
How Gmail’s New Inbox Is Affecting Open Rates - duck
http://blog.mailchimp.com/how-gmails-new-inbox-is-affecting-open-rates/
======
Ricapar
For some reason, this paragraph irked me more than it should have:

    
    
       If the subscriber has tabs but they didn’t opt
       to include the Promotions tab, Gmail will deliver
       to Primary instead. That’s good news. Other than
       that, we’re definitely testing the new inbox and
       trying to figure out how it works. My sense is that
       Gmail wants all marketing email to go to the
       Promotions tab. Even if we did find a tricky way
       into the Primary tab, they’re smart over there,
       and they’d more than likely address any reasonable
       workaround.
    

The Promotions tab is there _so I don 't have to see your emails_. The fact
that you straight-up claim to try to bypass that makes me put you on the same
level as the V1agra spammers in my mind.

I'll skim my Promotions tab when I want to. Stay out of my primary inbox.

~~~
thrownaway2424
A lot of people think that their special snowflake of a spam is the one that
users actually want to see. These people deserve to be tasered in the mouth
repeatedly, but sadly that hasn't happened yet.

~~~
matthewmacleod
I don't understand this attitude; every email sent through services like
MailChimp contains an explicit and obvious unsubscribe link, and their
policies regarding unsolicited email are pretty strict.

If you don't want to receive these emails, then unsubscribe - or, better yet,
don't subscribe in the first place.

This new feature seems excruciatingly pointless anyway. I want all of my
emails to arrive into my inbox, with the exception of actual unsolicited spam.
If I need to filter them, I can do it myself - I suppose the feature may be
useful for Gmail users who aren't comfortable doing this. At least I can
disable the new inbox or continue using IMAP for now.

~~~
tobtoh
Just because it comes from Mailchimp and/or includes an obvious unsubscribe
link doesn't mean it's not spam. There are countless sites whose default
behaviour goes like this:

* require an email address to create an account to use their service

* without stating this, automatically assume that they now have permission to send you whatever email they want - admin emails, special offers, partner promotions etc

* assume that because they provide an unsubscribe link, those emails are automatically not spam.

It's those sites which I'm really glad Gmail automatically filters them out.
Providing an email address because that's a requirement to have an account is
not the same thing as giving approval to receive all your marketing and
promotion spam.

~~~
kbenson
> Just because it comes from Mailchimp and/or includes an obvious unsubscribe
> link doesn't mean it's not spam.

No, but it's VASTLY more likely not to be (if the unsubscribe link is real and
working).

> There are countless sites whose default behaviour goes like this:

> * require an email address to create an account to use their service

> * without stating this, automatically assume that they now have permission
> to send you whatever email they want - admin emails, special offers, partner
> promotions etc > * assume that because they provide an unsubscribe link,
> those emails are automatically not spam. > It's those sites which I'm really
> glad Gmail automatically filters them out. Providing an email address
> because that's a requirement to have an account is not the same thing as
> giving approval to receive all your marketing and promotion spam.

Well, if it's in their TOS (and on most the sites it probably is), then it
probably _is_ okay, and you have nobody to blame but yourself (as do we all).
The current state isn't optimal, but it's what the public wanted. The race to
low cost/free services subsidized by advertising has led to this.

If you really want to not be contacted for a promotion from a company, put
your money where your mouth is and choose services where their business plan
doesn't _require_ pestering you to use them more.

 _edited to lighten the accusatory stance of "blame", as it didn't convey my
real intent accurately_

~~~
Amadou
_Well, if it 's in their TOS (and on most the sites it probably is), then it
probably is okay_

Just because its hidden in the fine print instead of explicitly disclosed at
the point of collecting the email address does not make it "okay."

It might make it legal but that's not at all the same thing - a defense that
falls back on legality means they have an adversarial relationship with that
customer which generally means they've lost any future business from them.
That's the last place a smart company wants their customer relationship to end
up.

~~~
michaelhoffman
Yes. If anything that is legal is "okay," then there is no point in discussing
Gmail's new inbox because that is obviously "okay" too.

------
JohnTHaller
To clarify what an 'open' is in terms of this post, it's when the recipient
opens an email and has remote images load or clicks a trackable link. That's
the only way you can be sure an email has been opened. If you open an email
but don't load images and don't click links, then it hasn't been 'opened' in
the eyes of the sender. So, for instance, folks who open and delete
promotional mailings without loading images don't count as opening those
emails. Basically 'open' doesn't mean what you think it means in terms of the
way you use your email client.

