Gmail now ranks emails by relevance, and ignored sends push you down
Five BFCM sends used to mean five chances to be seen. You sent, you sent again, and volume did a lot of the work.
Gmail changed that. Since Google's September 2025 update, people can sort the Promotions tab by "most relevant" instead of "most recent," and Gmail favors the brands they engage with most. Crucially, Gmail defaults by relevance! Mailgun's analysis points out this fits how Gmail works across Primary, Updates and Promotions: it tries to show each person what they find most engaging, not what landed last.
Now, the result is that two customers can get the same email at the same moment, and one sees it up top while the other never scrolls far enough to find it. Think of it as a popularity contest where your customers do the voting (and they vote with clicks).
Of course, Google hasn't published the formula as, well, everyone would game it. Analysts like Movable Ink expect it to resemble how Gmail flags important mail, with opens, clicks and replies as inputs, measured against everything you send. So every email nobody clicks can lower where your next one lands.
Sending the right content frequently used to pay off. Now you actually need to send at the right time.
Start fixing relevancy now, before BFCM volume hits
Relevancy is a track record, and track records take time. Black Friday is Nov 27, about eight weeks out, which is enough time to move yours if you start now. Google says improvements to your spam rate take time to show up in how Gmail classifies your mail (Gmail Help).
BFCM also means more sends, and extra sends to customers who don't engage count against you. Google's guidance is to raise volume gradually, start with engaged recipients, and avoid sudden spikes, since sudden spikes, like doubling your previous volume, can bring rate limiting or reputation drops.
Here's your checklist for this week:
Check your spam rate and authentication. In Postmaster Tools, keep your spam rate under 0.10% and try not to let it reach 0.30%. If you send 5,000+ messages a day to Gmail, you also need SPF, DKIM and DMARC in place. Note: if you're reading this and are an Orita customer, you likely send 10x or 100x this volume 😀
Build reputation with your most engaged customers. Don't "warm" your whole list. Sending too deep too early can damage your sender reputation, which makes the people you most want to reach less likely to see you. To remind quiet customers you exist, use another channel, like SMS, where email reputation isn't on the line.
Plan your frequency and depth. Frequency is how many emails you send. Depth is how far into less engaged segments each send goes. The Audience Scenario Planner shows what each combination does before you commit.
Set your click rate baseline. Engagement runs higher during BFCM so know your normal now and you'll know what a good day looks like.
Track click rate as your relevancy read
You can't see Gmail's relevancy score, so you need a stand-in. Click rate - non-bot click rate to be precise - is the best one you've got. It takes a real person doing something, and it's the engagement signal you can tie most directly to revenue.
Google hasn't confirmed which signals Gmail weighs. Mailchimp and Movable Ink both name clicks alongside opens and replies, so treat click rate as your best read, not Gmail's official score.
Check it by segment, not just by campaign. If your most engaged segments click well and a deeper segment drags the average down, depth is the lever to adjust. You can also use Orita Scores to get more precise too.
Important Reminder: Gmail doesn't care about Open Rates, and neither should you
Gmail's own sender guidelines say Google doesn't track open rates and can't verify the ones third parties report. They add that low open rates aren't necessarily a sign of deliverability or spam problems (Gmail Help). Your job is to make sure your CMO or CEO understand this when you show them increased revenue and clicks, but they say "uh oh, open rate dropped!".
To improve short-term standing with AI Inboxes, launch to your most engaged first, then go deeper into your list
Cyclists call it drafting: tuck in behind the lead rider and let them break the wind. You can do the same with your BFCM sends (or any send really).
The idea is that your most engaged customers respond fast, which builds a positive track record for that email before it reaches people less likely to click. It's how we build sender reputation one email at a time.
Here's how to run it:
Launch to your most engaged. Send first to the customers most likely to click. With Orita scores, that can be as narrow as an engagement score of 95+.
Send to the next tier an hour later. Put your less engaged segments in a dedicated campaign about an hour after launch, so they get the email after your best customers have already responded.
Check click rate before going deeper still. Let the second send's results tell you whether the next tier earns an email.
Scores also let you go deeper into your Not Engaged segment without scraping the bottom of the barrel. Pick the top slice instead of the whole segment. Orita syncs the segments into Klaviyo, so both sends are regular campaigns you build the way you already do.
Aside: Get into the inbox first, then rank in it
Relevancy only matters if your email reaches the inbox. That's stage one, and it hasn't gone anywhere. Google asks for SPF, DKIM and DMARC authentication, a spam rate under 0.10%, and one-click unsubscribe on marketing email if you send 5,000+ messages a day (Gmail Help).
Stage two is ranking. Mailgun points out that placement is no longer a yes-or-no question: an email can reach the inbox and still go unseen.
The good news is that the two stages feed each other. Braze's Gmail deliverability guide notes that Gmail's placement decisions rest on how recipients respond to your mail. The engagement that lifts your rank also protects your reputation. Get in, then earn the top.
Get a free email engagement audit before BFCM
Orita's AI Customer Segmentation updates every customer's engagement level each morning and syncs simple segments into Klaviyo, so you can launch to your most engaged and go deeper on purpose.
Want to see where your list stands before the holidays? Get your free email engagement audit here
