Yahoo Redesigns Email

Yahoo is experimenting with a new email design to help manage inbox overload.

The new email prototype, CardMail, organizes email in categorical lists as opposed to in reverse-chronological order. Examples of categories include travel, deals, receipts and events, similar to Gmail’s Inbox folders. Each category list is further stratified and sorted by order of predicted relevance instead of the time it was delivered.

Kyle Henderick, director of client services at Yes Lifecycle Marketing, says that Yahoo’s CardMail update will have major implications for email marketers.

Yahoo’s design experiment “continues to emphasize the importance that marketers need to tailor email campaigns to ensure they are relevant and personalized,” says Henderick. “With CardMail automatically displaying emails based on a user's interests, there's a greater chance that marketing messages could get lost in the shuffle amongst an already crowded inbox.”

Since CardMail automatically filters emails into lists, Henderick recommends that marketers focus on implementing triggered email campaigns to stand out from the crowd.

“CardMail could essentially spotlight triggered messages such as ticket confirmations or shipping updates within a user's inbox, and marketers can't afford to ignore implementing these campaigns any longer," Henderick says. 

It is too soon to determine if Yahoo’s new email design will impact deliverability results according to Yes Lifecycle Marketing, but the company believes this is a positive industry trend toward offering a more streamlined email experience to the end user.

“We all want the same thing -- the right emails, in the right place, seen at the right time,” says Kevin Gallant, manager of intelligence products at Yes Lifecycle Marketing. “Having Yahoo provide their users with an intuitive interface/organization tool, will likely help users avoid the overwhelming email clutter we all hate. No marketer can bank on their subscribers being organized, so why fear a little help from the ISP? It is too soon to say what impact a new feature or email interface can have on deliverability results, but this update looks like a positive transition."

 

 

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