Inbox placement test
A test that sends a message to a seed list and reports, per provider, whether each copy reached the inbox, a tab, the spam folder or nothing.
What it means
Because providers do not report folder placement, placement tests are the direct way to see it. The service gives you seed addresses, you send the message as you normally would, and it reports what happened at each provider, from which it derives an inbox placement rate, a spam rate and a not-delivered rate, as GlockApps describes.
Results describe the seeds: mailboxes with no reading history, at the moment of the test. Real recipients who engage may see a different result, and Gmail notes that each recipient's own spam and not-spam reports shape what they see.
Tests are most useful for comparisons: before and after an authentication change, one sending domain against another, or one version of content against another, sent the same way.
Related terms
On this site
Sources
What this definition rests on. The wording is ours; the facts are theirs.
- GlockApps: Email deliverability glossaryglockapps.com
- Gmail Help: Report spam in Gmailsupport.google.com
- Google: Email sender guidelinessupport.google.com
All 432 terms in the glossaryThe wiki: blocklists and bounce codes