What Email Marketers Need to Know About Gmail’s New Summary Cards

Have you noticed blocks with short recaps and other useful information at the top of your emails in Gmail? These are called “summary cards”—Gmail’s latest feature to streamline users’ email experience.

This update is a continuation of Google’s previous efforts to make Gmail more convenient for users (we already covered new unsubscription features here and here; and the email tracking updates here).

Keep reading to learn what these summary cards are, exactly how they work, and how this update might affect your email marketing. 

Gmail summary cards and how they work

Summary cards are concise, automatically generated snippets of important details pulled directly from an email’s content. Things like flight check-in times, package tracking updates, order statuses, or event details are displayed right at the top of the message. This way users see all important information right away without scrolling through the message and searching for it themselves.

Currently, these updated cards are most prominent on Gmail for mobile (both iOS and Android) and are progressively rolling out to desktop users. They are available globally, but users from The European Economic Area, Japan, Switzerland, and United Kingdom might need to enable smart features manually.

Summary cards typically appear for specific categories of emails, including:

Purchases and orders: Cards for package tracking, order details and status, and other relevant information about online shopping.

Events: Reminders about upcoming concerts, restaurant reservations, and other events. Here users can add these to their calendars or interact with maps. 

Bills and payments: Simplifies bill management. Users can view or pay them right away, or postpone and set a reminder for later. 

Travel: Here users can view and manage their flights, tickets, hotel reservations, and other travel-related information.

It's important to remember that Google automatically generates these cards. Users don't turn them on, and senders don't design their visual layout. 

Another feature added by Google is a “Happening soon” section, which features all upcoming events at the top of the inbox, without users interacting with emails. In a way, this moves Gmail closer to a task manager than just a simple email client.

The aim is clear: to help users quickly identify and act on the most critical information within their crowded inboxes.

How marketers can add summary cards to their emails

So, can you log in somewhere and start designing your own custom summary cards? The short answer is no, not directly. Gmail's system automatically creates them when it identifies emails containing specific types of information suitable for a summary.

However, this doesn't mean you have no control. You can influence whether your emails are eligible by making them “summary card-friendly”. It’s done via schema markup, a form of structured data that you embed within your email's HTML code.

Schema markup (or, as it’s sometimes called, structured data) is a way for search engines to interpret and understand the content of pages. While prevalent in SEO, schema is a perfectly practical solution for email. This markup helps Gmail understand the context and meaning of the email. 

For example, you can explicitly tell Gmail "this string of text is an order number" or "this date is a flight departure time." This structured data isn't typically visible to the recipient in the main email body but it allows machines to interpret your content accurately.

For Gmail summary cards, several schema types are particularly relevant:

• Order: For purchase confirmations, including items, prices, and status.
• FlightReservation: For flight details, including passenger names, flight numbers, and times.
• EventReservation: For event tickets, including event name, date, time, and venue.
• ParcelDelivery: For shipping notifications, including tracking numbers and delivery status.
• Invoice: For billing information, including due dates and amounts.

By using these and other relevant schema types, you provide clear signals to Gmail about the nature of your email's content.

How to make your emails eligible for summary cards

While you have no direct control over which emails will get summary cards, there are steps you can take to make this outcome more likely. These include:

1. Identify eligible emails: Review your current email communications. Transactional messages and key informational updates are prime candidates, such as order confirmations or shipping notifications.
2. Implement correct schema markup: For the emails you've identified, incorporate the appropriate schema vocabulary. Ensure you're using the correct types (like Order or ParcelDelivery) and properties (like orderNumber or trackingNumber). 
3. Ensure data accuracy and consistency: The information you provide in your schema markup must accurately match the human-readable content within the email. Discrepancies can lead to a poor user experience and may prevent Gmail from generating a card.
4. Test your markup: Before sending out emails with new schema markup, always test them. Tools like Google’s Email Markup Tester or the Schema Markup Validator can help validate email syntax. This helps catch errors that could prevent your structured data from being recognized.
5. Maintain email best practices: As always, ensure your emails adhere to best practices. This includes maintaining a good sender reputation, sending valuable content, and making it easy for users to manage their subscriptions. While not directly tied to schema, a healthy email setup never hurts.

Gmail's summary cards are a clear indicator of the direction email is heading: more automated and more user-focused. For email marketers and businesses, it's a clear call to embrace structured data.

By implementing schema markup in your relevant transactional and informational emails, you’re providing a clearer, better experience for your customers. 

If your email marketing has stalled and you need a little push, Yespo’s email-marketing experts will gladly help you and discuss how you can implement the latest best practices. Fill in the form below to get in touch.

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