Does Gmail Filter Email Based On Political Beliefs?

09/01/20 • 26 min

It’s election season, and with that comes controversy, advertising, and extra emails in your inbox. In recent years, there have been claims that email providers, specifically Gmail, have filtered emails based on political beliefs. Congressman Greg Steube from Florida complained to the CEO of Google because he believed that his emails were being filtered to spam because he is a Republican.

In a similar incident in 2019, Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic presidential candidate, sued Gmail for $50 million. The lawsuit claimed that Google implemented a 6-hour suspension on her campaign ads and placed her emails into spam folders.

So, does Gmail filter emails based on political beliefs? As I hope we’ve shown throughout the previous episodes, the short answer is. no, it doesn’t. In this episode, we talk through several reasons why those claims are unfounded and what the real reason may be behind their emails ending up in spam folders.

Main Takeaways

It’s true that political emails tend to experience more deliverability issues because of the inherent nature of the industry.
Most senders try to remain relevant throughout the year to maintain a healthy reputation. In many cases after elections, senders either stop sending altogether or send much less consistently, so their sender reputation takes a hit.
Emails should contain at least some value to the reader. Some political emails just ask you to donate to their campaign or provide information about their platform, which is information you can find anywhere online.
Where emails end up speaks more to the skill of whoever is running a politician’s email marketing and less to any bias from Gmail.

“It’s algorithms, it isn’t personal. But if you’re showing signs of sending that a spammer has used, you might look like a spammer and it might go to the spam folder. And if you’ve seen political emails, or you’ve been in one of those lists, you know for a fact that they are showing signs of being a spammer.” ~ @alyssa_dulin

Links

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It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing.

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Main Takeaways

It’s true that political emails tend to experience more deliverability issues because of the inherent nature of the industry.
Most senders try to remain relevant throughout the year to maintain a healthy reputation. In many cases after elections, senders either stop sending altogether or send much less consistently, so their sender reputation takes a hit.
Emails should contain at least some value to the reader. Some political emails just ask you to donate to their campaign or provide information about their platform, which is information you can find anywhere online.
Where emails end up speaks more to the skill of whoever is running a politician’s email marketing and less to any bias from Gmail.

Links

Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action

It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing.

Stay in touch

Previous Episode

All About Gmail: The Promotions Tab, the Spam Folder, Postmaster Tools and More

Gmail has become ubiquitous as the leading mailbox provider. Gmail is also often considered the most advanced in terms of filtering and features among online mailboxes. And with so many users, it’s critical to understand how Gmail thinks about deliverability.

Apart from keeping your emails safe, Gmail also includes a ton of other features that are helpful to both senders and receivers. That said, it can be overwhelming if you’re just getting started.

In this episode, we discuss how Gmail determines where to place emails, the promotions tab, Google Postmaster Tools, and how to fix spam filtering issues.

Main Takeaways

Gmail’s priority is keeping your messages safe, which has led to a complex algorithm used to identify spam. It considers domain reputation heavily and that may cause your emails to be filtered differently than in other mailbox providers.
When using your own domain, it’s important that you have a solid sender reputation and consistent email volume. If you don’t, a large portion of your emails will bounce.
The promotions tab in Gmail separates the user’s subscription emails from the primary inbox where one-to-one messages land. If your email goes to the promotions tab and someone opens it, they truly wanted to do so, and they're going to spend time reading that email.
Google Postmaster Tools help you know what your current reputation is as a sender. It will tell you if your domain reputation is good or bad and where you need to improve.

“Opens are not all equal. You might see your open rates drop if your messages go to the promotions tab and that’s when people usually panic. But the “open” in the primary tab might not be as valuable as the “open” in the promotions tab.” ~ @alyssa_dulin

Links

Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action

It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing.

Stay in touch

Next Episode

FAQ's About Deliverability

As you’ve no doubt discovered, email deliverability is a complex topic. There are a number of factors that affect deliverability for senders, and it’s easy to get lost in all of the information when something goes wrong.

In this episode, we discuss some of the frequently asked questions we get at ConvertKit, and some practical strategies for improving your deliverability.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are emails going to spam?
Why do subscribers "bounce" and what do I do with them?
What do I need to do to my DNS settings when using an email marketing platform?
How often should I send emails to my list?
Why am I sending on a blocklisted IP?
I used "some kind of email testing tool and my sender score is ____". What does this mean and how can I use it to help me?
I just migrated from ____ and my open rate was ____. Why isn't it that high at ConvertKit?
A subscriber reached out to me and they aren't receiving my emails, what can I do?

“Senders tend to assume that all of their messages go to spam or they have a crazy huge issue. It definitely could be the case, but a lot of times, spam filtering happens on such an individual basis that it’s not like you have a huge issue. It’s just that one subscriber had some sort of spam filter or setting that decided your message to go to the spam folder.” ~ @alyssa_dulin

Links

Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action
It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing.

Stay in touch