Recent changes to Gmail could provide further good news for printers of direct mail and other targeted marketing pieces.

Over the summer Google introduce a tabbed inbox to the service, with the result being that messages are filtered into primary, social, or promotions tabs.

Google does this automatically, although users can override this by choose to assign emails to certain tabs (or remove tabs altogether), so it is perfectly possible to decide to elevate promo messages from specific senders to primary status so they are definitely seen.

But, judging by personal experience and the number of emails I’m receiving from panicky-sounding brands urging me “not to miss out” by “updating my Gmail settings” it sounds like there has been a notable drop-off in open rates.

While digging around for some stats I found this, on Litmus, which said that since Google announced the new tabbed inbox “we’ve seen a 7.75% decrease in Gmail opens, with numbers in the 3% range for the first time after more than a year of figures at or above 4%.”

Other research from Return Path, reported in WebProNews, showed that, surprise, people who are already actively engaged with ‘Brand X’, such as those addicted to daily deal offers, remain engaged. 

But those people are a minority. More worrying for marketers in general is this: “The study also finds that read rates have dropped to around 10% for Gmail users who have had a ‘medium engagement’ level with marketing email (which makes up 88% of all Gmail users, according to the firm).”

The latest stat I can find, from last year, is that Gmail has more than 425m users, so obviously even a fraction of that is A LOT. And, just as with direct mail, there’s a big difference between opening an email or a physical mailing, and then going on to actually do something as a result.   

But in a world awash with fleeting online messages of one form or another, I'm more and more convinced that opportunity knocks again for the stand-out provided by print.