Emails To Become More Dynamic With Google’s AMP For Email

Posted on by Andy Miller

Google has launched ‘AMP For Email’ which will make emails more dynamic and more like web page experiences as interaction can take place within the email itself rather than including links that send recipients to a web page for the interaction.

Announced For Gmail Last Year

Accelerated Mobile Pages are something that Google has been testing over many years, firstly with a view to helping publishers, and then with a view to including it in its Gmail platform. Google first announced in February 2018 that it would be bringing AMP to Gmail.

At the time, companies like Booking.com and Doodle were using the open spec version of AMP to develop new experiences in emails for their users. According to Google, other companies have also been sending out AMP emails for some time now, including Despegar, Doodle,  Ecwid, Freshworks, Nexxt, OYO Rooms, Pinterest and redBus.

In addition to Gmail, other major email services that now support AMP emails include Yahoo Mail, Outlook and Mail.ru.

Accelerated Mobile Pages 

Accelerated Mobile Pages emails work using a new mark-up and infrastructure that enables the inclusion of interactive elements within the email itself e.g. carousels, forms/questionnaires, lists, and the ability to submit an RSVP to an event or schedule an appointment.  AMP messages also include standard HTML mark-up, thereby providing a fallback for email clients that don’t support AMP.

What Can You Do With AMP?

The big advantages provided by Accelerated Mobile Pages in emails are that:

  • They no longer require you to send out static emails with links in them in order to get recipients to interact and take action.  Instead, the interactive elements and actions are included within the email itself. Recipients can, therefore, respond and interact without leaving their email client e.g. by filling out a questionnaire, browsing through a store’s inventory or responding to a comment.
  • They offer the chance to provide users with a much more engaging and dynamic web page-like experience.
  • AMP emails stay up to date whereas static emails with links go out of date.
  • Marketers can get results more quickly and may get a better response rate because many things can be presented and achieved in one step.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The many high profile social and email platforms and other companies that are already supporting and using AMP emails indicate that their introduction is an important communications and marketing development that is likely to raise the bar in terms of what is possible with an email and in customer expectations of emails.

AMP emails give businesses the chance to communicate with customers in a way that stands out, can provide a more engaging and interactive experience, strengthen branding, and get results more quickly.  With AMPs included with Gmail, this could translate into more effective email marketing for businesses everywhere and could particularly benefit SME marketing.