A recent question in r/Emailmarketing captured a familiar retail frustration: a fashion store’s welcome discounts and frequent promotional campaigns were landing in Gmail’s Promotions tab—or worse, spam—and recipients appeared to ignore them. The proposed fix was to use less HTML, fewer graphics, and more text.

That is understandable advice, but it mistakes a possible symptom for the main problem.

Promotions is not spam

First, separate the two destinations. Gmail’s Promotions tab is designed for commercial mail: sales, offers, brand announcements, and product marketing. A fashion retailer sending discount codes and daily events belongs there more often than not. Trying to “beat” Promotions can produce emails that feel artificially personal without becoming more useful.

Spam is different. It is a deliverability and trust problem. Mailbox providers use many signals—not simply the image-to-text ratio—to decide whether a message is wanted. Google’s sender guidance focuses on authentication, infrastructure, recipient feedback, unsubscribe handling, and spam rates; it does not prescribe a text-only creative formula. (support.google.com)

So the practical goal should be: earn engagement in the inbox category your customers expect, while preventing unwanted-mail signals that push campaigns into spam.

Why a text-heavy email is not a deliverability strategy

An all-image email can create problems. It can be hard to read when images are blocked, inaccessible to screen-reader users, slow to load, and light on meaningful copy. Huge image files, poorly built HTML, misleading link patterns, and image-only calls to action can all make an email less trustworthy or less usable.

But a plain-looking email sent daily to people who never asked for daily offers will not solve the underlying issue. In fact, forcing a heavily promotional fashion campaign into a faux one-to-one plain-text format can disappoint subscribers who expected a visual shopping experience.

For fashion brands, the better creative standard is useful visual email: one clear hero offer, live text that explains the value, descriptive alt text, a visible primary call to action, mobile-friendly design, and a lightweight template. Make the creative easier to consume; do not assume that fewer images automatically fixes placement.

The bigger culprit is often frequency without preference

The Reddit post mentions weekly and daily promotional sends. That is the first place to investigate.

A subscriber who signed up for a first-order discount may want the coupon, but that does not necessarily mean they want a daily flash sale. When people stop opening, delete without reading, or mark mail as spam, mailbox providers learn that the sender is becoming less welcome. Yahoo’s sender guidance puts the emphasis squarely on timely, relevant messages sent to an active, engaged audience. (senders.yahooinc.com)

Instead of mailing every subscriber every day, build a frequency model:

  • Send daily campaigns only to recent clickers, purchasers, and explicitly opted-in “daily deals” subscribers.
  • Give new subscribers a welcome sequence that delivers the promised discount, explains product categories, and asks what they want to hear about.
  • Create a preference center for sale alerts, new arrivals, restocks, and weekly roundups.
  • Suppress or reduce mail to subscribers who have not engaged in a defined period, then run a re-permission campaign before mailing them again.

This is not merely an engagement play. It protects sender reputation.

Fix the technical baseline before redesigning templates

Every sender should verify that its sending domain is properly authenticated. Gmail requires all senders to meet baseline requirements including SPF or DKIM authentication; bulk senders—those sending roughly 5,000 or more messages to personal Gmail accounts in a day—have additional requirements involving SPF, DKIM, DMARC alignment, and easy unsubscribe. Gmail also says bulk senders should keep spam rates reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.3%. (support.google.com)

Set up Google Postmaster Tools and review domain reputation, authentication, delivery errors, and spam-rate reporting rather than relying only on an email platform’s aggregate dashboard. (support.google.com) Yahoo also offers a Complaint Feedback Loop for DKIM-signed mail, allowing eligible senders to identify recipients who complain and suppress them from future campaigns. (senders.yahooinc.com)

Finally, keep compliance visible. Commercial email in the United States must provide a functional opt-out method, and CAN-SPAM rules prohibit deceptive header information and deceptive subject lines. (ftc.gov) A prominent unsubscribe link is not just a legal checkbox; it gives an uninterested customer a safer exit than the spam button.

A better test for the fashion store

Run a controlled test rather than a wholesale shift to text-only email. Keep the offer and audience comparable, then test a polished visual campaign against a lighter, text-supported version. Measure inbox placement where possible, clicks, conversions, unsubscribes, and spam complaints—not opens alone.

If both versions underperform, stop debating graphics. The answer is likely targeting, cadence, or value. Promotions-tab placement is normal for a fashion retailer. Spam placement and indifference are signals to send less indiscriminately, honor subscriber intent more carefully, and prove technical trustworthiness first.

The original Reddit question is useful because it asks about design. The more durable answer is that deliverability is a relationship system, not a template trick.