Gmail multi-send is\u00a0Google’s first crack at a native mail merge tool<\/strong>. And I do mean “first crack”… and barely mean “mail merge tool.”<\/p>\n Multi-send doesn’t let you use any merge fields or personalization in your emails. Its only merge-style function is the ability to send a mass email to each recipient individually.<\/p>\n For now, it’s buried. In the future? Google might beef it up and promote it like crazy. Or they might kill it off. You never know with those folks. I would run a Google Survey to find out what you think they’re gonna do… but they just killed off Google Surveys.<\/p>\n We were curious about what Gmail multi-send does (and doesn’t do). We knew the feature set wasn’t too robust after reading\u00a0Google’s lite documentation<\/a>.\u00a0But what can it do and what can’t it do?<\/strong><\/p>\n So we took the maiden voyage into Gmail multi-send to find out.<\/p>\n Here are the results of our hands-on test of Gmail multi-send.<\/p>\n Google multi-send was originally offered only in Google Workspace Individual.<\/p>\n What is that?<\/p>\n Google Workspace Individual provides premium tools like appointment scheduling and email marketing. It’s only available to users with @gmail.com email addresses. And it’s a paid plan: $10 per month.<\/p>\n Those prices make it\u00a0more<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0expensive than Google Workspace business accounts<\/strong>\u00a0(at $6\/mo). And with business accounts, you can use your own domain name.<\/p>\n But…\u00a0appointment scheduling and some email marketing features are only in the individual plan<\/strong>. You can’t get those at any tier of the Google Workspace business accounts \u2014 for now, at least.<\/p>\n The email marketing features include templates, account-wide branding, and, yes, Gmail multi-send.<\/p>\n Some other features of Google Workspace Individual<\/a> include:<\/p>\n Google\u00a0introduced<\/a> Google Workspace Individual in June 2021 to mild (at best) notoriety.<\/p>\n I signed up for Google Workspace Individual with one of my Gmail accounts.<\/p>\n Then I logged out and back in. When I opened a new Gmail compose window, I found two new icons \u2014 layouts and multi-send.<\/p>\n I clicked the multi-send icon and chose to turn on the feature.<\/p>\n It turned everything purple! And automatically added an unsubscribe link to my emails.<\/p>\n I typed in two of my other email addresses and spat out a quick message.<\/p>\n As I mentioned earlier, there are\u00a0no mail merge personalization options<\/strong>. I can’t type {FirstName} to add first names here. So it’s not\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0mail merge. It’s larval mail merge.<\/p>\n I tried deleting the unsubscribe text before I hit the “Continue” button.\u00a0Google let me proceed without the unsubscribe link<\/strong>, but was\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0happy about it. I received this pop-up.<\/p>\n And then a second pop-up when I clicked “Ignore.”<\/p>\n Now we’re ready to send. Google gives me the option to send a preview to myself or to send to everyone. For the sake of completionism on this evaluation, I’ll send the preview to myself.<\/p>\n I received the preview and…\u00a0I’m not sure why I needed to preview the email<\/strong>. Since there are no merge tags in the email, there’s nothing to spot check. But this\u00a0could<\/em>\u00a0be an indication of Google’s future ambitions with Gmail multi-send. If they ever do add real mail merge functionality, this preview function will become far more important.<\/p>\n Now I’ll send the email to my two recipients by going back through the sending process.<\/p>\n Gmail sent the messages. I received them at my two addresses and, as advertised, they came as individual, not group, emails. Here’s one of them.<\/p>\n Despite going out as individual emails,\u00a0in my Sent folder, they’re grouped into one thread<\/strong>. I’m not sure if that’s beneficial or not. On one hand, it keeps the Sent folder less cluttered \u2014 but would make it more difficult to do a quick scan for emails to a certain contact. And in the future, if Google does offer a genuine mail merge, they’d have to keep the emails in separate threads.<\/p>\n According to the multi-send documentation, there are two options for adding recipients:<\/p>\n I’m going to try out the Google Contacts method to see how that works. I\u00a0created a label in Google Contacts<\/strong>, then assigned that label to two contacts. (For a step-by-step guide to creating that label, check out our helpful article on Google Contacts<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Now back over in the Gmail compose window. I typed the contact label into the To field.<\/p>\n All the contacts from that label now appeared in the To field. (All both of them.) From there, sending worked the same as the other method.<\/p>\n The link takes you to a standard unsubscribe landing page with a confirmation button.<\/p>\n (I left the unsubscribe link in place for my second test to see what would happen if I clicked it. Also, I used another random email, one I created while I was writing a guide to creating a\u00a0wedding email address<\/a>. I get to cover quite the array of topics here at GMass.)<\/p>\n I clicked the “Yes, Unsubscribe me” button. And in the sender email account, I received a notification email from Google.<\/p>\n Unsubscribes only apply to future multi-send emails.<\/strong>\u00a0So if someone unsubscribes, you can still send them normal emails.