The same way 'delivered' doesn't mean what you'd think it means. You, as a
user, would think it means delivered to your inbox. It doesn't. It means it
was delivered to the mail server. At that point, it could go in your inbox,
your 'promotions' tab in gmail, your junk/spam folder, or be automatically
deleted using a set of rules on your server/email client (bayesian, rbls,
etc). So, when email sending providers talk about delivery rates, that's what
they really mean. They have no idea if even the subject of the email was even
seen by the recipient unless that recipient either opens the email and loads
the remote images or clicks on a trackable link.

~~~
D-Coder
True, but probably not relevant to this artice. The "read" vs "loaded
images/clicked link" ratio is probably the same before and after, so its exact
meaning isn't important. But thanks for the clarification.

~~~
morsch
It does call into question the representativity of the findings, though.

For example, people who always show external images are overrepresented; the
influence of the new design on open rates of other users is not predicted
reliably.

Or, from another angle, I am more likely to load external images in emails
that are important to me. The influence of the new design on the open rate of
emails that are important to me (which get counted) is probably different from
the influence of the new design on the open rate of emails that are NOT
important to me (and that don't get counted even if I open them).

------
glesica
"For marketers who are trying to establish a personal relationship with their
customers..."

Isn't that kind of an oxymoron? How can the relationship be "personal" when
one side of it (the marketer's side) is really just algorithmically-generated
(and by that I do not necessarily mean "computer-generated") and the
conversation is one-way?

~~~
bmelton
While I would generally agere with you completely, there _are_ marketers with
whom I have a very personal relationship.

What sticks out to me (because they sent me an email today discussing gmail's
new layout and how to ensure I kept getting their emails) is my comic shop.
They go through effort to know what I like, what to recommend to me, etc.,
etc., and are super friendly to boot (not affiliated plug, Third Eye Comics in
Annapolis are AWESOME).

I genuinely want the emails they send me, even their most basic one-way emails
provide me active value, and the relationship does transcend a more
traditional marketing relationship, like the one I have with Amazon.

In short, it would not surprise me to know that there are other businesses
that share more personal relationships with their customers than the merchant-
customer model.

~~~
bumbledraven
_I genuinely want the emails they send me, even their most basic one-way
emails provide me active value, and the relationship does transcend a more
traditional marketing relationship, like the one I have with Amazon._

If you drag those messages from Promotions to Primary, Gmail will ask you if
you want to do the same thing for all messages from that sender.

~~~
bmelton
Yes. That's exactly what they emailed me to suggest, but I haven't gotten the
new layout yet for it to matter.

------
furilo
Hacker News audience, developers or/and internet workers population in general
are very sensitive to commercial newsletters. There are lots of comments that
read "commercial newsletters = spam".

But reality is that for many online businesses email is the primary sales
channel or a very important one. Lots of commercial newsletters are sent, but
they main reason for this is because they work. Plain and simple. Lots of
"normal" people (not too tech savy that will never hear about Hacker News in
their whole lives) use commercial email as on their primary ways of ecommerce
browsing. Just as setting up a beatiful and atractive front shop one hundred
years ago made a difference in your bottom line, email is an element of
crucial importance. Furthermore, lots of ecommerce companies have invested
tons of money in developing this channel. Hey, maybe your salary is paid by
one of this ecommerce giants! So three things:

1) Commercial email works. Many people don't bother receiving lots of
commercial email. In fact, they love it. Google knows this, so:

2) one of the main reasons for Google making this change is to create an
effective channel to deliver __their own __ad impressions in the format that
people loves and use. But,

3) in doing so they may be invading a space in which lots of companies have
invested a lot (and those same companies surely have already invested in other
Google products).

Its a similar pattern with SERPs: you invested in SEO but now the first page
is only made up of Google products or paid positions.

~~~
ProblemFactory
Commercial newsletters are not a problem - and having tabs for Promotions and
Updates made them more friendly.

This way, users can review and maybe-read the newsletters once a week, instead
of having them mixed with actually urgent emails from their family and "server
is down" alerts.

