What tactics can improve email placement in Gmail's Primary tab?
Summary
What email marketers say10Marketer opinions
Email marketer from Reddit shares that focusing on building a relationship with your subscribers and sending content that is actually valuable to them is key. They suggest actively encouraging replies and engagement, as this signals to Gmail that your emails are important to the recipient. They also advise against using excessive images or links in your emails, as this can trigger spam filters.
Email marketer from Sender suggests that to improve email deliverability, you should focus on building a clean email list, segmenting your audience, and personalizing your email content. They also recommend monitoring your sender reputation and promptly addressing any issues that arise, as well as optimizing your email design for mobile devices to ensure a positive user experience.
Email marketer from Mailjet shares that personalizing email content, avoiding spam trigger words, and optimizing email frequency are effective strategies. They recommend testing email content using spam checkers before sending, and focusing on providing value to subscribers to encourage engagement, which signals to Gmail that your emails are important.
Email marketer from GMass recommends sending personalized emails instead of generic broadcast messages, ensuring your 'From' name is clear and recognizable, and making it easy for people to unsubscribe. Also, avoid sending attachments and follow best practices to keep your account secure.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares that he tweaked a marketing email to improve placement in the Primary tab by shifting the tone to feel like a direct conversation (personalization), focused messaging (highlighting one offering), and simplified HTML (removed nested tables and complex styling). The result was a modest 10-11% increase in Primary tab placement.
Email marketer from Litmus suggests checking if your domain is on any blacklists, as being blacklisted can significantly impact your deliverability. He recommends using tools like MXToolbox to check your domain's blacklist status and taking steps to remove your domain from any blacklists if necessary. He also emphasizes the importance of monitoring your email deliverability metrics and making adjustments to your email marketing strategy as needed.
Email marketer from EmailToolTester shares that avoiding common mistakes like using URL shorteners, using excessive punctuation or capitalization in subject lines, and sending emails with large attachments can improve your deliverability. He also recommends testing your emails with different email clients and devices to ensure they render correctly and provide a positive user experience.
Email marketer from HubSpot highlights the importance of using a dedicated IP address, segmenting your email lists, and cleaning your lists regularly. She also recommends avoiding spam trigger words in your subject lines and email content, testing your emails before sending, and monitoring your sender reputation using tools like Google Postmaster Tools.
Email marketer from Neil Patel emphasizes the importance of segmentation to send relevant emails to subscribers, cleaning your email list to remove unengaged subscribers, and warming up your IP address to establish a good sender reputation. He also suggests using double opt-in to ensure subscribers are genuinely interested in receiving your emails and to avoid being marked as spam.
Email marketer from Email Marketing Forum shares that warming up your IP address gradually, especially when starting with a new IP or domain, is crucial for establishing a good sender reputation. They also advise against sending emails to purchased lists or unengaged subscribers, as this can negatively impact your deliverability and sender reputation.
What the experts say3Expert opinions
Expert from Spam Resource explains that list bombing occurs when a bot signs up an email address to multiple services. They explain that it's not the email address owner that did it and so they can't be blamed for it. It is up to the business to determine if they want to accept those signups or not.
Expert from Word to the Wise responds that Gmail delivery depends on reputation, authentication, content, infrastructure and spam complaints. And your recipient lists.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that trying to outwit Google probably won't work because Google is motivated to prevent it and has the resources to do so. Suggests spending time on things you can control like growing your audience or creating good content so that your audience seeks you out even on the Promo tab.
What the documentation says4Technical articles
Documentation from Microsoft Learn states that to ensure successful bulk email delivery, you should authenticate your domain using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, monitor your sender reputation through Microsoft's SNDS program, and adhere to best practices for email content and formatting. They also emphasize the importance of providing clear unsubscribe options and honoring unsubscribe requests promptly.
Documentation from Gmail Help explains that to ensure Gmail delivers your messages to inboxes, you should authenticate your email with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. They also recommend using a consistent sending IP address, keeping spam rates low (below 0.1%), and using the Postmaster Tools to monitor your sender reputation. Avoiding sudden spikes in email volume is also highlighted as a best practice.
Documentation from RFC explains that SPF is an email authentication method designed to prevent spammers from sending messages on behalf of your domain. By publishing an SPF record in your domain's DNS settings, you specify which mail servers are authorized to send emails from your domain, allowing receiving mail servers to verify the legitimacy of incoming messages and reduce the risk of phishing and email spoofing.
Documentation from DMARC.org explains that DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) builds upon SPF and DKIM to provide a more robust email authentication framework. By implementing DMARC, domain owners can specify how receiving mail servers should handle messages that fail SPF and DKIM checks, and receive reports on email authentication activity to identify and prevent phishing attacks and email spoofing.