# How to Set Up and Use Gmail Email Annotations?

## About Email Annotations

### → Understanding Email Annotations

Gmail Email Annotations are a feature available in the **Promotions tab** of the **Gmail** mobile app. They allow senders to surface additional information directly in the inbox, such as product carousels or promotional details.

With Email Annotations, users can **preview and interact with a promotion** directly from their inbox, without opening the email.

By immediately highlighting the value of an offer, Email Annotations help promotions stand out in the inbox, improving visibility and potentially **increasing engagement and open rates**.

### → Available Annotation Formats

Batch supports two formats of email annotations:

#### <mark style="color:blue;">Product Carousels</mark>

Display **multiple product images** associated with a promotion, along with descriptions and price tags.

<div align="center" data-with-frame="true"><figure><img src="https://509463063-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FfiAYaWDWqtFZeXxyg67F%2Fuploads%2FXiVo12u8wvMn9IEUDF2N%2Fdeliverability_annot_carousel_090226.png?alt=media&#x26;token=09709311-47db-4314-bd71-0f09a55cad06" alt="Gmail Email Annotations - Carousel" width="371"><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div>

#### <mark style="color:blue;">Deal Annotations</mark>

Display a **promotional badge** and **key offer details**, such as a discount or special message. Annotations help your message stand out in the inbox by clearly surfacing the value of your email at a glance.

<div data-with-frame="true"><figure><img src="https://509463063-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FfiAYaWDWqtFZeXxyg67F%2Fuploads%2FJUibbxHTvtKkzPELAG6Z%2Fdeliverability_annot_deal_090226.png?alt=media&#x26;token=d9963d34-4c37-4703-b5d3-e11edda05882" alt="Gmail Email Annotations - Deal Annotation" width="375"><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div>

### → Annotations Visibility

Email annotations are rendered by Gmail only if all of the following conditions are satisfied:

* **Mass send requirement:**
  * The message must qualify as a mass send according to Google’s internal criteria. In practice, this requires sending the same email to more than 100 recipients as part of a single campaign.
  * One-off emails or small-scale **test sends do not qualify** and will not trigger annotations.
  * The content of the message, including annotation image URLs, must be identical across all recipients.
* **Sender eligibility**: The sender domain must be approved and allowlisted by Google for email annotations.
* **Client support**: The email must be opened in the Gmail mobile application. Email annotations are not supported on Gmail desktop or mobile web.
* **Inbox placement**: The email must be delivered to the Promotions tab. Annotations are not rendered in the Primary inbox or other tabs.
* **Google-defined density cap**: Annotation visibility is subject to a Google-defined density cap. When multiple annotated emails are already present in the inbox, additional annotations may not be displayed. This behavior is controlled entirely by Google.

<div data-with-frame="true"><figure><img src="https://509463063-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FfiAYaWDWqtFZeXxyg67F%2Fuploads%2FklHaVKFAzAk1mx9dkmaW%2Fdeliverability_annotations_visibility_100226.png?alt=media&#x26;token=9288e048-a0dd-4a8a-a81a-b62240a3b039" alt="Gmail Email Annotations Visibility Rules" width="563"><figcaption></figcaption></figure></div>

## Setting Up Annotations for a Template

### → Prerequisite

Gmail email annotations are available **only to brands approved and allowlisted by Google**.

To be allowlisted, your brand must submit key information to Google for review, including:

* Brand information (name, website URL, etc.)
* The list of subdomains used to send emails with annotations
* The link-tracking subdomain used in your emails (for example, click.domain.com)

Once all required information is collected, send it by email to **<p-Promo-Outreach@google.com>**.

The review process typically takes 5 to 10 business days or longer.

### → Adding Annotations to Your Email

From the Batch email composer, open the template’s global settings from the top-right corner, then enable the "**Email Annotations for Gmail**" feature.

You can then select the **email annotation type**, configure it, and preview the result directly from the email composer.

