The Email Promotions Tab: Friend or Foe?

For years since Gmail introduced the Promotions tab in inboxes, marketers have explored every angle possible to try and avoid landing there, often treating it like some kind of email purgatory 🔥, traveling to religious sites to repent, lighting candles, and praying 📿 to their deity to please remove them from his terrifying tab (okay maybe not this far, but I’ve seen a lot of panic over this topic).

The big question is, should we really be this triggered by an inbox tab?

In September 2024, Apple is set to introduce a new feature to its Mail app similar to Gmail’s Promotions tab. This update aims to categorise promotional emails and newsletters separately from personal emails. While some marketers might initially view this change with skepticism, I think it’s time to throw away the prayer beads and look at how this formally-dreaded tab will ultimately benefit senders and recipients and unite them in email bliss 🌈.

Promotions Belong with Promotions 🎁

What is informing and engaging customers about different products, services, or updates called? I’ll take promoting for 300 Alex!

Hence, this is why these types of emails have been venturing their way to the Promotions tab in Gmail these past years. You may have even seen that Gmail has stepped this up in the past few months and your emails are suddenly appearing there even more. By categorising these emails under a dedicated Promotions tab, both Apple and Google are ensuring that these types of communications are essentially placed where they rightfully belong. 📨

Escaping the Inbox Abyss 🕳️

Some marketers fear that their emails will be helpless victims in a horror movie 🔪, running around in the dark, screaming, never to be found. But the Promotions tab is actually that neighbour they showed for 10 seconds in the beginning of the movie that heroically shines their flashlight, ensuring the emails are rescued from the depths of the inbox abyss and are seen by those are eager to engage with them.

Recipients can easily find and engage with promotional content without it being buried under personal correspondence. This not only increases visibility of marketing emails, but also ensures that recipients can actually access these types of communications at their convenience, with the added bonus of increasing engagement rates for you, cha-ching 🎰!

Email OCD 🗂️

A well-organised inbox is no longer some weird tick that some of us out there have 🙋‍♀️, but rather something that all users appreciate. By implementing a Promotions tab, Apple is following a successful model that Google users have been enjoying for years. This categorisation makes it easier for users to manage their emails and overall improves their email experience.

Ultimately, an organised inbox leads to happier users who are more likely to show some love to the emails that they are genuinely interested in. And all we really want is to be loved, right 🥹 (asks dog if he loves me again)?

It’s a Win-Win 🥇

For marketers, the introduction of the Promotions tab by Apple and the increased use of it in Google should be seen as a win. This means that their emails are more likely to reach the intended audience without being marked as spam, the Voldemort of the email deliverability world 🙉.

The shift towards organised email management reflects a broader trend towards improving the digital communication efficiency. In other words, users become more accustomed to and appreciate the organised and streamlined experience, which creates a better relationship with all email content that comes across their inbox. So, is it friend or foe? I conclude with the internet’s response, "if foe, why friend shaped?"