How to make your emails arrive in the main mailbox in Gmail?

Poor email categorization is probably the ZERO level of deliverability problems. You know, when your notification emails fall into the Gmail promotion box. But even if it's level zero, that doesn't mean you shouldn't do something about it. solve this deliverability problem as soon as possible.

The other day, I got this question: "Is it possible to get priority mail instead of promotion mail?" (in Gmail, of course).

Well, there's a major difference between the question that can be translated as "My news falls in promo, it pisses me off, if I were in the main box, I'd have more openings" and the idea of bad categorization!

Retroact! The birth of the Gmail promotion box and its impact

May 29, 2013, Google announces on the Gmail blog a new version of its famous webmail with the no less famous tabs. There are at least 3 of them:

• The box main This is where all the "interpersonal" emails are supposed to fall, but also the messages that seem to matter most to you.
• The box social networks : For all those emails that come from social networks (what more can I say)
• The box promotions : Anything that is not intended for the other two tabs and is clearly a emailings commercial.

In some cases, you can also have a tab " Notifications "(it seems to have become standard on new accounts now) which collects emails with a rather transactional feel. If the notification tab is not activated, emails arrive in the main tab.

Obviously, when Gmail's promotion tab appeared, marketers started to break out in a cold sweat! That's right, email open rates were likely to fall.

As a result, some started to do anything and in particular to send campaigns asking recipients to move emails to the main tab to try to trick Gmail algorithms.

A year later, ReturnPath in a study showed that the predicted disaster did not really happen. Good news!

How does email categorization work in Gmail?

The killer question! It's not like Google likes to share its recipes with everyone (especially if they can fall into the wrong hands).

What we do know (or extrapolate, it's up to you) is that Gmail's algos read email content. When you think about it, you obviously don't express yourself in the same way in an email sent to a friend, in an advertising email or in a purchase confirmation email. The tone is different, the vocabulary is different. That's the bottom line.

Another decisive element: the identity of the sender and the domain name of the sender. Hotmail.com? Chances are it's a friend or family member. Impots.gouv.fr? Not much chance that you are being sold yoghurt pots. Auchan.fr ? Highly suspect commercial email.

And then there are many other elements that can be taken into account: the history of emails received from an IP address or an email sender, contextual elements, the reactions of recipients, ... in the end, a lot of elements quite similar to those used for spam detection.

How do I get a transactional email out of Gmail's promotion box?

So, to answer the "incident" question, it can indeed happen that Gmail misunderstands your email, and, although it's a delivery confirmation, sends your email in the promotion tab. Tough luck, eh?

Come on, it's good because it's you! If it's in that sense, there are probably a few things to correct:

• Avoid promotional language Use a more formal, less "commercial" vocabulary to avoid being mistaken for a promotional email.
• Think transaction codes Include "order numbers", "customer numbers", "tracking numbers", ... all elements that are typically found in a transactional email.
• Format your message : Design the right email template for your transactional emails. It must be simpler, different from your promotional templates and allow your users to manage their transaction.
• Use a dedicated mailing address Your transactional emails should be sent to a different address than your promotional emails. This will help the categorization algorithms to do their job properly.
• Set up a different subdomain In line with the previous point, try using a sub-domain dedicated to your transactional traffic. For example, if you're currently using news.mydomain.com, have your transactional emails send from conf.mydomain.com. This will help Gmail categorize your messages.
• Select a dedicated IP address Using a different IP or IP pool may also help. Of course, you need to have sufficient volume.

Ah, yes, and as with any change in deliverability, you need to be patient, as the results are not immediately apparent.

Well, what about my promotions? Can they go in the main box?

In absolute terms, yes

Bhaaaa, if you have promo emails with 80% opens, everyone likes them... and they like you enough to :

• Reply to your newsletters
• Move your newsletters to the main box
• Forward your emails to their contacts
• Send you postcards from their vacation spots

So yes, there is a small chance that it will happen. Anyway, there is no magic formula. Do your job as a marketer, create engagement, respect your recipients... and everything will work out for you.

Come on, good luck 😉