Making Sure You Get My Reading List Newsletter
If you’re wondering where the May issue of my Reading List Email is…it sounds like we have a problem. It appears that Gmail’s tabbed inbox layout is finally starting to catch up with my newsletter because the email definitely went out. In the last few days, a bunch of readers on Twitter informed me that Inbox Tabs have been shuffling my Reading Recommendation newsletter into their Promotions tab–or worse, to Spam. For whatever reason, this month’s email had to lowest delivery rate I’ve ever had.
If you’re one of the 40,000 people who enjoys getting the recommendations each month, there are two ways to ensure that it always ends up in your Primary inbox where you can see it.
Drag and Drop
The easiest way is to drag and drop.
Locate the Reading Recommendation Email in your Promotions tab. Left-click and drag the email from Promotions over to Primary.
Once dropped, Gmail displays a yellow box that asks if you want to make this change permanent. Click Yes to ensure that all messages from [email protected] appear in the Primary tab going forward.
Create a Filter
Locate one of my Reading Recommendation Emails in your inbox by searching for “Ryan Holiday” or “[email protected].”
Create a filter for “ryan.holiday.com” and check the box next to “Never send it to SPAM” on the second screen.
That should do it.
Thank you to all the readers who brought this issue to my attention. If you’re not already getting my monthly reading recommendations, you can sign up right here.
Why are you so desperate Ryan Holiday???
Ryan, I know from your appearance on Tim Ferriss’s Podcast that you enjoy reading RSS feeds. Would you consider adding RSS to your site? Newsletters often get lost in the shuffle but RSS feed reading is what I do when time allows.
Thanks for entertaining my request…
Dave
It’s on the top of the site.
Here’s the WHY that’s happening (emails marked as SPAM or in TABs). it happens when:
1- when a certain % of your “readers” mark it as SPAM or DELETE it right away, for a substained amount of time
2- when readers don’t open it
Remember that Google makes money because people WANT to use their producsts. And ppl don’t like SPAM so Google really wants to make sure they are well served and remove spammers from their email feed. I’m not saying your email is SPAM, but keep reading.
So why YOU? So obviously you’re not scammy not 1%, as opposed to other emails i receive from, say John Romaniello or Ramit Sethi (they are SO bad that Google ignore my “keep them and put them in X folder” and STILL sends them to spam, so that tell’s you something about good practices 😉
What you should do to come back on Google GOOD side:
– Check your 40 000 ppl email list, then REMOVE ALL ppl that :
1- never opened your emails
2- have usually poor interaction with your stuff
Why? because many people, instead of “unsubscribing” and being efficient, use the spam button or delete every time your emails come in, which lower your status. It’s very important to keep that list clean and only keep interested people, which raise your status.
*** NOTE: i haven’t read this anywhere, but i also suspect that if Google marks you as a “SPAMMER”, then your DOMAIN NAME “ryanholiday.net” ALSO takes a ranking hit since Google doesn’t want scams / spammers in their search results.
Hope this helps 🙂
Joel
Just wanted to thank you. I read and thoroughly enjoyed “the tiger” on your recommendation, but from there I read a book vaillant mentioned, “the sheltering desert” which was incredible – absolutely great. I never would’ve read “desert” had I not read the tiger. Thanks so much!!
Try a/b testing the emails with your amazon affiliate links and without them. Will help with your delivery issue.