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I noticed something when our Newsletter editor, Laura Roberts, began using MailChimp to send out notifications with the Guild’s newsletter, The Writer’s Life. I use Gmail as my primary e-mail address so this post may apply only to others who rely on Gmail.
Instead of Laura’s messages showing up in my inbox, they appeared among those on the Social tab of my Gmail account. I thought I would follow Gmail’s suggestions to “train” Gmail to put messages from Laura directly into my inbox, by dragging the messages from the Social tab to my Inbox, but that has failed.
So I did some digging. It turns out that MailChimp admits that it is possible messages sent through its email service providers will appear on one of the Gmail tabs introduced back in 2013–Social or Promotions. Here’s what they said in an October 11, 2016, knowledge base article:
Gmail delivers messages to tabbed inboxes based on complex and changing algorithms that consider subscriber engagement, content, and sender information. Messages from email service providers, like MailChimp, often have a higher chance of being delivered to the Promotions tab.
Unfortunately, MailChimp has no control over the placement of emails in Gmail, and there is no proven way to “beat” Gmail’s algorithms. Only a subscriber can move your emails from the Promotions tab to the Primary tab.
If you rely on Gmail, watch for messages from Laura Roberts on your Social or Promotions tab. And if you don’t already know how to move them from one of those tabs to your inbox, check out this article (it’s easy).
Pingback: Use Gmail? Wonder Where the Newsletter Emails Went? – Caroline McCullagh
Oops! Yes, I’ve been using MailChimp (not Constant Contact) for our latest emails, so they may end up under your Promotions tab or Social tabs. You can also try clicking the “All Mail” link (in the left hand sidebar when you’re logged into Gmail) to see all of your emails in one long list, instead of sorted into those tabs.
I would also recommend “whitelisting” my email address (which is lrcreativeservices@gmail.com), so the newsletters will be delivered to your main Inbox tab. Here is a link to some instructions on how to do that: http://onlinegroups.net/blog/2014/02/25/how-to-whitelist-an-email-address/
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And MailChimp is what I meant all along! Thanks for catching my goof. I’ll update the article appropriately.
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Hi Laura, FYI, my original response from the newsletter came from Laura Roberts via mail124.wdc01.mcdlv.net rather than from lrcreativeservices@gmail.com. But you are “whitelisted” via my Gmail Contacts for both.
I should probably delete any posts and replies that have email addresses in them to prevent them from being added to more Nigerian princes’ distribution lists by address harvesters. But I thought you should know about the address that is sending the newsletter to me.
Let’s see if this interface will let me submit this time!
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I have another option for resolving this problem.
I like Gmail. I use it to manage a half-dozen email addresses quite nicely. However, after trying Gmail’s built-in sorting algorithms for well over a year, I simply turned the tabs off.
This displays an Inbox interface similar to other mail providers. I like everything in one Inbox.
The principle of automated sorting is good, but Gmail sorting is not programmed to think like I do–and it makes lots of mistakes. Many emails were shunted off to Updates or Social that didn’t belong there. It was handy to keep sales promotions out of my view until I wanted to look at them, but the cons outweighed the pros for me.
So, off with the tabs! I apply my own custom filters and add stars to things that I want to keep grouped near the top of my inbox. This way, my Spam folder is the only place I have to check for improperly sorted emails; I check that every day.
Instructions for turning those pesky tabs off: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/3094499
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Hooray! Thanks for the tip, Diana. This is a much better solution.
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