Examples of how Gmail may hurt your email marketing and how you can mitigate the issues (last of two parts).

As you learned in part one, Google's Gmail will hurt your email marketing efforts unless you're prepared. The biggest issues are with suppressed images that can affect tracking, massive storage and the ability to search emails that affect timeliness, and that other ads will surround the email you send. In addition, some or all of these things may eventually show up in Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail.

Examples from my inbox

I recently received my REI enewsletter that highlighted "family camping gear" in my Gmail inbox. The most prominent links above the fold were links to REI competitors.

After reserving a U-haul truck for a move, I received email confirmation for the reservation. All the sponsored links and most of the organic links were to U-haul competitors. Not surprisingly, this caused me to do some price comparisons.

I receive newsletters from MSNBC. The sponsored and organic links list MSNBC competitors with no links to MSNBC itself.

My frequent flier statements include offers for credit cards, yet these links are far down the page compared to offers from competitive credit cards.

Of greatest interest to marketers is the fact that Gmail scans email content for terms in order to contextually link text ads displayed as sponsored links to the right of emails. Yet to be communicated are the rules regarding potentially sensitive content like sex or death, where it's likely to suppress ads. Thus far, it appears that Gmail ads aren't as frequent in personal (vs. commercial) email.

Google can't scan the content of HTML images. Consequently, it can't deliver related ads, and thus is probably the driver for why they are encouraging text emails by suppressing images. Furthermore, among the technical/Linux crowd that is core to Google's culture, there's a preference for text over the perceived "glitz" of graphical interfaces that is another likely driver of their initial product design decisions. The decisions on how and where to place ads is where there's a lot of experimentation during the beta period.

What should marketers do now?

In preparation for Gmail reaching critical mass, marketers should create an email format and Gmail strategy. Simply sending HTML messages so you won't have to worry about contextual ads from competitors will be a failure for most companies. Having seen usability and instrumentation data that tracks user behavior of literally millions of users, one thing is certain -- the vast majority of users won't change default settings such as Gmail's image suppression. One can hope that Google will change its policy, but it's not something I'd bet on.

Only the strongest brands have the possibility that their customer bond is strong enough to cause their customers to take the extra step to actively display images. Most marketers will and should send text or a mix of text and images to maximize response -- and either buy AdWords contextual ads to increase response in coordination with the email campaign, or let competitors pay to try to lure customers away.

Like any email marketing, testing is key. Be sure you have email capabilities that allow you to rapidly test and respond based upon what's working. For a more complete list of criteria in selecting an email provider, check out the article Is Your Email Old School?

Are AdWords a Trojan horse to marketers' wallets?

Gmail can be an opportunity or a challenge, depending on how proactive you are as a marketer. Unless a company actively manages its Google advertising, the ads around your campaign are likely to be your competitors'. Those ready to integrate their search engine and email marketing efforts have an opportunity to get a leg up on their competition. The impact of email campaigns will be heightened when you have a strong contextual ad campaign.

For marketers who haven't aggressively pursued a Google AdWords strategy, Google has given them another reason to reach into their wallets and hand them over to Google. You should determine how much to advertise on Google in support of your own email programs. Google will have a vested interest in ensuring the delivery of emails from marketers paying for AdWords contextual ads. In addition, one would expect them to share best practices of how to weave a search and email campaign.

Next steps to consider

Here are some steps a marketer can take to weave their email and search efforts together:

• Test and manage bids
• Prior to running your first full-blown Gmail-aware campaign, read up and run your own tests on user behavior as it relates image suppression to determine what's the proper mix of HTML and text.
• Before you start an email campaign, identify keywords you should select based on the campaign content.
• Establish initial bids.
• Ad copy for each term (more if you are testing) should to be created.
• Target page(s) for each ad will need to be developed.
• Once launched, results should be tracked and ad copy, target pages, and bid prices adjusted on the fly.

Staff up or vendor up

Gmail has added yet another challenge for marketers. Managing email campaigns used to be a relatively simple process. Unfortunately, that's not the case anymore. If you haven't already, it's time to buck up resources. There is an ever-growing list of items that are critical to manage -- spam filters, CAN-SPAM legislation, email delivery issues, subscribe/unsubscribe lists, affiliate synchronization issues with much more coming down the path (e.g., email "caller ID"). If you are managing your own email in-house, you have to staff up to address these items.

Alternatively, it's becoming much more common to rely on a vendor such as Digital Impact, Doubleclick or Memetic Systems to manage this on your behalf. Just as most direct marketers don't rely on their corporate mailroom to handle their direct mail campaigns; many interactive marketers are realizing it's more effective to rely on their vendor to navigate these issues rather than rely on their already stretched technical team.

Conclusion

Like many new developments in the Internet marketing world, Gmail and the accompanying industry shift that will follow are both a challenge and an opportunity. For the smart and proactive, it's yet another opportunity to get a leg up on your competition.

Dave Chase is a Partner with Altus Alliance, which specializes in working with early stage businesses that have transformational capabilities for their customer. In addition, Dave conducts workshops on email marketing, addressing how email can develop a marketer's audience and specific topics such as planning for industry-changing issues such as Gmail. Recently published articles for the online marketing industry include Have you analyzed Your Other Homepage? Is your email old school? and There's Gold Outside CRM Mailbox.

Before joining Altus Alliance, Chase spent nearly 20 years in the industry with the last twelve years at Microsoft in various senior marketing and general management roles, including his role as MSN's Managing Director for Industry Marketing and Relations. In that capacity, he was responsible for MSN taking a leadership role within the Interactive Marketing industry to grow Online's share of the overall ad market in concert with AOL, CNET, Yahoo!, Google and other market leaders.

Chase played leadership roles in launching several new businesses within Microsoft including Microsoft's entry into the enterprise software and server business which is now an $8B business. This included co-leading Microsoft's first vertical marketing efforts where he grew the Healthcare vertical market from virtually no presence to a market leading position. The healthcare business now represents over $400M in revenue for Microsoft. From there, he was integral in Microsoft's entry into consumer Internet businesses that achieved both critical and financial success. These included Sidewalk, Encarta, and HomeAdvisor, which were among the first profitable consumer Internet businesses for Microsoft and heavily used email marketing to enable their growth. Before Microsoft, Chase was a senior consultant with Accenture performing management consulting and systems integration.