Boomerang is an extension to GMail that provides a host of additional features that are not included in the standard GMail interface. You may be surprised, as I was, to learn of some of the missing functionality in Google’s Email offering which has made systems like Boomerang for GMail necessary in the first place.
- Why, for example, can’t you schedule an email to be sent later?
- Why can’t GMail offer you the option to get a notification when someone opens or “reads” an email?
- Why can’t GMail notify you when you have sent an email but not received a response?
All of the above are functions that are offered by Boomerang for GMail and, in the context of this directory, Boomerang is included in our listings because some or all of them may be useful in marketing campaigns where one-off emails are involved.
The actual term “Boomerang” when applied to an email message means to return an email to your inbox at some point in the future. So if you don’t want to, or can’t, respond to it now you just “boomerang” it to be returned at a later date and time when you can deal with it. GMail doesn’t do this either, by the way.
Boomerang for GMail is free at the basic level with optional paid versions available if you want to get higher levels of functionality. Most EMail marketing systems like MailChimp, Aweber, Infusionsoft and others will have all of most of this functionality so don’t pay twice for something that you may already have and which Google should have included in the GMail system in the first place.
These are all fine for marketing campaigns that need multiple emails to be sent but for one-offs it should really be possible to do all of this from withing the GMail interface. Google haven’t provided that so maybe the free version of Boomerang for GMail is worth having.
Watch out for our comprehensive Boomerang For Gmail review – coming soon.
