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<p>In episode 14 of the Deliverability Defined podcast, Melissa and I debunk the idea that Gmail filters messages to spam based on political affiliation:</p>
<h2><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-28184 lazy" data-src="https://media.kit.com/post/jP20n71b-political-email-strategies.jpg?fm=pjpg" alt="Does Gmail filter emails based on political beliefs?" width="1500" height="1706" srcset="https://media.kit.com/post/jP20n71b-political-email-strategies.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=600&amp;w=528 528w, https://media.kit.com/post/jP20n71b-political-email-strategies.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=1024&amp;w=900 900w, https://media.kit.com/post/jP20n71b-political-email-strategies.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=873&amp;w=768 768w, https://media.kit.com/post/jP20n71b-political-email-strategies.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=1536&amp;w=1351 1351w, https://media.kit.com/post/jP20n71b-political-email-strategies.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=671&amp;w=590 590w, https://media.kit.com/post/jP20n71b-political-email-strategies.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=240&amp;w=211 211w, https://media.kit.com/post/jP20n71b-political-email-strategies.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=2048&amp;w=1801 1801w, https://media.kit.com/post/jP20n71b-political-email-strategies.jpg?fm=pjpg 1500w" sizes="(max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px" /></h2>
<h2>Deliverability is a recent concern for some politicians</h2>
<p>It’s election season, and with that comes controversy, advertising, and extra emails in your inbox. In recent years, there have been claims that email providers, specifically Gmail, have filtered emails based on political beliefs. Congressman Greg Steube from Florida <a href="https://twitter.com/webster/status/1288555617926316032" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">complained to the CEO of Google</a> because he believed that his emails were being filtered to spam because he is a Republican.</p>
<p>In a similar incident in 2019, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/technology/tulsi-gabbard-sues-google.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic presidential candidate, sued Gmail for $50 million</a>. The lawsuit claimed that Google implemented a 6-hour suspension on her campaign ads and placed her emails into spam folders at a disproportionate rate to other politicians.</p>
<p>So, does Gmail filter emails based on political beliefs? As I hope we’ve shown throughout the previous episodes, the short answer is no, it doesn’t.</p>
<p>In this episode, we talk through several reasons why those claims are unfounded and what the real reason may be behind their emails ending up in spam folders.</p>
<h3>Main takeaways</h3>
<ul>
<li>It’s true that political emails tend to experience more deliverability issues because of the inherent nature of the industry.</li>
<li>Most senders try to remain relevant throughout the year to maintain a <a href="https://convertkit.com/resources/blog/email-deliverability" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">healthy reputation</a>. In many cases after elections, senders either stop sending altogether or send much less consistently, so their sender reputation takes a hit. This is similar to what we talked about in our <a href="https://convertkit.com/resources/blog/holiday-promotion-planning" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Holiday promos episode</a>.</li>
<li>Emails should contain at least some value to the reader. Some political emails just ask you to donate to their campaign or provide information about their platform, which is information you can find anywhere online.</li>
<li>Where emails end up speaks more to the skill of whoever is running a politician’s email marketing and less to any bias from Gmail.</li>
</ul>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-28210 lazy" data-src="https://media.kit.com/post/95AX4W7d-deliverability-spam-quote-1.jpg?fm=pjpg" alt="deliverability-spam-quote (1)" width="1080" height="1080" srcset="https://media.kit.com/post/95AX4W7d-deliverability-spam-quote-1.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=600&amp;w=600 600w, https://media.kit.com/post/95AX4W7d-deliverability-spam-quote-1.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=1024&amp;w=1024 1024w, https://media.kit.com/post/95AX4W7d-deliverability-spam-quote-1.jpg?fit=crop&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=150&amp;w=150 150w, https://media.kit.com/post/95AX4W7d-deliverability-spam-quote-1.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=768&amp;w=768 768w, https://media.kit.com/post/95AX4W7d-deliverability-spam-quote-1.jpg?fit=crop&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=300&amp;w=300 300w, https://media.kit.com/post/95AX4W7d-deliverability-spam-quote-1.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=590&amp;w=590 590w, https://media.kit.com/post/95AX4W7d-deliverability-spam-quote-1.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=240&amp;w=240 240w, https://media.kit.com/post/95AX4W7d-deliverability-spam-quote-1.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=1536&amp;w=1536 1536w, https://media.kit.com/post/95AX4W7d-deliverability-spam-quote-1.jpg?fit=scale&amp;fm=pjpg&amp;h=2048&amp;w=2048 2048w, https://media.kit.com/post/95AX4W7d-deliverability-spam-quote-1.jpg?fm=pjpg 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px" /></p>
<h2>Links</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://hey.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Hey.com</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.google.com/gmail/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Gmail</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.google.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Google</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.markup.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Markup</a></li>
</ul>
<h2>Try ConvertKit&#8217;s deliverability in action</h2>
<p>It&#8217;s now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: <a href="https://convertkit.com/pricing" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">convertkit.com/pricing</a>.</p>
<h2>Stay in touch</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deliverability-defined/id1515377286" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Apple Podcasts</a></li>
<li><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/1ElZx2zrhvllOkbPzSfGxX" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Spotify</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/convertkit" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Twitter</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.facebook.com/convertkit" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Facebook</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.instagram.com/convertkit" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Instagram</a></li>
<li><a href="https://convertkit.com/deliverability" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Deliverability Defined Website</a></li>
</ul>


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