Gmail adds unsubscribe button to top of marketing emails

After a series of several important changes last year, Gmail has added a prominent “unsubscribe” button on the right-hand side of the header field in promotional emails. This new feature will allow email recipients to quickly opt out of marketing messages that they’re no longer interested in, all without leaving Gmail.

Previously, users had to search for an “unsubscribe” link, which typically appears at the bottom of messages. Those who couldn’t find this link would sometimes report promotional emails as spam, even if they were from legitimate senders. If users continued to report brand messages as spam, Google could eventually label the sender a spammer and cause deliverability issues for a business.

While Gmail’s new unsubscribe feature may be more convenient for consumers, could it be detrimental to businesses that rely on email marketing? Google claims this won’t be the case, since the update is meant to help brands increase transparency and maintain a good sender reputation.

So in short, although Gmail’s feature may cause more users to unsubscribe from future mailings from a particular marketer, this shouldn’t necessarily be considered a bad thing.  If users want to be removed from an email list, they will find a way to opt out.  If users tend to click the new unsubscribe button, at least senders will be notified and from there gain a better understanding of how receptive Gmail users are to the messages they receive.  Aggregating consumer insights is how marketers can learn more about their subscriber base: what’s working, what isn’t, how their companies can add value for email recipients. At the end of the day, people only pay attention to messages that are relevant to their wants and needs.