Ads are an important part of Google’s business and often the way the company gives away its products. That incorporates Gmail, which is beginning to show more ads for a lot of folks.
For many years, Gmail has displayed advertisements. Since introducing ads to mobile apps a decade ago, Google has continued to do so, occasionally introducing new placements and appearances.
However, it appears that Google has increased the number of ads that appear in Gmail on mobile devices and the web over the past few days.
We’ve noticed that Google is now showing ads in the “Updates” filter of your inbox, starting on mobile. Emails about orders, selected promotions, billing statements, and other items can be captured by that automatic filter. Among the three default filters (the others are “Promotions” and “Social”), it may be the most useful, but it was also the only one without ads for a long time.
Similar to the other tabs, Gmail is beginning to display two ads at the top of the “Updates” tab.
In addition, it appears that Gmail is beginning to mix its desktop ads with the list of emails under Gmail tabs; at least, they aren’t appearing in the main inbox.
We haven’t been able to replicate the change in our own inbox, but dozens of reports on Twitter show that it has only occurred in the last two days. A few clients likewise report seeing more promotions as a rule, rather than the two that Google would normally show.
It doesn’t appear that there is a new setting that can change where ads are placed in inbox lists, and it’s not even clear if Google is introducing this change to all users. Anyway, however, the staggering assessment is by all accounts negative with respect to the change – which is completely justifiable.