GMAIL's Smart Labels & implications for email marketers

A Gmail Labs-developed feature for Gmail that allows users to classify and organize the email. Once it is turned on from the Labs tab in Settings, Smart Labels automatically categorizes incoming Bulk, Notification and Forum messages, and labels them as such.

By Bulk You Mean….Any kind of mass mailing including such as newsletters and promotional email.

Then What Happens? It gets filtered out of the inbox by default (where, Google says, it can easily be read later. Notifications are messages sent to the user directly (like account statements and receipts), and email from group mailing lists gets labeled as “Forums.”

What Does This Mean for Email Marketers? If the experiences with Priority Inbox are any guide, probably nothing good. According to CMO.com, people with the Priority Inbox spend 6% less time reading e-mails than those without it. And just in general, if e-mail subscribers don’t open your e-mail, then your messages won’t be much better off than spam.

via Under the Microscope: Google’s new Smart Labels and the implications for email marketers – MarketingVOX.