What Are Email Marketing?

Google has recently re-launched their Gmail Sponsored Promotions (GSP) as Gmail Ads. GSPs which were earlier available in Beta are now available to all advertisers in the Adwords Platform as Gmail Ads.

Email Marketing Service Ads allow advertisers to connect with Email Users through a native ad format that is highly engaging. It gives advertisers advanced targeting options to reach out to new and existing customers. Advertisers can now set up Email Ads directly through Adwords and the ad will sit at the top of the promotions tab in Email as a collapsed ad unit.

Google will charge advertisers, each time a user expands a collapsed Ad. After that, it is an open playing field and advertisers can get as creative as they want with the ads to get a the best response from their audience.

Why use Email Ads?

Email ads are similar to the Google Display Ads where the ads are shown to the user when they are not explicitly looking for your product or offer.

With over 900 million active Email users across the globe, Email Ads are a great way to reach out to your target audience.

According to Google, advertisers have reported high open rates using Email Ads and better campaign performance than traditional display ads.

You can use Email Ads to achieve your marketing goals such as:

• Build Awareness about your brand and product offerings
• Influence Consideration for your brand when customers are in the buying funnel
• Reach the Target Audience with the help of advanced targeting features.
• Drive Online Sales by directing people to your buying pages to increase conversions.
• Grow Loyalty by offering discounts, freebies and other offers to your faithful customers.

Advanced Targeting

Email Ads are targeted towards an audience rather than a specific email subject.

The advanced targeting options available via Email Ads are similar to the Google Display Network options.

Advertisers can target users based on:

• Age
• Gender
• Device
• Topic/Affinity
• Language
• Geo
• Keyword/Domain

Email Ads allow you to target your known customers, reach out to new customers and also reach out to customers that have a similar profile to your existing customers.

The interesting targeting option from the above list is the keyword/domain targeting. Advertisers can target people based on the keywords contained in their emails and also the domains that send out emails to these users. For eg: If you are a hotel, you can target people who have flight confirmation tickets to the destination where your hotel is located. This opens up limitless possibilities for advertisers to reach out to specific audiences.

The native ad sits as a collapsed ad on the promotions tab in Gmail.

Once the user clicks on the ad, it opens up an expanded ad creative in the email pane. Advertisers can choose from several customizable Email ads templates for the expanded ad unit. They can feature a single image, highlight a promotion that combines an image with a description and call-to-action button or showcase multiple products at once. Advertisers can also create their own ads rather than using the set templates.

Just like Social Media Ads, engagement metrics are critical to evaluate the performance of a Email Marketing Service Ad. In addition to measuring sales and traffic, the number of forwards, saves and clicks help us understand audience engagement with the Email ads.

The high level of advanced contextual targeting that Email Marketing Service Ads provides makes it a must have for the Advertisers.

Have you started using Email ads yet?

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