<\/p>\n After experimenting with everything Gmail multi-send has to offer, here are my takeaways.<\/p>\n Gmail multi-send is a basic,\u00a0basic<\/em> feature. It has limited functionality, and that’s even perhaps me being generous.<\/p>\n I’m struggling to think of many good use cases for multi-send in its present form.<\/strong> And I’m especially struggling to think of use cases that justify paying for this feature \u2014 or even using it because you’re paying for others.<\/p>\n Google Workspace Individual and Google Workspace business accounts now also come with email design templates. Perhaps Google is envisioning the combo of the layouts and multi-send for newsletters? But you’d still need a third-party subscribe widget for that. You’d need to manage contacts manually. You wouldn’t have an archive of your newsletters online. You wouldn’t receive analytics. It’s an inadequate solution.<\/p>\n Multi-send is also a woefully inadequate solution for other common mail merge usages.\u00a0Cold emailers would not be able to use it<\/strong>\u00a0due to the lack of personalization, follow-ups, and reporting. A club or organization might use it \u2014 but would be likely to have an email with their own domain.<\/p>\n Again, I’m trying to thread the needle of viable customer personas and use cases here \u2014 and coming up empty.<\/p>\n It’s possible other Google Workspace Individual features will appeal to you. You might want the extra video calling features or the appointment scheduling. But\u00a0Gmail multi-send alone is not a feature worth $10\/month<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Here are some of the fundamental mail merge and mass email features you’ll miss if you run your emails through Gmail multi-send.<\/p>\n If you want to create\u00a0mass emails in Gmail<\/a>\u00a0that go out to each recipient individually \u2014 GMass is a far better option.<\/p>\n With GMass, you’ll be able to send personalized mass emails using mail merge<\/strong>. You’ll be able to schedule emails<\/strong>, send auto follow-up sequences<\/strong>, A\/B test<\/strong>, and\u00a0send follow-ups as replies<\/a>. There are dozens of other features<\/strong> as well, from\u00a0sentiment analysis on replies<\/a>\u00a0to pre-send\u00a0email verification<\/a>. And you’ll get full analytics<\/strong>\u00a0on every email you send.<\/p>\n You can use GMass for all your emails to multiple recipients, in business and your personal life. You can\u00a0contact leads and prospects<\/a>,\u00a0recruit<\/a>, and send out marketing materials. You can also send personalized party invites, updates for your\u00a0club<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0church<\/a>, or run a fantasy league.<\/p>\nGmail Multi-Send Table of Contents<\/h2>\n
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What Is Google Workspace Individual?<\/h2>\n
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Gmail Multi-Send: The Test<\/h2>\n
![\"Signing](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/workspace-signup-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/workspace-newoptions-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Turning](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/workspace-turniton-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/workspace-nowpurple-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nComposing a message in Gmail Multi-Send email<\/h3>\n
![\"Typing](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/multisend-emailstypedin-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/multisend-unsubscribelink-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/multisend-anotherunsubscribe-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSending an email with Gmail Multi-Send<\/h3>\n
![\"Option](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/multisend-optiontosendpreview-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/multisend-test-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/multisend-result-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Grouped](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/multisend-sentfolder-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nUsing Google Contacts for Gmail multi-send<\/h3>\n
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![\"Assigning](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/multisend-assignlabel-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Typing](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/multisend-labelinto-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhat happens if you click the Gmail Multi-Send unsubscribe link?<\/h3>\n
![\"Gmail](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/multisend-unsubscribe-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/h3>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/multisend-unsubnotice-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nA few other things you can do with Gmail Multi-Send<\/h3>\n
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Gmail Multi-Send: The Verdict<\/h2>\n
Mail merge \/ mass email features you’ll immediately miss if you use Gmail Multi-Send<\/h3>\n
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The better option: Use GMass instead of multi-send (for business\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0personal use)<\/h3>\n
![\"GMass](\"https:\/\/www.gmass.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/gmass-alternative-tinified.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n