Gmail recently released a major update to its promotions tab. The new, more powerful tab provides marketers with additional opportunities to get valuable deals and branding in front of subscribers — faster. How the new promotions tab works Emails in the new promotions tab will be bundled and organized by topic, such as “Top Deals.” Emails identified by Gmail as having particular value for the subscriber will receive additional inbox features beyond the standard from name, subject line, and preheader text. Email marketers can now display a promotional offer (e.g., 25% off), coupon code, deal expiration date, and even a featured image without the subscriber ever having to open the email. How this benefits marketers Marketers who focus on providing valuable content to subscribers will see the largest benefit from the update. Using machine learning, Gmail will elevate their messages to the top of the inbox and will present their offer with new visual elements completely controllable by marketers. Emails set with a promotion expiration date may even be featured more than once — on send and again before the offer expires — without ever having to resend the email. How to enable the new previews for your emails Any email can be featured in Gmail’s promotion bundles, but only those with specially annotated HTML using a custom bit of JSON code will support the custom image, logo, and deal details. The folks at Litmus, the email creative platform, teamed up with Gmail to create this handy tool that helps you set your deal details and export the code without writing JSON. Note that some email service providers may strip the necessary script tags that enable these new features from your email. In such cases, Gmail has provided a secondary way of annotating your HTML using microdata. Where the new feature is available The update is already available for all Gmail mobile app users on Android and iOS. Web client users will begin seeing the update in early 2019. Looking for help? At TrendyMinds, we’re constantly exploring new ways of helping our clients grow the success of their email marketing programs — give us a shout for assistance implementing this new Gmail feature and to find out how we can help you grow yours.