Gmail’s New Summary Cards and What They Mean for Email Deliverability

In the ever-evolving landscape of email management, Google has announced an exciting upgrade to Gmail’s summary cards, aimed at improving user experience and streamlining inbox navigation. The latest enhancements, rolling out in October 2024, promise more dynamic and visually organized summary cards that provide real-time updates on purchases, events, bills, and travel plans.

For those in the email marketing space, these changes represent more than just a UX improvement—they signal a shift in how information is delivered and accessed, with potentially significant implications for email deliverability.

What’s New with Summary Cards?

Google’s enhanced summary cards are designed to declutter the inbox and ensure important information is easily accessible.

Here are the key updates:

Dynamic Content

Summary cards will now display real-time updates, such as package tracking, event reminders, or bill due dates. They are constantly refreshed, ensuring users always have the latest information at their fingertips.

Actionable Buttons

Users can now take actions directly from these cards, like setting reminders for bills, adding events to their calendars, or tracking shipments—all without needing to search through multiple emails.

Happening Soon Section

A new “Happening Soon” section will show relevant purchase cards when delivery dates are approaching. This feature provides a quick overview of important upcoming activities and will be populated with event, bill, and travel information in future updates.

The “Happening soon” section in your inbox will show purchase summary cards when the delivery date is two days away.
Source: https://blog.google/products/gmail/new-gmail-summary-cards/

What Does This Mean for Email Deliverability?

For businesses and marketers, these updates present both opportunities and challenges.

Let’s break down the implications:

Better Visibility for Key Information

The revamped summary cards prioritize important information from transactional emails, allowing users to access it more easily. As a result, emails with critical updates—such as shipping notifications or event reminders—are more likely to stand out. This could improve engagement rates as users are guided to take action directly from their inbox.

If you’re sending transactional emails, this is great news. More dynamic and prominent placement within Gmail could lead to higher open rates and better interaction with your content.

Stricter Requirements for Structured Data

Google’s summary cards rely heavily on structured data to extract key information from emails. This means that marketers and businesses must ensure their emails are properly formatted using Schema Markup. Otherwise, your email might not display with a summary card, potentially reducing its visibility and effectiveness.

To stay competitive, businesses should ensure their email templates meet Gmail’s schema requirements. Implementing structured data, such as the OrderStatus or EventReservation schemas, can help ensure that your messages are formatted to take full advantage of these new dynamic features.

Deliverability Impacts

Gmail’s new summary cards offer significant opportunities for higher engagement, but they also raise the bar for email deliverability. Poorly structured emails that fail to trigger these summary cards risk reduced visibility and deliverability over time. Ensuring that emails are properly formatted with schema markup and authenticated with protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is critical. Emails lacking these technical safeguards may not display summary cards and could be deprioritized in users’ inboxes, negatively impacting their reach.

Dynamic content plays a crucial role in improving deliverability. Emails that offer immediate value—such as package tracking updates or bill payment reminders—are more likely to be opened and interacted with. Gmail’s summary cards provide users with actionable information directly within the inbox, boosting engagement rates. Higher interaction rates lead to better email performance, stronger deliverability, and improved inbox placement.

Additionally, these enhanced summary cards help reduce spam complaints. When users receive timely and relevant information, they are less likely to mark emails as spam. By delivering valuable content that meets users’ needs, senders reduce spam complaints, which further enhances their sender reputation. A strong sender reputation is essential for maintaining good inbox placement and ensuring future emails continue to reach their intended audience effectively.

​​Understanding Email Sender Reputation And How It Affects Email Deliverability

Boosted Sender Reputation and Improved Trust through Engagement

Gmail tends to prioritize emails with high engagement rates, and the dynamic content featured in summary cards helps drive these metrics by making it easier for users to find value in their emails quickly. Summary cards offer users instant access to important information—such as package tracking, event reminders, and bill due dates—without the need to sift through multiple messages. This convenience encourages higher open rates, click-throughs, and interactions, all of which contribute to a stronger sender reputation.

High engagement metrics signal to Gmail that your emails are relevant and trustworthy, improving their deliverability and ensuring they land in the inbox rather than the spam folder. Additionally, the inclusion of summary cards for bills, purchases, and events fosters greater trust between sender and recipient. When users can quickly access and act on vital information, friction is reduced, and positive interactions are more likely. This transparency and timely communication not only boost engagement rates but also enhance the relationship between senders and recipients, further strengthening sender’s reputation and ensuring that future campaigns continue to perform well.

By combining dynamic content with a user-centric approach, marketers can build stronger trust with recipients, improve deliverability, and achieve sustained success with their email campaigns.

Takeaways for Email Marketers

Google’s latest updates to Gmail are designed to simplify user interactions with their inboxes, but they also raise the stakes for email marketers looking to maintain strong deliverability.

Here are some best practices to consider moving forward:

• Leverage Schema Markup: Ensure your emails are optimized with the appropriate Schema Markup to trigger summary cards in Gmail. This will increase your email’s prominence and give recipients easy access to important information.
• Focus on Deliverability: With Google’s increased reliance on structured data and real-time updates, it’s more important than ever to follow email deliverability best practices. Make sure your domain is properly authenticated, your content is relevant and personalized, and your emails comply with Google’s standards.
• Stay User-Centric: Google’s updates highlight the importance of user experience in email. Make sure your emails are concise, action-oriented, and structured in a way that aligns with users’ needs, whether it’s package tracking, bill reminders, or travel updates.

Summary

As Gmail continues to evolve, businesses and marketers must stay agile and adjust their strategies to ensure their emails stand out in the inbox and deliver value. With summary cards, Google is providing new ways to engage with users—but only for those who are prepared to meet the technical requirements and prioritize the user experience.

The future of email deliverability isn’t just about getting your message into the inbox; it’s about ensuring your message can be easily acted upon once it’s there.

Full Google announcement.