Few questions make email marketers groan louder than: “How do I avoid landing in the Promotions tab?”
Marketers still worry that Promotions is a penalty box, a spam-adjacent dungeon where engagement goes to die. That fear has fueled countless myths and hacks promising to “crack the code” of tab placement.
Here’s the truth: the Promotions tab is not your enemy. In fact, with Gmail’s changes in 2025, it’s more important than ever to embrace it. Success today isn’t about escaping Promotions. It’s about thriving inside it.
Here’s the TL;DR
The Gmail Promotions tab isn’t a penalty box. It’s where subscribers and customers expect to see your marketing and promotional emails.
In this post, you’ll learn:
- Why landing in the Promotions tab helps deliverability with fewer spam complaints, lower unsubscribes and less ignored mail.
- The most important changes in Gmail for marketers to wrap their heads around:
- “Most Relevant” sorting rewards brands with strong engagement.
- A dedicated Purchases tab separates receipts from promos.
- Tools already available to boost engagement: Deal Annotations, Product Carousels and brand logos.
- Current strategies and email best practices that work with the tab placement, for example segmentation, personalization, email list hygiene and inbox placement monitoring.
Inbox Monster gives marketers the visibility they need to see where exactly in Gmail their emails land so that they can put the right tactics in place to improve visibility in the inbox.
A Walk Down the Gmail Promotions Tab Memory Lane
When Gmail launched its tabbed inbox in 2013, marketers panicked. The new tabs—Primary, Social and Promotions—looked like walls separating brands from their audiences.
Industry chatter was immediate and perhaps a little alarmist: “No one will see our emails anymore!” “Promotions is the new spam folder!” Brands scrambled to find tricks for sneaking into Primary, fearing a collapse in engagement.
But as the dust settled, something surprising happened. Gmail users didn’t abandon Promotions. Many embraced it. Later, Google expanded the inbox tabs with Updates and Forums tabs, giving users even more control.
Annotations arrived in 2018, transforming Promotions into a rich browsing experience with deal previews and product carousels. Gmail also allowed subscribers to drag-and-drop emails between tabs, letting users train their inbox however they wanted.
What began as a source of fear evolved into a dedicated marketplace where subscribers actively browse content from brands with a buying mindset.
The Never-Ending Question: “How Do I Escape the Promotions Tab?”
Even now, marketers still ask the same question. The fear lingers that delivery to the Promotions tab means invisibility. While some even argue that their emails aren’t promotional so why are they delivered to the Promotions tab.
Why the fear? In 2013, the logic was simple: if your emails weren’t in the Primary tab, they’d be ignored. Many brands equated Primary with importance and assumed Promotions was a graveyard. That anxiety bled into marketing strategy.
But the numbers don’t back it up. According to ZeroBounce’s 2025 Email Statistics Report, 54% of users check it either daily or sometimes. In other words: more than half of your audience is looking there.
Subscribers treat Promotions as a browsing mode. They dip in when they’re in the mood to discover offers, shop around or see what’s new from their favorite brands. Far from being ignored, Promotions is where intent lives.
The fear is unfounded because Gmail designed the system around expectations. Subscribers expect to find marketing emails in Promotions. When your email lands there, you’re meeting them on their terms. - Brad van der Woerd, Head of Customer Success at Inbox Monster
FYI: The Promotions Tab Is Actually Good for Deliverability
Promotions isn’t just harmless—it actively supports your sender reputation when you work with it rather than against it. Let’s break it down.
Spam Complaints: Expectations Keep You Safe
Spam complaints are the nuclear button for inbox providers. Rates above 0.3% are a red flag to inbox service providers (ISPs) like Gmail.
When your promotional email lands in Primary, it jars subscribers out of context. They open their inbox expecting a friend’s note, see a flash sale instead and in their frustration they may hover over “Report Spam” instead of “Unsubscribe.” Even a small spike in complaints can damage your reputation and relegate future campaigns to spam.
In Promotions, expectations align. Subscribers are there for marketing content, so your odds of generating complaints plummet. That safety net alone makes Promotions healthier for deliverability.
