Google – Putting email in its place

19 Jul' 13 | By Amanda Smith

Logged into Gmail this week and noticed a difference? I was confused at first with Google’s new tabular addition, being told what category my email should fit into.

The first of the three new tabs is ‘Primary’. A tab to house all the so called important stuff, the emails from friends and family, or important reminders. Google has put all my emails from people with names such as John and Sarah into this folder. From a consumer point of view this is pretty nifty, presenting to me emails that are actually the ones I want to read over promotions or social. I can easily scan them without sifting through all the promotions or notifications like @GavinwillisCM has just followed you.

The second tab is ‘Promotions’. Google is marketing this as a move to help you organise your mail and have a place for email you really really want to read, my main issue with this tab is that with half of the promotional emails I get I have opted into and want to receive. I’m not sure I want Google to tell me that all branded emails are not important to me.

The third tab is ‘Social’ one of the really valuable functions of this tool, it sifts out the standard social notifications. I did notice a few of my personal inbox had slipped through the net, mainly a conversation between my self and a friend who used the word social in the subject line!

An upside for the user though is you can add a further two tabs to your filing system and create rules and anything that helps a user organise their inbox is great, it also means Google doesn’t have full dictatorship over how you should use your email account. The downside for marketers is that we are faced with another hurdle to get over, not only do we now need to get into the inbox, we have to make sure the user sees us in the appropriate folder. The final downside is that the folders do remain hidden on mobile devices, I’m still working though my pain on this. Take a look at Google’s video below to find out more about using and utilising your new Google inbox.

Let us know what you think of the new layout, tweet us @GavinWillisCM