Gmail ads: 2 minutes to understand their interest.

Where Gmail paid ads are displayed.

Gmail ads are displayed as unread emails in the “Promotions” and “Social Networks” tabs of Google’s email service and are placed in the first and second position of messages. They look like regular emails, except for the word “Ad” which is placed next to the message. However, these ads do not appear in the email of those who use an Ad Blocker or who use a Gmail business account.

Clicking on one of these ads opens a short email that contains one of four available ad formats. Each format allowing for a specific objective to be assigned to the advertiser’s campaign.

The image template:

The image template allows you to display a clickable visual of your choice.

The single promotion template:

The single promotion template allows you to display an image or YouTube video thumbnail, a descriptive text and a call to action button.

The multi-product template:

The multi-product template allows you to display several images (up to six), accompanied for each of them by a description and a call to action button.

The HTML template:

Allows the upload of an HTML code for even more customization. this method is similar to the integration of a newsletter.

The single promotion model being the most commonly used, we will detail its main characteristics.

Clicking on this type of ad opens a short email that contains four elements, as we can see in the screenshots below:

1. An image, a logo or a video;
2. A subject line (25 characters maximum) often containing a proposition: “Discover our new collection”, “Get your discount”, “Sign up for our offer”…
3. A short message (100 characters maximum) that is addressed to a target. You must select your target sufficiently to have qualified clicks rather than many clicks with a poorly defined target.
4. A CTA (or call to action button) that is attractive and promises: Enjoy, Book, Buy, Learn more… The user is warned, he knows what to expect if he clicks.

Clicking on the CTA leads to the advertiser’s website or even better to a landing page that reinforces the proposition that was made in the shortened version of the email.

Why communicate with Gmail ads?

1 – Gmail is the most popular email service in the world.

• With 1.8 billion users, Gmail is the most popular email in the world;
• Gmail holds 18% of the email client market share (May 2021);
• 27% of all emails opened are in Gmail;
• 75% of Gmail users access their email from mobile devices.

2 – Gmail ads allow users to be addressed in a place where a significant number of them spend a lot of time: their mailbox.

3- They give advertisers access to the most intimate virtual space of everyone.

With Gmail ads you don’t need to convince users to subscribe to your newsletter or follow you on social networks. As Gmail users have accepted (without reading them) the terms and conditions of the service, they have given their consent – also called Opt-in – to receive commercial messages. The process is of course completely legal.

The Gmail ads are therefore a privileged entry point that allows to legally bypass the GDPR which prohibits (especially in the context of B2C activities) to send commercial emails to prospects without being authorized.

4 – As for Google Ads campaigns, the targeting options of Gmail ads are both powerful and precise. You can retarget visitors of your website, use the list of subscribers to your newsletter or target visitors looking for a product or a brand corresponding to your company’s offer.

Regarding the last point (targeting visitors looking for a brand or a product), this process – admittedly relatively aggressive – will allow you, for example, to broadcast your ads to Gmail users receiving emails or newsletters from your competitors or to users who ordered products from your competitors. But be careful, nothing will prohibit your competitors to do the same

5 – You gain in productivity. Gmail ads campaigns are managed from the same platform as Google Ads; this saves time and allows you to compare the effectiveness of each Euro invested.

6 – Gmail is widely used on mobile, which gives you one more way to reach your users when they are on mobile.

7 – Almost no competition

Unlike ads on the Google search network (Google ads) where competition between advertisers is very strong (and therefore prices are higher), ads in Gmail are still relatively few, because little known.

Conclusion:

You will have understood after reading this article, an ad campaign on Gmail can be an excellent technique to develop your business. But it is still necessary to respect some rules to maximize the effectiveness of it.  Do not hesitate to contact us, we can help you from A to Z in this process: optimization and monitoring of the campaign, choice of the ad format and appropriate keywords, creation of the landing page of your ad… our experts are here to help you in your success.