------
danielrhodes
"The word on the street is that business owners and marketers are worried
about this new layout, and I get that. You want your email above the fold, on
the cover, with a huge headline. You want to stand out to your customer, and
instead you’re on the Promotions page with all the other ads."

This blog post is like an ad for GMail. Sounds like the tabs feature works
very effectively.

------
jmduke
I really liked the idea of the new inbox at first but right now its
overzealousness with the Promotions tab is tempting me to merge everything
back into Primary. Daily VC news emails are not promotions; digests of
roguelike updates are not promotions; emails from my grandmother to try a
brownie recipe aren't promotions (well, I guess they sorta are.)

(Yes, you can train it to send emails from X@Y.Z to primary by default, but at
that point what advantage is the split inbox offering me?)

~~~
k-mcgrady
Just drag your daily VC emails into the primary tab and they should got here
from now on. Not really any training involved, it only takes a few seconds.

------
sp332
They should be _glad_ for the Promotions tab. Now that promotional emails
aren't gumming up my primary inbox, I'm much less likely to unsubscribe from
them. I don't mind having coupons for stores I rarely visit, or newsletters
for projects I'm vaguely interested in, since I don't have to deal with them
every time I open my mail.

~~~
eli
I see where you're coming from, but I sure would have preferred if GMail asked
me if this was something I wanted rather than just forcing it on me.

~~~
sp332
"Forcing" is a bit much. When it is rolled out to a user, there is a popup
asking which tabs the user wants to enable. It's technically opt-out, but it's
literally one click (no digging through menus) to say "I don't want this."

~~~
eli
Now I wish I took a screenshot, but I do not recall any "I don't want this"
button when it hit my inbox.

~~~
derefr
"Go ahead" was a button, and "I don't want this" was a plain link beside it.

------
antirez
Gmail new tabs is an incredibly cool feature for people receiving tons of
mails. The Gmail team realized that there is spam that's not spam, and is the
promotions email, it is awesome to see them away from my inbox...

~~~
clicks
> The Gmail team realized that there is spam that's not spam

That is a very good way to put it, and is just how I feel. It's too bad they
were criticized that the tab move was just all about more effective
advertising (it may be a little bit true, but doesn't negate the fact that
this is a really good innovation on the email management front).

~~~
psbp
I hope the backlash isn't enough to force them to change it. I think people
misrepresented the (mostly positive) changes to get some google hate blog
views.

------
buro9
Will the issue of arriving in the Promotions and Updates tab affect
transactional emails sent through MailChimp (and comparable competitors)?

For example, if I'm sending a "Here's your password reset email" via
MailChimp, will I now have to worry about it not just potentially going into
spam, but also under some tab that the user may not look.

I'm only really concerned about the transactional email, whilst we send list
mail too I think it's reasonable that is classified however the user and the
user client deems fit (if they wish to receive that at all). But when it comes
to an email that the user has explicitly requested and expects immediately,
not having it go straight to their visible and main inbox is an issue.

~~~
dmgrow
Thus far we have seen our transactional emails also going to Promotions, as
well as our standard marketing emails.

This could be both good and bad. Bad because as you mention, the user won't
see it immediately even if they requested it. Good because if the user
actually uses and likes your service, they may start to take those
transactional emails to their Priority inbox which could train it to also
respect the marketing type e-mails as Priority as well. Again, this would only
happen if the user actually likes your service.

~~~
dugmartin
I'm using Mandrill to send out my transactional email. I'm hoping this change
doesn't force me to get back into the mail server business - that is something
I gladly pay to outsource.

~~~
buro9
Exactly my concern.

Transactional email deliverability is more important than marketing emails to
me. If needs must, I'll host my own again... but I really like not managing
email servers and fighting blacklists.

------
100k
This change is going to be brutal for anyone with a newsletter.

No implication that this is the reason for the change, but it probably means
more spending on traditional web advertising.

~~~
_delirium
So far I've found it only affecting sales-type newsletters, which is
interesting. Adorama's newsletter (which I could've sworn I opted out of) goes
to Promotions, but the ACM newsletter still goes to Inbox.

------
malandrew

        "I’ve heard a lot of people asking how they can get out of 
        the Promotions tab and into the Primary tab."
    

You should have told them that if they are in the promotions tab then that is
probably where they should be. Sending promotional bulk emails and wanting to
be in the primary tab is antithesis to what customers want. Being a
promotional email in the primary tab I would imagine would be more likely to
be marked as spam.

