The consequences to marketers of Gmail’s inbox changes

The new Gmail inbox design, which diverts marketing e-mails to a separate “Promotions” tab, could pose a threat to e-mail marketers, Jordan Cohen writes.

While it is still too early to tell what the impact on open and click-through rates will be, marketers are right to be concerned that emails placed in a separate tab will be out of sight, and may also be out of mind (or, in the very least, not top of mind). By last count (June 2012), there were 425 million Gmail users in the world, and it may be up to half a billion by now — so the effect can potentially be substantial.

For now, users’ ability to disable the tabs and the increased use of mobile devices to check e-mail could limit the damage, he adds. Kimbia suggests a few workarounds as well.

But perhaps the bigger threat is that other providers follow Google in hiding marketing messages from recipients.