Any commercial email is considered a “marketing” email–that can include traditional promotional or transactional communications. But it can also include relationship building messages like newsletters designed to keep your company top of mind. All of these messages can perform well in the Promotions tab. - Laura Sullivan, Head of Brand & Marketing, Inbox Monster
Unsubscribes: A Less Costly Signal
Unsubscribes aren’t fun, but they’re far from catastrophic. They’re more like controlled pruning. Gmail and other ISPs view unsubscribes as neutral. It’s simply the users exercising their choice.
What matters is why unsubscribes happen and the speed at which they happen. When promos sneak into Primary, unsubscribes can spike because people feel tricked or annoyed. In Promotions, fewer subscribers are surprised by promotional emails, so unsubscribe rates tend to be stable.
The takeaway: unsubscribes are normal. What you want to avoid are spam complaints. Landing in Promotions helps manage that balance.
Ignored Emails: The Silent Reputation Killer
Ignored emails are worse than unsubscribes. Gmail tracks engagement signals like open rates, click-throughs and deletes-without-reading to decide where to deliver your emails. Too many ignored messages tell Gmail your content isn’t wanted.
Promotions gives you a fighting chance. Users check it when they want to browse deals or discover new offers. That intentionality makes engagement more likely, reducing the risk of ghosted emails.
And when emails sit unread in Promotions it’s less damaging than when they’re ignored in Primary, because Gmail understands context. Still, the better your engagement, the higher you’ll climb in “Most Relevant” sorting.
Gmail Changes That Reshape the Promotions Tab
Over time, Gmail has refined the Promotions tab to improve the user experience and reward marketers with good email sending practices.
“Most Relevant” Sorting
Gmail allows users to sort their Promotions tab by “Most Relevant.” That means engaged brands rise to the top, while ignored senders sink.
This turns Promotions into a meritocracy. Engagement becomes currency, and marketers who invest in relevance win more visibility.
Ranked visibility rewards usefulness and consistency, not hacks or send-time optimization.- Lauren Meyer, CMO, SocketLabs
Dedicated Purchases Tab
In its official announcement, Google also mentions the introduction of a Purchases tab to house receipts and shipping confirmations.
This creates a clearer line between transactional and promotional content. If you’ve blurred those categories—like sneaking promos into order confirmations—Gmail will now do the cleanup for you.
Why Do These Changes Matter?
These changes tilt the landscape toward responsible senders. Clean lists, engagement-driven programs and relevant messaging get rewarded with top placement. Batch-and-blast strategies risk invisibility at the bottom of the tab.
It also loosens your grip on send-time optimization. Gmail may decide when to surface your message, so the focus shifts from timing tricks to sustained engagement.
Tools Inside Promotions That Help You Be Seen
Gmail’s Promotions tab isn’t just a folder. Instead, think of it as a showcase space with tools that help brands stand out.
Deal Annotations
Deal Annotations let you display discount codes, promo dates or sale highlights directly in the inbox preview. Think of it as a billboard for your offer before a subscriber even opens the email.
You can use annotations to:
- Highlight limited-time offers with expiration dates
- Call out free shipping thresholds or loyalty bonuses
- Reinforce urgency (e.g., “Ends tonight!”)
Product Carousels
Carousels allow you to showcase multiple items with rotating images in the inbox itself. For ecommerce brands, it’s like turning Gmail into a mini storefront.
Many brands use carousels to:
- Feature bestsellers or trending items.
- Personalize carousel items based on browsing history.
You could even use carousels as a testing ground for different image styles to see which drives more clicks.
And before you leave thinking product carousels are only for brands selling physical products, there’s nothing to stop you from using carousels to feature upcoming events, a selection of your best blog posts, or even social proof. You can control what content is displayed in a carousel that will grab the attention of your audience.
Logo & Expiration Annotations
Beyond deals and carousels, Gmail also supports brand logos aka Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI). A visible logo isn’t just a pretty picture. A survey by RedSift revealed brands that used BIMI increased their brand recall by 44%. Better recall = higher probability of your email being noticed and engaged with. When Tallyfy implemented BIMI, they saw an 80% increase in clickthrough rates.
Learn How to Survive and Thrive in the Promotions Tab
Instead of putting your time and effort into fighting against the algorithm and potentially landing your email reputation in hot water, here’s how you can work with the algorithm and thrive in the Promotions tab.
