Yep. Google is reading your email. But not in the way that you might think.
The Gmail application that many of use, myself included, uses a very different algorithm to direct mail to different folders.
When you send out automated email marketing, their are 4 areas in Gmail your email can end up.
- The inbox (most desirable)
- The updates folder (Second)
- The promotions folder (third)
- Spam (VERY BAD)
But how does it decide?
Well kind of like how the Google algorithm ranks websites based on things like search engine optimization and user experience optimization, Gmail ranks your emails based on similar practices.
Here are a few instances that can affect whether or not your email gets to it’s destination.
1. Does the user open it?
If a subscriber repeatedly does not open emails from your sender address, then you can count that Gmail is thinking, “this email is not relevant to this person’s inbox, so we’ll send it somewhere less important.”
On the flip side, if a user repeatedly opens your emails, and spends time reading it (Gmail knows how long you spend reading an email) then it’s likely your emails will keep going to the promotions/updates folder, or maybe even the inbox!
2. Does the user engage with your email?
Gmail is not dumb. It knows an automated email when it sees one. And it know’s there are links for people to go do stuff inside it. So it waits to see if the user actually clicks any of the links.
If they do, that tells Gmail that whatever content you’re producing is relevant to this person’s inbox, and will continue to deliver your emails.
3. How does this play out across the whole list?
Say you send out an email to a few thousand people, and it get’s a few hundred spam complaints. That tells Gmail headquarters that you’re not doing a great job at providing valuable information to the inbox, and should just be stopped before doing more harm.
Now gmail will stop delivering your emails to anyone’s inbox!
So how can you stop people from marking you as spam, or get them to open your emails and all the rest?
Well, the simple answer is, write better emails.
Don’t know how to do that? Well I’ve got a post for you to check out. =====> Go here
And if you’re maybe looking for some content ideas for emails, you may want to check out my book Suggestology! I give it away for FREE! Click here to claim your copy.