Online giant Google has begun to roll out Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) functionality with its email service, Gmail.
The announcement comes around a year following the company’s original statement revealing that the service would start to support AMP, and Google has released a beta version to the G Suite audience.
Gmail’s new AMP support has been designed to make emails look and feel like an interactive webpage, without sending users to a browser. When using this new-look service, users will be able to RSVP to selected events, browse through images and complete forms without having to leave their inbox. Google has called these “dynamic emails”.
AMP support will initially only be released with the desktop version of the company’s email tool, but it does plan on offering it to the mobile app versions in the near future. However, it’s important to note that a user will only be able to use dynamic emails if the company that send the email is able to support the format. This is similar to the way in which AMP instant articles works.
At present, the list of Gmail’s AMP partners is small. The company currently states that Pinterest, Booking.com, Nexxt, redBus, Ecwid, Doodle, OYO Rooms, Despegar and Freshworks have signed up to offer these dynamic emails, which will become available in the coming weeks.
As well as this, Google also noted that a number of third-party email services had also signed up to offer AMP support, meaning that marketers and other companies that use these tools will also be able to utilise and create dynamic emails in the near future. These tools and services are Amazon SES, Litmus, Pinpoint, SparkPost and Twilio Sendgrid.
While Gmail has rolled out AMP support to its G Suite customers, users will not necessarily have to use the Gmail platform to see these dynamic emails. Other providers, such as Mail.ru, Yahoo Mail and Outlook, will be able to support the feature, but in order for these emails to be enabled, the admin will have to opt in to the beta version.
In the future, Google plans to permanently get rid of the inbox, with the app starting its final week before support is switched off.
The initial response to Gmail AMP has been rather mixed. Some have praised the service as fewer tabs are required when opening an email requiring a call to action, while others state that the updated format is too complex and could encounter some privacy issues in the future in terms of the way advertisers can track how the user interacts with emails. Some concerns about elaborate phishing scams have also been raised.
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