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Are Your Emails Reaching Gmail’s Inbox?

We all know just how important email marketing still is even if the naysayers say otherwise.  The fact of the matter is that email marketing is like Old Faithful, it just is always there when you need it the most.

There’s no doubt it’s not nearly as effective of a marketing tool as it once was.  People just don’t spend as much time checking their emails like they used to.  Not to mention the fact that many people have multiple email addresses and most go neglected.  I can testify to that previous statement as I have at least twenty myself from all my businesses.  However like most, there is always one email address that is everyone’s primary and as Email Marketers we hope we’re lucky enough to have tapped into that one rather than the other 19 red-headed step children.

I remember that doomsday when Google introduced the “Promotions” and “Social” tabs in Gmail.  It was the beginning of the end for most email hitting the “Primary” inbox.  As time has moved on, ISPs (Internet Service Providers) have progressively added layer upon layer of filters to ensure our primary inbox is “SPAM free.”  Unfortunately they’re making educated guesses with our mail and hoping for the best.  I don’t know about you, but it’s super frustrating to me every time I find an important email tucked away for my safety and put into my promotions and SPAM folders.

I wish that they would just let us mark the unwanted emails we receive as SPAM and not intervene.  Since when were the ISPs elected as the “Email Police?!”  Unfortunately for us the Internet truly is the Wild Wild West and we’re at the mercy of everyone of these companies who provide us with these services.  They set the rules and we have no choice but to play by them.  At this point I think it would be easier to be a Chess Master than an Email Marketer.

But as much as I am aggravated as an email receiver, I’m 100 times more angry that my email marketing messages are only hitting the inbox about one third of the time and that’s just my best guess.  I have an eCommerce store with roughly 45,000 subscribers and 1/3 of those subscribers have a Gmail account.  It seems no matter what email marketing provider (i.e. Aweber, GetResponse, ActiveCampaign, Klaviyo, SendGrid, etc.) I use, my messages to gmail accounts end up in the SPAM folder a very high portion of the time.

Deliverability is KING when it comes to email marketing.  In fact without deliverability your email marketing efforts will suffer immensely and it will drive you nuts as to why your list is not being responsive to your messages.

I believe I may have found a solution to the problem after extensive testing.  However the behavior patterns of multiple Gmail accounts I own have not been 100% congruent.  So at this point I can only hypothesize my findings thus far, but I can say I have seen an improvement with deliverability.

So what’s the secret to inboxing with Gmail?

My findings have shown that the link you’re including in your messages is the primary factor.  I can literally send the exact same message without the link and it will inbox 100% of the time.  If for any reason Google thinks the link you’re including in your messages is in any way spammy you’re messages will automatically be labeled as SPAM.  So you’re probably saying to yourself, “Kerry that’s great news, but how does that help me?  I need to send a link in my emails for marketing purposes.” and I couldn’t agree with you more…

From my testing I found that if you take your “spammy” link and use some link shortener like or and include it in your message it magically inboxes again.

Another key factor I found was that with promotional emails which are formatted like the big eCommerce stores such as Nike, Venus, Duluth Trading Company, etc., Google looks at that type of formatting to be “Promotional” and instantly sends those type of emails there.

So if you really want to get into the inbox of Gmail, avoid using visually appealing email formatting like Walmart, Eastbay, Under Armour, etc.  Just use plain old text with as few images as possible.  From my initial testing my emails with one image and zero images seemed to inbox similarly, but initially I recommend using no images just to be safe.

With that being said, good luck infiltrating Gmail’s primary inbox – you’re going to need it!  Do you have a tip or trick that has helped you hit Gmail’s primary inbox a high percentage of the time?  Please leave your comments below…




The Facebook Marketing Secret to Scaling “Up” and “Out” your Ads by “Cutting the Fat” and Increasing Your ROI while Extending the Longevity of your Ad Campaigns

One of the main problems that I see people struggling with today with Facebook marketing is that they setup their ads in such a way that they are really using a “spray and pray” technique.  The Facebook marketing secret I’m about show you will help you get better results immediately.

Over the last year I’ve been working to solve this and today I want to tell you about the Facebook marketing secret on how to properly scale your ads “up” and then “out” while “cutting the fat” and extending the longevity of your ad campaigns.

The Best Part?


Let’s get into it, shall we?


Scale “Up”

It’s important that you start setting up your ad campaigns in such a way that each adset is a specific interest.  

Step 1: Use the Facebook Audience Insights tool and find the top 4 interests in the niche you’re targeting based on the size of the audience, the affinity of the audience and the activity of the audience.  

Step 2: Create 4 separate adsets for each of your 4 interests with a small daily budget of around five dollars.

Step 3: After you’ve setup your conversion pixels for each ad campaign use the ad reports tool to see which interests are converting and which interests are not converting for the product(s) or service(s) you’re offering.

Step 4: Let them run for 3 days and and compare the results.

Step 5: If a single adset (interest) has NOT had a conversion, kill it and substitute it with a new interest.  If it has at least 1 conversion then increase the daily budget for that single adset (interest) by 100%.

Step 6: Rinse and repeat.


Scale “Out”

Once you’ve proven the niche to have interests (good stats and reach – and most importantly CONVERSIONS) to target it’s time to scale out to more interests.

Step 1: Pick another 4 interests to target based on the Facebook Audience Insights tool and criteria set forth above.

Step 2: Setup the adsets exactly the same way you did in Step 2 of “Scale Up”.

Step 3: Review the adsets (interests) performance and manage them the same way you would in Steps 3, 4, 5, and 6 of “Scale Up”.




Segment by Placement

If you see more or less conversions coming from one placement (desktop vs mobile) then you’ll want to segment by placement.

Step 1: Duplicate your total number of adsets currently active and set half of them for desktop and half for mobile.

Step 2: Change your daily budgets to 50% of the previous value to prevent doubling your ad spend.

Step 3: Let them run for 3 days and compare the results.  Kill the adsets (interests) based on placement (desktop vs mobile) that are not performing.


Create Custom Audiences

When you start to see your conversions decline and audience frequency increase to the point that you’re no longer reaching as many people it’s time create a custom “Look-a-like” audience.

Step 1: Create a “Look-a-like” audience based on the conversion pixel for your ad campaign.

Step 2: Create a new ad campaign and create adsets that use the newly created “Look-a-like” audience as well a single broad interest per adset.  The ad will be the same post you previously used from the first ad campaign.

Step 3: Duplicate your adsets and segment by Age, Gender, and Placement.

Step 4: Review the adsets performance and manage them the same way you would in Steps 3, 4, 5, and 6 of “Scale Up”.


The overall concepts are pretty simple, but of course this is just a blog post or I would explain further. However if you follow the steps above you should start seeing results within a few days. This is a system that took me some time to develop and I’m so glad I got to share it with you today. Tons of folks have gotten results from this and I can’t wait to hear about yours!



4 Steps to Online Evergreen Marketing Campaigns While Keeping a Positive ROI






The Best Part?


Let’s Dive In:


4 Steps to Successful Online Evergreen Marketing Campaigns





Below are 4 examples of “vertical markets”.














Step 3: Be pro-active with your marketing












The 6 BEST Websites to Maximize your ROI through Online Marketing Tools


6 WEBSITES to Maximize your ROI through Online Marketing Tools



















  1. ConnectExplore 














With that being said, let’s move on shall we?










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