AMP For Gmail Is An Email Marketing Gamechanger

Email marketers rejoice, today is a good day.

At the beginning of 2019 Google announced the much activated launch of its AMP for email offering, ahead of its 2^nd July go-live date.

Although launched in July, the feature was only available to Gmail users accessing via web. Now, as of the past few days, the functionality is rolling out to Gmail on Android and iOS.

For the uninitiated, AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages, and AMP for Email allows senders to include dynamic components inside rich engaging emails, making modern app functionality available within email.

For example, email recipients can respond to a comment, RSVP to an event, manage subscription preferences, and more directly from the email.

Requiring no click through to a website.

AMP allows the content of an email to stay up to date, as well, so when a user opens an email they can see the most recent status of an order or posting, or example.

The launch of AMP for email is a game-changer for email communications and broader customer relationship management (CRM) activity.

It is perhaps one of the most significant marketing developments of 2019.

AMP Up Your Life

Each day more than 270 BILLION emails get sent.

However, the content sent in an email is extremely limited – messages are static, can become out of date, and are not actionable without opening a browser.

AMP for email has been developed to enhance and modernise the email experience through added support for dynamic content and interactivity.

Email is the workhorse or both consumer and enterprise communications. Resultantly, for communicators, the scope of this update cannot be overstated.

Although Google has pioneered the use of AMP, other email clients are beginning to jump on board.

On September 6th, Microsoft announced it rolled out its developer preview of AMP for Email. 

At present, Outlook’s version is only in developer mode and will initially be for web only, i.e. outlook.com, much like Gmail’s was at launch. Unlike Gmail’s version, AMP for Outlook is off by default, whereas within Gmail defaults to on.

Global Email Client Market Share, Litmus April 2019:

1. Gmail = 27.8%

2. Apple Phone = 27.6%

3. Outlook = 9.1%

4. Apple iPad = 8.5%

5. Apple Mail = 7.5%

6. Yahoo Mail = 6.3%

7. Google Android = 2.5%

8. Outlook.com = 2.3%

9. Samsung Mail = 1.6%

10. Thunderbird = 0.5%

With Gmail leading the charge on dynamic email, and with Outlook joing the party within the past quarter, it should only be a matter of time before Apple, Yahoo et al. up the ante.

How To AMP Up Your Email Life

Google launched the feature earlier this year with several partners including Booking.com, Despegar, Doodle, Ecwid, Freshworks, Nexxt, OYO Rooms, Pinterest, and redBus.

To send dynamic emails, marketers need to first register with Google and have set criteria to meet.

Since AMP for email has only been live for four months, many email tech vendors have yet to build into their stacks. Therefore, marketers will probably need to double check whether their existing email software offers templates or supports.

Google offers its Gmail AMP for Email Playground where you can code AMP emails from header to footer, just like any other web page or app.

Although there are already templates available in the market, like those offered by Stripo.

Offering drag and drop style email builder tools for AMP, saving time, money and sanity.