~~~
dangrossman
I'm seeing transactional mail like signup confirmations and password resets in
the promotions tab. There are lots of lists I subscribe to that are "bulk" but
not promotional as well. MailChimp has over 3 million users, and zero of them
are affiliate marketers. Not all of their users' mail belongs in a promotions
tab.

~~~
joshuacc
Indeed. To give one example, I run a weekly newsletter with JavaScript tips.
That probably shouldn't be categorized as Promotions. Perhaps Social or Forums
instead?

~~~
Lewisham
I don't see any way of getting around this that isn't just rife for abuse. I
guess/hope that Gmail learns from user behavior, so if enough of them start
moving the mail to the Forums list (which is what I think it should be, Social
Updates implies some personal update from Facebook/Twitter/G+, not
newsletters), it would automatically filter there instead.

EDIT: Also, many users might feel like Promos is the right tab. For example,
Weight Watchers emails me recipes, which is a bit like a developer getting
Javascript tips. This also goes in Promos, and that seems like the right place
for it, even though it's useful/actionable information.

------
untog
Am I the only person that had a "Promotions" filter added to their Gmail ages
ago? I've also not got the new tabs, either. I'm wondering if I am in some
lost zone.

~~~
Nagyman
Settings -> Configure Inbox -> Save

That turned it on for me.

~~~
minimax
Just tried that and now I've got tabs in GMail. Thanks for the tip.

------
mortov
I don't think this indicates a Google problem.

They're lucky Google even deliver them to any tab - based on their own figures
it's almost a 90% chance of their email being binned by end users (OK, not
opened but that's pretty much the same thing). On systems I administer that's
way above the threshold I'd consider for blacklist/auto-reject.

Without trying to disparage their business, Mailchimp and associated
'services' are rarely providing 'quality' email in my experience and I don't
get customers calling me up asking me to make sure such emails come through.
Quite the opposite.

It's hard in the mass email business because most people (e.g. almost 90% it
seems) think the emails are crap and don't want them or open them. If that's
upsetting then don't complain. You need to look for a different business where
you'll feel more loved and appreciated. Mass email is not it and never will
be.

~~~
JohnTHaller
It's worth noting that the open rates only apply when an image is loaded from
the remote server or the recipient clicks a trackable link (if the emailing
system is setup properly). When a recipient opens and reads an email without
showing the images or clicking a link, it doesn't count as an open as the
sender has no way to track that.

------
na85
I'm glad that Open Rates are going down.

I don't want your sales-funnel emails full of doublespeak and marketing
buzzwords.

You think your email is full of helpful info about your product but it's not.
It's just spam.

~~~
petercooper
Except that's not the only use for mass e-mail.

I have over 120,000 developers who subscribe to my e-mail newsletters and I
suspect most subscribers would not consider them "Promotions." Hopefully those
who care to read every week will drag them back into the main inbox but I
imagine some will fall by the wayside. (Not that I'm panicking, I'm not
noticing much of a/any drop in open rates at all.)

------
josephers
I used to "open" marketing emails for fractions of a second while browsing my
inbox with keyboard shortcuts. I go to the next email, and if it's a marketing
email, I move to the next email.

But with the Promotions tab, I check the titles, and if they're not
interesting, I mark them together as read without opening it.

