Little changes for a newsletter: the inbox tabs stay as they were. Snooze means some readers open it days later, so dates must survive the delay, and Gmail will start suggesting people unsubscribe from lists they ignore.

What Google released this week

On Wednesday, Google began rolling out a redesigned web version of Gmail, the one people use in a browser rather than the phone app.

For now it is optional. People switch to it from the settings menu, and Google plans to move everyone over in time. On G Suite, it arrives when the administrator turns it on.

The look is cleaner, and several features come with it: snooze, reminders called nudges, buttons that appear when you hover over a message, and suggested replies. A confidential mode is due in the coming weeks.

If you send a newsletter, the question is which of these affects whether it gets read.

What stays the same

The first is what most senders ask about. A newsletter that usually lands in Promotions will keep landing there; nothing in the redesign changes which tab it goes to.

Snooze, and the email read on Saturday

Snooze lets a reader send an email away and have it come back at a time they choose: later today, tomorrow, the weekend, next week.

When it returns, it sits at the top of the inbox as if it had just arrived.

For a newsletter, that is mostly good news. Someone who snoozes your email to Saturday morning is planning to read it, at a time when they have attention to give.

The catch is timing. Anything written for the day you sent it may be wrong by the day it is read.

Writing for a later reader

Use dates instead of relative days. This Thursday is wrong on Saturday; Thursday, May 3 is right whenever it is read.

Put the deadline of any offer near the top, in plain words, so a reader who opens it late knows at once whether it still applies.

Link to a page on your site that you can update, rather than putting availability only in the email, which cannot change once sent.

And keep links working for a week or more. A sale page taken down on Monday turns every late click into an error page.

Nudges are for conversations

Nudges are reminders Gmail adds to messages it thinks still need an answer: a short line noting how many days ago a message arrived and suggesting a reply.

They are meant for conversations, so a newsletter is unlikely to get one.

The one-to-one emails a business sends are another matter. A quote sent from your own address to a customer is exactly the kind of message Gmail may bring back to their attention.

Which is a reason to end quotes with a question that is easy to answer, such as shall we book the week of May 14, rather than let us know.

Unsubscribe suggestions

Google also says Gmail will start suggesting that people unsubscribe from newsletters and offers they no longer open.

That puts a cost on mailing people who have lost interest. Each unopened issue becomes a small argument, made by Gmail, for leaving.

The answer is the usual one. Send when you have something worth reading, and make every issue earn its open.

And stop mailing people who have opened nothing in a long while, after one last email asking whether they want to stay.

A worked example

A fishmonger in a seaside town sends a short email every Thursday afternoon listing what is coming in for the weekend.

Several regulars mentioned at the counter that they leave it until Saturday morning, when they plan the weekend's meals. Snooze will make that habit easier, not rarer.

The email said pre-order by tomorrow at noon. Read on Saturday, that seemed to promise pre-orders until Sunday, and the counter spent a morning explaining that the cut-off had been Friday.

The fix took one line. Each email now gives the real day and time near the top: pre-order by noon on Friday, May 4.

The list of fish links to a page on the shop's site, updated through the weekend, so a Saturday reader sees what is left rather than what was expected on Thursday.

The Thursday send time stayed, since the readers who open it on Thursday are the ones who pre-order.

Hover buttons and the inbox list

The new design shows archive, delete, mark as read and snooze buttons when the pointer rests on a message in the list.

That makes clearing a busy inbox quicker, and it puts more weight on your subject line and preview text, since many readers decide from the list without opening anything.

Write the subject as a plain description of what is inside, and use the preview text, the first line shown after the subject, for the most useful detail.

Confidential mode is not for newsletters

Confidential mode, when it arrives, lets a sender set an expiry date on a message and stop the recipient forwarding, copying, printing or downloading it.

It is for individual messages written in Gmail, and has nothing to do with sending to a list.

It may still touch the rest of your email. If a customer sends you a confidential message, you will not be able to forward it to your bookkeeper, which is rather the point.

The counter-case

Not every business needs to change anything this week.

If most of your readers use other email services, or read on their phones, the web redesign touches only part of the list, and only once people switch it on.

Snooze will mean little to a monthly newsletter with no deadlines in it.

But dates instead of relative days, and a list that has not gone stale, are worth having whatever Gmail does. Write each issue so it still works a few days after it is sent.

Before the next send

  1. Replace relative days with actual dates.
  2. Put any deadline near the top.
  3. Link to pages you can update.
  4. Keep sale pages live for a week afterwards.
  5. Write the subject as a plain description.
  6. Use the preview text deliberately.
  7. Ask long-silent readers whether to stay.

Step seven is the one the redesign makes more pressing, since Gmail will soon be asking those same readers whether they want to leave.

Making sure everyone on the list asked to be there is covered in confirming a sign-up twice.

Frequently asked questions

Does the new Gmail move newsletters out of Promotions?

No. The tabs work as before, so a newsletter that usually lands in Promotions keeps landing there. The redesign changes the interface, not the sorting.

What does snooze mean for a newsletter?

Readers can send your email away and have it return later, at the top of the inbox. Some will read it days after you sent it.

How should I write for later readers?

Give actual dates instead of relative days, put deadlines near the top, link to pages you can update, and keep sale pages working for a week afterwards.

Will my newsletter get nudges?

Unlikely. Nudges are meant for conversations that seem to need a reply. A quote sent from your own address to a customer is more likely to be brought back.

What are unsubscribe suggestions?

Google says Gmail will suggest that people unsubscribe from newsletters and offers they no longer open, so readers who never open your email become more likely to leave.

Does confidential mode affect newsletters?

No. It is for individual messages, letting a sender set an expiry and block forwarding or printing. It has nothing to do with sending to a list.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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