It was only a matter of time before Facebook turned Instagram into something Facebook-esque. If you use Instagram, you will now be getting a lot more email from the company. Starting this week, Instagram will send out notifications to users via email.

What kinds of notifications? Here’s a closer look at what your inbox will look like when it comes to Instagram mail.

Updates Galore

If you’ve ever been away from Facebook for a long time (or just haven’t changed the number of updates that you get), you may have noticed at some point that the company will send you various emails telling you what you’ve missed while you were away. Well, that’s exactly the same kind of news that you’ll get from Instagram now (if you can call it news, that is).

Now that Facebook owns Instagram, you can expect to see the same kind of email thing happening. The company has decided that Instagram users don’t check accounts enough, and this has sparked the new email campaign. Facebook is also looking at a marketing angle here with the new Instagram updates.

Getting Users Back

Facebook assumes (rightly) that anyone that hasn’t logged into Instagram lately will want to do so after looking at various photos and updates coming from the company in the form of an email. If you haven’t looked at your feed lately, for example, you will now get an email that shows you what you’ve been missing. Since Instagram is photo-centered, the company will send out images of some of the most popular posts in your newsfeed.

Facebook also has great timing. Recent marketing statistics have shown that newsletters are on the rise, and that more people are reading newsletters than ever before. If Instagram can send out emails that read like newsletters and are interesting, the company can possibly engage some of its users that really aren’t all that into checking the app regularly.

Stagnant Users

Sure, Instagram has over 300 million monthly users, but most of those people never check the app - or do so sporadically. If the company can entice those users by showing them what they have been missing, Instagram’s active user database numbers could jump. What if you don’t want to be bombarded by Instagram emails? Well, if you use an email service provider like Google’s Gmail, you can easily filter out what you don’t want to see (or Google will do it for you by dropping those emails into the Social category).

If you don’t have Gmail, you can go to your user Settings via Instagram, and you can most likely opt out of those notifications. Or, you can set up filters through the Instagram account that you do use. Either way, you won’t get the notifications, but they will still be sent out. If you don’t check into the app regularly and you do want to see what’s happening in your newsfeed, just let it all flow. You’ll see what you’re missing, and you can sign in and see the images for yourself - most of the time,though, you probably aren’t missing much.