Gmail Ads

Gmail ads are sponsored messages shown in the Promotions and Social tabs of a Gmail inbox. Google's help page says personalized Gmail ads show in those tabs, that ad selection is automated, and that Gmail messages are not scanned to choose them. The unit starts as a teaser that looks like an email in the list. In the expand format, clicking the teaser opens a larger ad inside Gmail. In the one-click format, clicking the teaser takes the person straight to your site. Google's help pages describe Gmail as a channel inside Demand Gen and a reporting asset type in Display. The ad is designed to look native to the inbox, which gives it attention that a banner on a website rarely gets.

How clicks are counted is the detail that trips people up. Google says a click is counted when someone first clicks the teaser ad, and repeat views or interactions with the expanded ad are not counted again. In Display reporting the click is counted at the teaser whether it expands the ad or goes straight to the site, and expanded-ad clicks that lead to a website appear under the Gmail asset type. For conversions, an expand ad counts if the person clicked the teaser, later visited your site, and completed a conversion action. So a click here can mean curiosity, not commitment. This is why click counts should be treated as a rough signal, not as proof that anyone engaged with your message.

In Demand Gen, Gmail is one of the channels you can control. Channel controls are set at each ad group: leave it on All Google channels, which Google recommends, or choose channels yourself. Reporting by channel lets you see Gmail's share of impressions and conversions. Creative follows Demand Gen formats such as images in several shapes, text, and video, and Google recommends judging overall campaign efficiency rather than the cost of any single channel. If you run Display, Gmail inventory comes via the Display campaign and its audiences, which Google is moving into Demand Gen. If Gmail is the weakest channel for your goal, channel controls let you exclude it without rebuilding the campaign.

The usual mistake is reading the expand click as engagement. An inbox ad is an interruption, and many first clicks are quick looks. What matters is the action after the creative opens: the site visit, form fill, or purchase. Another error is writing a teaser like a headline instead of like an email subject, which makes it blend in poorly. Using Gmail alone for demand capture is also misguided, because people in the inbox are not searching. Finally, treating Gmail as separate from Demand Gen can send you looking in the wrong place, since its channel controls and reporting live inside Demand Gen and Display. Make sure the landing page matches the promise in the teaser, because the second step is where most people leave.

This week, open your channel or network report and filter to Gmail. Compare click rate, cost per click, and conversion rate with your other channels, using conversions that happened after the click rather than click counts. Write a teaser that sounds like a useful email, with a brief subject-line style headline and a clear first image, and make the expanded or landing experience match it. If Gmail's cost per conversion is much worse than the rest of the campaign for a full month, consider switching channel controls to exclude it.