So, my reading behaviour hasn't changed even though tracking my open rate with
tracking pixels will now show different results. If it's an interesting email,
I'll read it. If not, I won't.

~~~
JohnTHaller
If you didn't have 'show remote images' on, there's no difference as it
wouldn't count as an open. And it's off by default for all senders in gmail
and every other worthwhile webmail provider.

------
blackysky
Internet marketers are panicking right now. I've received a dozen of e-mails
to teach me how to bring their "not promotions" e-mails back to my primary
inbox...Hate it or love it but I think Microsoft Yahoo Apple are going to
follow that trend too... Of course the system is not perfect yet but it is
something regular people are going to love...at least my mom love it. I have 5
tabs up and running.I have more control over my inbox now. I can understand
why internet marketers are mad because it is a new ball game to be next to
Facebook updates versus in a box alone with other promotion e-mails... In the
long term your brand your goodwill are your only and best weapons...Open Rates
are just one metric because you can have one open and 5 conversions versus 5
opens and 0 conversions... the main difference here could be that one open
leads to 10 shares on Facebook....This new UX is a non issue...it is really
time to disrupt the e-mail system

------
sologoub
"I’ve messed around with a ton of different content and header configurations,
and anything that looks like it came from an ESP (has a list-unsubscribe
header, unsubscribe links in the content, etc…) goes to either the Promotions
tab or the Updates tab."

This is actually a really important UX/CX thing to keep in mind when creating
newsletters or other emailed publications with actual content as the product.
My Pycoder's Weekly ended up in Promotions tab. Since I don't look at it every
day, my initial thought was I didn't receive it.

In order to have it show up in Primary, I had to create a rule on the sender.
We'll see if this actually works.

Granted, Pycoder's Weekly is ad-supported, but that's what I opted in for.

For others creating similar subscriptions, it's probably worthwhile to mention
this gmail behavior in an FAQ or some other instructions.

~~~
ripter
You can also just drag the message over to primary and gmail will learn that
it's a primary message.

------
azeemk
It's definitely affecting how I open my emails. Promotions just get straight
deleted.

~~~
kzahel
The tabs feature is a godsend. It's definitely affecting my email behavior and
making me a happier person. Instead of deleting individual marketing emails or
sometimes trying to unsubscribe, I can now just ignore them completely!

~~~
thrownaway2424
But how much confidence do you have in the classification? I find myself
polling all the tabs so I don't miss anything important. An example: my Amazon
seller notifications go the the Promotions tab.

~~~
rip747
just drag the email into the primary tab and it will always put it there

~~~
thrownaway2424
Sure, and then I have to keep polling the Promotions tab to find out if
there's any new stuff being classified in there.

------
jack-r-abbit
The first thing I did when I got the new gmail tabs was uncheck them. I don't
want my mail tabbed. But thanks for asking. :)

------
alberth
Something about their analysis just doesn't sound right.

"I dug deep into our database and pulled every delivery to Gmail for the past
year and half. That amounts to 12.5 billion emails".

Then he says

"As you might suspect, Gmail opens do follow these hourly, weekly, and
seasonal trends, but on the whole they remain fairly steady. With that
settled, I trimmed my data to a lean 6 weeks around the introduction of tabs.
That’s about 1.5 billion emails, which is plenty of records for a good
analysis."

So, 1.5 years = 12.5B Gmail emails

But last 6 weeks = 1.5B Gmail emails

That doesn't sound right.

Unless MailChimp is on some type of unbelievable (true) exponential growth
rate in the past few months.

Edit: typo

~~~
jedi_stannis
1.5 years is 78 weeks. 12.5B emails / 78 weeks ~ 160 million emails a week.

6 weeks * 160 million ~ 960 million emails.

So the last 6 weeks is 156% of the average. That seems like good growth, not
unbelievable growth.

------
tracker1
As for the marketers... and you can quote me on this... "Fuck 'em" .. The
issue is that you aren't the only ones vying for our attention... I get so
much crap to wade through I can't keep up. What really gets me is the
frequency, I see so many marketing emails from places I actually do business
with, that legitimate and important emails slip through the cracks.

I have an acquaintance who had an online account compromised, his shipping
address changed, and stuff ordered... He didn't notice the change/receipt
emails because of all the garbage emails he receives from said vendor.

It's a serious problem. I feel the same way about technical recruiters for the
most part now too... I get maybe 3-5 emails a day, and 3/4 are either out of
state, and/or well below what I make now... I'm not interested in either
generally speaking. That doesn't even count all the "connect with me on linked
in" requests from people I don't know, and the emails that go with them.

Hell, even twitter is in on it all now.

------
coob
Google doesn't get paid for emailed ads. They'd rather you were paying _them_
for ads that masquerade as genuine emails.

~~~
Tomdarkness
But they both are displayed in the promotions tab so how does paying for an ad
in the promotions tab that looks like a email solve the problem of a marketing
email being displayed in the promotions tab?

------
jonheller
This makes me very happy to not be in the email marketing business anymore.

------
martin-adams
I'm really not surprised it's bringing down open rates. I find I'm ignoring
far more emails in my inbox as they are out of view and in the promotions tab.