<figure><img src="https://509463063-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FfiAYaWDWqtFZeXxyg67F%2Fuploads%2FMcvvz0Ts35HGkG48vHv7%2Fdeliverability_activate_email_annotations_090226.png?alt=media&#x26;token=4d5b90fb-803c-42d3-89ff-05326d5debc9" alt="Gmail Email Annotations - Activate"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

### → Product Carousel

Product carousels allow you to display **up to 10 items**, including your logo, a short description, and a price. Each item has its own destination URL.

#### <mark style="color:blue;">General Configuration</mark>

From the email composer, you can choose to include:

* **A sender logo**: The logo associated with your email. Must be at least 40×40 px and provided as a valid PNG, JPG, or GIF file.
* **Headline & Price**: Adds a label below each item and optionally displays a price, with support for discounts.

<figure><img src="https://509463063-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FfiAYaWDWqtFZeXxyg67F%2Fuploads%2FKk4uUul4NLQA6coQxo3n%2Fdeliverability_annotation_type_090226.png?alt=media&#x26;token=72821272-fcdb-4c54-885c-c6b6b3bf10eb" alt="Gmail Email Annotations - Carousel edition" width="375"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

#### <mark style="color:blue;">Card Properties</mark>

Each item includes the following fields:

* **Promo Image**: Image of the item. Must be a valid PNG or JPEG file. All images must share the same aspect ratio, using one of the supported formats: 4:5, 1:1, or 1.91:1.
* **Product Card URL**: Destination URL when the user clicks the item. Add UTM parameters if you want to track annotation performance.
* **Headline**: A 1–2 line description displayed below the image.
* **Currency / Price**: Currency and price of the product.
* **Discount**: The amount deducted from the original price, displayed alongside the adjusted price (for example, if an item costs €100 and has a €10 discount, enter 10. The displayed price will automatically update to €90).

<figure><img src="https://509463063-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FfiAYaWDWqtFZeXxyg67F%2Fuploads%2FOvH5ijQLb38mBwmt7DrB%2Fdeliverability_carousel_items_090226.png?alt=media&#x26;token=5e404cb3-4726-436f-a12d-39f9c7c61925" alt="Gmail Email Annotations - Carousel item edition" width="375"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

### → Deal Annotation

Deal annotations display a promotional badge in the inbox to highlight key offer details next to the subject line.

You can display the following information:

* **Sender Logo**: The logo associated with your email. Must be at least 40×40 px and a valid PNG, JPG, or GIF file.
* **Deal Description**: A short summary of the offer (for example, “Free delivery”).
* **Discount Code**: A code users can apply at checkout to redeem the offer.
* **Offer Timing**: Start and end time of the promotion.&#x20;

<figure><img src="https://509463063-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FfiAYaWDWqtFZeXxyg67F%2Fuploads%2FkcEzDSYvUJLI0Vg36y7p%2Fdeliverability_deal-annotation-edition_090226.png?alt=media&#x26;token=a1410269-5b5d-4c31-b959-65fa8b59d5ed" alt="Gmail Email Annotations - Deal Annotation Edition" width="375"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

## Click and Conversion Tracking Limitations

Gmail does not provide ESPs with a mechanism to track clicks on individual items within email carousels. As a result, interactions with carousel items are not included in the click metrics of the associated email campaign or automation.

To evaluate the marketing effectiveness of a carousel, the following approaches can be used:

* **UTM tagging**: Append UTM parameters to the URLs associated with each carousel item in order to track traffic and downstream performance in analytics tools.
* **Batch conversion goals**: Use [Batch conversion goals](https://doc.batch.com/getting-started/features/customer-engagement-platform/analytics/orchestration-analytics#conversion-goal-dedicated-insights) to measure the impact of the campaign on business-level metrics (e.g. conversions, revenue).

<figure><img src="https://509463063-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2FfiAYaWDWqtFZeXxyg67F%2Fuploads%2FQM4hJYms7Szh7DI8Kh21%2Fdeliverability_conversion_goals_100226.png?alt=media&#x26;token=0b45f329-8e6b-4d06-8b32-9cfec32cc613" alt="Conversion goals" width="375"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

## Resources

Know more on email annotations by reading [Google's documentation](https://developers.google.com/workspace/gmail/promotab/overview=).


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