Gmail adverts promote your competitors

Gmail is the third most popular webmail service in the world and in my opinion, its also the best, in fact I can’t understand why anyone would want to use anything else.

We use email for around 95% of our communications, including communication with our potential customers and sending them conservatory drawings and quotes. It is so efficient and saves so much time that I couldn’t imagine being without it.

However, there is a downside to this and it can cost you sales. It doesn’t matter which email service you use yourself, the problem occurs when a potential customer uses Gmail and this problem relates to any industry that communicates with customers by email and no matter what they are selling, not just conservatories.

Its all down to the way Gmail displays advertisements along side all emails that are opened. The adverts are targeted to the content of the email. See the screenshot below – click on the image to enlarge.

This is an email I sent to myself simulating one that would be opened by a potential customer. Do you see the problem here?

When you mention ‘conservatory’ or ‘conservatories’ in your email, adverts are displayed to the right of the email content targeting those keywords and these are competitors adverts, selling exactly the same products as you. So every time you send an email containing the types of products you are selling, you are effectively pushing your competitor’s adverts right in your potential customer’s face.

So what can you do to avoid this? Well its very simple really – whenever you are sending an email to a potential customer with a Gmail or Google Mail address, take care not to mention your products, in this case ‘conservatory’ or ‘conservatories’ or any other keywords that relate to them and also ensure that your products are not mentioned in your standard email signature, for example see the screenshot below- click on the image to enlarge.

You’l now see that the adverts target completely different products that are not related in any way to the products that you are selling, leaving you to promote your products without promoting those of your competitors at the same time.

This problem only occurs with Gmail. The other two most popular webmail providers Hotmail (Windows Live Mail) and Yahoo! Mail do not display adverts related to email content.