Double Down on Relevance
Relevance is the name of the game in Promotions. Gmail’s algorithm prioritizes engagement, and engagement comes from sending the right message to the right person—and you don’t always have to lean into demographic data for relevancy in the inbox.
Here are a few examples of other ways to be relevant in the inbox:
- Segment by behavior (recent purchase, browsing, inactivity).
- Personalize subject lines with product names or categories.
- Trigger campaigns based on activity (browse abandonment, cart reminders, loyalty milestones).
Maintain List Hygiene
An unclean list drags you down. Inactive subscribers dilute engagement metrics, which Gmail uses to decide if you belong in “Most Relevant.”
One of the most comprehensive methods of maintaining a clean list is implementing a strong reengagement program. And you’re in luck: we have a truly Monster Guide to Reengagement programs that can guide you through who to suppress and how often to run a reengagement campaign.
Optimize Timing. But Don’t Obsess.
Send-time optimization isn’t quite dead, but with the “Most Relevant” sorting, it matters less now. Gmail may surface your campaigns when it deems them relevant to the user.
If you have a large volume of Gmail users, this is the perfect opportunity to do some sending cadence testing and monitor the impact. If you send emails on a daily basis, you might want to try a weekly cadence to see if that has any impact.
The key thing here is to focus on consistent engagement versus perfecting the timing of your email.
Another option is to consider engagement-based segments where segments are identified by how much they engage with your emails. Experiment sending the more engaged subscribers more often and the least engaged less often.
Use Annotations
Annotations aren’t optional. They’re how you stand out in a sea of promos.
If you’re running a promotion, always include a deal annotation to catch those inbox glancers. But ensure your annotation aligns with your subject line for a cohesive pre-open inbox experience.
Heads up: If you don’t explicitly use annotations in your emails, Gmail may pull out unexpected images to use in a product carousel or preview images. Take control of how your emails look in the inbox preview by making the most of annotations.
Monitor Inbox Placement Continuously
You can’t optimize what you can’t see. Inbox placement shifts based on engagement, sender reputation and Gmail’s own algorithm.
- Run inbox placement tests regularly. Aim to run one before each major email campaign you send.
- Then, monitor placement weekly to spot any negative trends early.
- Remember to test across all major ISPs for a complete picture of your deliverability.
Get Some Gmail Help from Inbox Monster
You don’t have to navigate Gmail’s ever evolving platform alone. Inbox Monster gives you the visibility you need to cruise through whatever Gmail will throw at marketers next:
- Inbox Placement Testing shows which tab your campaigns will land in, whether it’s the Primary, Promotions, Updates or Purchases.
- Reputation Monitoring helps you stay ahead of issues that could bury you in “Most Relevant” sorting.
- Spam Trap Data identifies risky addresses before they drag you down.
With Gmail rewarding good senders, Inbox Monster gives you the visibility to show you’re one of them.
Stop Fighting, Start Thriving
The Promotions tab is not a penalty box. It’s where subscribers and customers expect to see you, and it’s where Gmail rewards relevance and engagement.
With “Most Relevant” sorting and a dedicated Purchases tab, Google made its intentions clear: reward marketers who respect the inbox and punish those who don’t.
Stop wasting energy trying to escape Promotions. Instead, make it your stage and turn it into one of the most powerful engines in your email program.
Gmail Promotions Tab FAQ
What is the Gmail Promotions tab?
The Promotions tab is Gmail’s dedicated space for marketing emails. Introduced in 2013, it helps users browse brand content without cluttering Primary.
Does landing in Promotions hurt deliverability?
No. In fact, it helps. Subscribers expect to see promotions in there, which reduces spam complaints and improves engagement.
How does Gmail decide what goes into Promotions?
Gmail uses algorithms to classify content. Marketing messages land in Promotions, while receipts and updates go into Updates or Purchases.
What changed in Gmail’s Promotions tab in 2025?
Gmail introduced a “Most Relevant” sorting option and a Purchases tab. Both changes reward brands with strong engagement and clean lists.
How can I improve inbox placement in Gmail?
Focus on relevance, maintain list hygiene, use annotations and monitor placement with tools like Inbox Monster.
Should I still try to land in the Primary tab?
No. Landing in Primary can increase spam complaints and unsubscribes. Promotions is where subscribers expect to see your promotions and marketing emails—and where you’ll earn healthier engagement.
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