Ultimately, if I don't open the email, the content isn't that useful. Before I
would quickly open and delete when done, just to keep my inbox clean.

Does it mean I pay less attention to the marketing messages? No.

------
diminoten
Off topic, but does anyone else here think the UI for the new tabs is god-
awful? I wish they could become custom labels, and be treated as such.

I feel like the fact that they're now explicitly tabs is a compromise that
allows a marketer to still get the user's attention without filling up the
"inbox" with what might be considered spam.

~~~
pjmlp
Yes, the minute I saw it I disabled everything back to the old UI.

At home I use an IMAP client anyway.

------
ams6110
_The word on the street is that business owners and marketers are worried
about this new layout, and I get that. You want your email above the fold, on
the cover, with a huge headline. You want to stand out to your customer, and
instead you’re on the Promotions page with all the other ads._

News flash: you don't own my inbox.

------
ersii
Huh, before reading this article - I didn't know you could turn the tab
interface off. I thought I'd try it, just so I would be able to nitpick and
say "Hey! You think it's a choice for them, but it actually ain't!".

If you'd like to disable the tab interface in GMail, here's how you do it: Log
on, click the gears in the top right corner - below your user profile icon.
Select "Configure inbox" and de-select "Social" and "Promotions".

I first thought it was impossible to do this when I found this configuration
page, because the first option is "greyed out" and unclickable.

This seems like the first time you're allowed to not eat the Gone Google
Again-bullet - which is good for me as a user! Sometimes I really don't want
to get your new feature or design.

------
ig1
One big problem is that it's hitting event emails which tend to use similar
email services for distribution. If an event has to be cancelled last minute
or if there is some major changes and the announcement email gets missed it
could easily cost someone a significant amount of money.

------
astral303
This is yet another reason why you need to look past e-mail for personalized
communication with your customers. Personalized messaging inside your web site
or app is much more effective for certain use cases.

Are you e-mailing your users to tell them about a new feature? Why not show
them an in-app message instead, when they are logged on and engaged? Are you
e-mailing a custom offer to a certain segment of your user base? Show them the
offer when they're on your site.

Obviously, if you are contacting users that are not visiting your site at all,
then e-mail is still king.

Personally, I am glad to see Gmail implement this kind of separation so well.

Full disclosure/plug: I work for Evergage
([http://evergage.com](http://evergage.com)) and we provide this behavioral-
driven in-app messaging.

~~~
snowwrestler
The use case and purpose of email marketing is totally different from in-app
messaging. Email drives return visits; in-app messaging drives conversions.

Edit to add analogy: it's like saying JCrew does not need to send catalogs
because they have great signage in their stores.

~~~
astral303
Yes, they are fairly different, but there is a fair amount of crossover.
Specifically, much of the crossover is there because the state of the art in
marketing automation in e-mail is much higher than outside of it. It's much
easier for a marketing person to work with an e-mail marketing automation
system. Implementing targeted in-app messaging campaigns, on the other hand,
typically requires development team cycles (not with us though).

But I'll run with your analogy. JCrew can send me a targeted 20% off coupon,
for example because I am a store cardholder or it's my birthday month.
However, the purpose of that coupon is not solely to drive return visits. I
might frequently stop by a JCrew while in a mall to look at merchandise, but I
might be much more likely to convert if I knew I had a coupon.

However, when I am actually at JCrew in a mall, JCrew won't have signage with
my coupon and won't recognize it's my birthday. It sure would be nice though.

------
s3r3nity
As a data scientist, the lack of error bars hurts me deep inside (i.e. are
these statistically significant drops?)

Nevertheless very insightful, and I appreciate the use of data as opposed to
many of the anecdotal reviews of Gmail's new inbox swirling around HN these
days.

------
AlexanderHektor
I believe that this can be very useful for the mainstream user.

It is however much much more useful for Google from a business perspective.

Lower openrates mean less eyeballs and revenue, which will in turn translate
into more adwords and display placements. Obviously not directly, and probably
not in most cases, but it should, even if it's only a few percent or less,
translate into more revenue for Google. How much is anybody's guess.

If I were an E-Mail marketer or a big brand though, I'd be furious and try any
other channels but Google's. In my eyes, it smells like Google using its
market power to bully their own customers. They pulled a classic Facebook with
this one ;)

------
impendia
> For marketers who are trying to establish a personal relationship with their
> customers, this change can be frustrating.

This, even without any further context, describes what 99% of Gmail users
would consider an overwhelming positive.

------
orangethirty
There is one point to understand. This greatly benefits Google as it allows to
reduce the response rate of competing marketing products, and increase the
response of their own. Not that they should care about being fair. Gmail is
theirs. They can do as they please. People should understand that they will
simply optimize for their benefit, not for the benefit of some other platform
(in this case Mailchimp.

Want to increase your rates? Send your email to the user's facebook account.
Those get read almost instantly.

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thehme
I think a lot of people were already using filters before these tabs came
along; I know I was. All that junk and even stuff I did care to look at every
once in a while is and will continue to skip my inbox and go into my filtered
folders. In fact, the only good thing about the "new" tabs is that I don't
have to click on the filter folders. Anyways, marketers should be selling
things worth selling and not trying to find a workaround to get into our
inbox.

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joshaidan
My theory is that the reason for Google implementing the Promotion tab is so
that they can put ads into the INBOXs of people who use desktop and mobile
clients. Doing it this way won't be too intrusive to people who use the web
client, which already has a place for ads to be viewed.

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iurisilvio
If you don't like it, go to Settings > Inbox > change the "Inbox type". I'm
already back to the one tab model. I had some important emails in promotions
tab, so I can't just ignore that tab.

