• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, April 20, 2021

Google is using the data from a survey run in Gmail to improve on the user experience across its email platform. 

Gmail gives users the option to segment their messages by Primary, Social, and Promotions. Under the Promotions tab, a Gmail user might see two ads. A question might appear under the second ad: Is this ad useful? The user then has an option to click “Yes” or “No.”

The prompt refers to what is known as an ad usefulness survey, which evaluates whether the ad is useful to the user. It’s all about the experience, according to Google. On Monday, the company provided a timeline around the forthcoming update based on page experience. 

“We regularly run automated surveys on Google’s ad-supported properties to better understand user experience and make improvements to the overall types of ads people see,” a Google spokesperson wrote in an email to Search & Performance Marketing Daily. “Our users can choose whether or not they want the ads they see to be personalized.”

Google initially launched the feature to gather user feedback on Android and iOS on Gmail Android in 2017 and iOS in 2018. It will soon also appear on Desktop.

The survey is not persistent, and serves up to users only when Google wants to get their feedback. It is triggered per ad in a specific, low-frequency way.

This type of survey is very common on all ad-supported Google properties, including Search, Discover Feed and YouTube.

Google does not provide the information to anyone and doesn’t use information in apps for advertising purposes where personal content is stored, such as Gmail, Drive, Calendar and Photos.