Email Service Providers
Opens from Gmail subscribers have fallen off nearly twice as much as any other Email service providers like Yahoo, Hotmail etc.
The Silver Lining
Reversely, during holidays, the user's inbox gets inundated with emails especially the promotional emails. Most of the users unsubscribe during these periods. This practice has been reduced by Gmail users ever since the tabs have been introduced.
Key Finding
Gmail's opens are down, the click rate is neutral, but unsubscribes haven't gone up.
Too Early to Conclude
At first glance, it looks like the introduction of the tabbed inbox caused a considerable decrease in the number of Gmail opens but there are non-supporters, which include Gmail apps on mobile, popular clients such as Apple Mail and desktop/webmail clients that import Gmail messages, such as Outlook and Yahoo.
Open Questions
- What percentage of users around the world now have access to Gmail Tabs on either the Web interface or a Gmail mobile app?
- How many Gmail users may have turned off or disabled or removed Tabs and gone back to other inbox formats, such as Priority or an unfiltered inbox?
Beyond Open Rates
Open rates do provide a view of email marketing campaign impact. However, open rates are not strong and sole indicator of commercial success and they are not directly proportional to conversion at all.
To really understand if your activity has been impacted check your conversion and revenue metrics, look at whether the revenue per Gmail subscriber per month changes. If you can't check your revenue then check your click rate.
The Bottom Line
- Ultimately, the effect Gmail's new inbox has on your email marketing depends on the relationship you have with your subscribers
- We're beginning to see changes in Gmail subscriber engagement, but it's not clear yet how much of this is being driven by Tabs
- For Short term, promotional emails may be opened less, but for long term, it would prove to be win-win for both Gmail users and marketers
Related Topics
Michael Chen
Michael is a Technical Lead at NetGains with over 10 years of experience in email infrastructure and deliverability optimization.
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