Campaign email flagged as promotion and open rate is very low

[hsikander]

It has been an extremely frustrating experience dealing with the marketing support team up to this point. I have called a couple of times and described the problem. My campaign emails are not reaching the Gmail inbox, and I have tried it with a few other people to make sure my Gmail account is not the problem. Is anyone else having this problem? Any recommendations? My time has so far been wasted on marketing support.

Thanks

[TheRealChipA]

Hi @hsikander.  

First, there is actually one practical thing that you can do in Square that will have an immediate effect.  Since Square has this setting, I’m surprised that support didn’t immediately recommend it.  Anyway, here it is!  Square marketing emails come from a default email address that has this format:

messages+xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@squaremktg.com

I can almost assure you that gmail is looking for @squaremktg.com and automatically shuffling those emails to the Promotions tab.  You can change this to a better, more business-centered email address, as follows:

1. Go to your online dashboard -> Marketing -> Settings.
2. At the top you’ll see your sender profile, with that @squaremktg.com email address.
3. Click on “Create new”
4. Enter your company name, a valid send-from email address and optionally a valid reply-to email address.
5. Click the “Send Verification” button.  You will receive an email with instructions on how to verify your email address so that you can save it.  Follow those instructions.

Otherwise, Gmail scans all emails received and categorizes them.  If it detects characteristics of a promotional/marketing email, it automatically puts it in that “inbox” rather than the regular inbox.  Every business that sends marketing emails hates this and wants to find a way around it.  Rather than post a long list of things you can think about or do, I’m including a link to a very helpful website post that I ran across that includes lots of pointers.  You might find some of these helpful in addition.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

[hsikander]

Thanks for your response. I actually changed my email profile as you suggested before I posted my update here.  I am still having this issue. It's really frustrating, to be honest. 

[TheRealChipA]

Ah.  Well then look over that link I included.  Like I said, this is not just a “you” thing or a “Square” thing.  All people who do email marketing have been hating this new “feature” of the gmail client and app.  Also, you said you changed it before you posted here?  As I recall, there was a note after changing mine where Square said that there might be a delay before this would all take effect — that it wasn’t immediate.  Just another thought.

[hsikander]

Thank you, I'll wait until tomorrow morning before I execute another test 🙂 thank you again for your timely response.