~~~
Lewisham
Were they coming from different senders? Would moving the email and/or setting
up a filter not fixed this? I'm wondering what you think of as being
"important" that would have ended up there. The classification for me has been
very good.

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PanMan
Interesting, but is it really true 'normal' open rates are also only 13%? Or
is this how it's measured, e.g. only including people who click 'show images',
and thus load the tracking pixels?

~~~
msumpter
Typically the open rate is the combination of unique users who download images
(along with the tracking pixel embedded) and unique users who click on tracked
links from within the email.

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jjindev
In general, I think it would have been smart to offer tabs to high volume
users. When I only have 10 new things, tabs are ... stupid.

(Amusingly it put an old girlfriend's "my new page is at" in promotions.)

~~~
hatu
I'm not really a high volume user (0 unread most of the time) but I have tons
of tabs and filters. I really only want to be notified of a new email when
it's from someone I personally know.

~~~
jjindev
I'm not saying there should be no tab/filter options (I used filter/folder
options before tabs arrived). I'm just suggesting sticking the 3 defaults on
everyone was a bad idea. Just adding the "+" and directing to a how-to would
have been IMO appropriate.

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qqg3
I'm confused, tabs has been rolled out slowly across Gmail users. I know
people with and without it still. SO how do they define a point of 'release'?

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Sektor
What i find disturbing is the whole article revolves around trying to get spam
back into the primary tab, exactly where no one wants it other than the sender

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mahgnous
Oh waaaaah, poor spammers are losing money.

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stephengillie
What new inbox? I have seen no change for months, and I view my gmail inbox on
the web daily.

~~~
WestCoastJustin
There is a new inbox header [1] in Gmail, which adds tabs for your normal
inbox, social, promotions, etc.

[1] [http://mail.google.com/mail/help/intl/en-
US/features.html](http://mail.google.com/mail/help/intl/en-US/features.html)

~~~
stephengillie
Weird that I haven't seen this, but I've been using exactly this label
filtering system for years -- I literally have had a "Social" label since
2008.

(I added "Financial" and "Sales" labels later)

Edit: apparently it was turned on but not displaying any tabs. In the settings
gear I found "Configure Inbox" where I disabled these.

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dools
It would be way more valid to analyse click through rates than open rates.

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stevoski
tl;dr Mass email "opens" have dropped from 13% to 12.25% (more or less,
according to the chart), where "open" is according to MailChimp's
definition/mechanism.

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quantumpotato_
You can remove the promotions tab..

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aet
This is off-topic, but if people don't like ads, why don't they just use Gmail
with POP3 or IMAP?

~~~
bifrost
Because then there's basically no reason to use GMail, it has no value add
without the UI.

~~~
snogglethorpe
Even without the UI, gmail is free email storage of fairly large capacity,
which is also extremely reliable, accessible, fast, professionally-backed-up,
and unlikely to go out of business any time soon...

------
herbig
Keep in mind, correlation != causation.

