Alert: Sears testing potential new Gmail offering

This week Sears will be wrapping up beta testing of a potential new Google offering called “Enhanced Email,” which allows a form of browsing to occur within an email viewed within Gmail.

For instance, in a limited test of the functionality last month, Sears was able to include seven “pages” containing 20 best-selling products that its Gmail subscribers could browse using the navigation within the module without leaving the email. When a subscriber hits the “next” link in the module’s navigation, the current set of products slides out of the box to the left and the next set of products slides in from the right in one smooth motion.


Hat tip to Andrew Kordek of Groupon for sharing this screenshot with me.

Ramki Srinivasan, Manager of Email Innovation at Sears, tells me that the set of products for the browsing module is decided and displayed at the time of open, not the time of send, which allows the information to be as current as possible. He adds that while the email sent last month pulled current best-sellers from Sears.com, this application barely scratches the surface of what is possible with such functionality.

Srinivasan says that the test last month saw higher opens, clicks and revenue per email, but stressed that the bulk of the testing of this new potential offering is yet to take place, so it’s too early to make any final assessments. This is a limited-time test to judge the effectiveness of the proposed feature and Sears will not be doing further tests unless or until this feature is officially launched.

The Enhanced Email functionality is lost when forwarded, even if to another Gmail account.

Enhanced Email is just one more sign that the inboxes of the future will allow much more activity to occur within them—whether it’s browsing products, watching a video or even completing a transaction. These coming changes will require new ways of measuring email success and of thinking about email strategy, particularly the relationship between email and website landing pages.

In addition to the Enhanced Email testing, Sears has also been testing a Gmail offering that includes their favicon next to their sender name in the inbox. The product is not an indication of authentication, but is similarly aimed at providing assurances that the email is indeed from the stated sender. PayPal did a similar favicon test with Gmail last year.


Hat tip to Darren Schott of Blair for sharing this screenshot with me.
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