Inbox placement tests predict whether your email campaigns will reach the inbox, get bulked, or worse, go missing altogether.
Inbox Monster offers manual and automated options for generating placement tests. Both options are described in this article.
To create your first inbox placement test, make sure your sending domain(s) is set up in your Inbox Monster account.
If you haven't already added your domain(s), please send an email to support@inboxmonster.com.
If you are the Administrator for your Inbox Monster account, you can add Domains at your convenience.
Once you've confirmed the correct sending domain(s) is added to your account, you can create your first placement test and schedule future tests using Inbox Monster's automation tools.
Inbox Placement Test
1) To manually generate an inbox placement test, click on the Gear icon ⚙️ in the upper right and click Setup and Integrations
2) In the Seedlist section, click Download.
3) Once the Seedlist download is complete, you can send a pre-campaign test or an in-line test.
How to Send To Seed List
Pre-Campaign Test: Log into your ESP, select the domain and content you'd like to test, and send an email to Inbox Monster's seed list only. This email will generate an inbox placement test and the predictive analysis will be available for review in your Inbox Monster account. Creating a pre-campaign placement test generates predictive insights you can use to improve the performance of your next campaign.
In-line Campaign Test: You can also create an inbox placement test by adding Inbox Monster's seedlist to your next production campaign. While pre-campaign and in-line tests provide the same insights, you won't be able to use placement test analysis to improve campaign performance as both the in-line test and production campaign will have been sent at the same time.
4) Once your inbox placement test has been created, the results will be available for review by clicking on Delivery > Campaigns on the left-nav menu.
5) On the Campaigns page, you will see a list of all placement tests generated from the sending domains added to your account. You will see general results for each test. To view a fully comprehensive report, click on any of your tests.
Your campaign overview can be filtered by:
Mailing Systems (ex. Gmail or Yahoo)
Subject Lines
Monitored Domains
Time Frame
6) Each report will provide the following insights:
Seed List Report and Insights
Basic information including subject-line, sending time, domains and IPs associated with the test, and a copy of the email creative used for the test
Comprehensive inbox placement results across all major ISPs
Inbox placement trends from previous tests with ISP-level insights
Content filter analysis
Authentication analysis with copies of your SPF, DKIM, DMARC and BIMI records
Spamtrap trends for the sending domain and IPs used for this test
Reputation analysis for the sending domain IPs used for this test
Blocklisting trends for the sending domains and IPs used for this test
7) Overall Inbox Placement Rate & Weighted Inbox Placement Rate:
"Overall" is referring to the average placement according to the Inbox Monster seed list.
"Weighted" is referring to the Subscriber Insight list and is ratioed according to the users per mailbox provider — showcasing more personal results.
Here are the definitions of the 3 types of placement results:
Inbox - represents the portion of the email that landed in the inbox of our seed addresses. Additional ISP inbox tabs, such as the promotions or updates tab, are also considered the inbox.
Spam - represents the portion of email that landed in the spam (or junk) folder of our seed addresses.
Missing - represents the portion of email that did not arrive at our seed addresses. This indicates a potential block at this ISP, or another form of deliverability issue that prevented email from being delivered successfully.
Schedule and Automate Inbox Placement Tests
8) Inbox Monster's automation tools help send or schedule your inbox placement tests for you by integrating directly with your ESP. To prepare for automated inbox placement tests, first you'll need to integrate your Inbox Monster with your ESP.
9) Click on the Gear icon ⚙️ in the upper right and scroll down to the Integrations section.
10) Click on the ESP you would like to integrate with. If you do not see your ESP and would like to set up automated placement tests, please email support@inboxmonster.com and we will add your request to the integration roadmap.
11) After clicking on your ESP, please add your ESP credentials and click Add Integration.
12) Click on the Play icon in the upper right and select the ESP you just integrated. Then, enter the following:
ESP Integration
Add sending address and select the sending domain for your test from the dropdown.
Add your Friendly From
Add a Subject Line
Paste in your content
If you'd like to set a schedule for future tests, select the toggle next to Set Schedule
If you'd like to include a full rendering preview of your creative, select the toggle next to Include Rendering
Once everything is set up, click Run Monster Test
Currently, we are testing with SendGrid, Amazon SES, and SparkPost.
13) To review your new inbox placement test results, return to number 4 above.
Remember that the Seed List is the breath to all your Inbox Placement Data.
We want to make sure that your campaigns are correctly sent to the Seeds.
If you need any assistance with your Seed List integration, please feel free to reach out at support@inboxmonster.com.