Dive summary:
- MailChimp has conducted a study of 1.5 billion emails to determine whether or not Gmail's new tabs feature is affecting open rates.
- The general consensus is that Gmail's changes have caused a decrease in opens, but the change is not dramatic yet.
- Besides a short uptake in open rates due to the new change, open rates did stay lower than average for three consecutive weeks during the study showing this could be a trend to continue.
From the article:
"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."
