Inbox Placement Testing
Inbox placement testing sends a real email from your sending account to seed mailboxes at Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo, then checks whether those emails landed in the inbox or spam folder.
Available on Pro, Business, and Agency plans.
How it works
1. You trigger an inbox placement test from your domain detail page
2. Celeric sends a test email from your configured SMTP account to internal seed addresses at Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo
3. After a short delay, Celeric connects to those seed accounts via IMAP and checks where the email was delivered
4. Results are shown in the Inbox Placement Tests table on the domain detail page
Running a test
1. Go to Dashboard → Domains and click View Report on the domain you want to test
2. On the domain detail page, find the Inbox Placement Tests table
3. Click Run Test to trigger a new test
4. Wait a minute or two, then refresh — results will appear in the table
Reading results
Each test shows results for three providers:
| Result | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Inbox | Email delivered to the inbox |
| Spam | Email filtered to the spam/junk folder |
| Missing | Email not found — may have been rejected or delayed |
A healthy result is Inbox across all three providers.
What to do if emails are landing in spam
If your test shows spam results, the issue is usually one or more of these:
1. Authentication not configured properly
The most common cause. Run the Domain Checker to verify your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records. All three need to pass for emails to be trusted.
2. New domain or IP — needs warm-up
If you're sending from a new domain or new IP address, mail providers don't have enough reputation history to trust you yet. Start by sending small volumes to engaged recipients and gradually increase over several weeks.
3. Email content triggers spam filters
Certain phrases, too many links, or missing plain-text alternatives can trigger spam filters. Test with a simple, plain-text email to isolate whether the issue is the content.
4. Sending server IP on a blacklist
Run the Domain Checker to see if your sending IP is listed on any spam blacklists (Spamhaus, SpamCop, etc.).
5. Missing unsubscribe mechanism
For bulk email, providers expect an unsubscribe link or List-Unsubscribe header. Without one, recipients marking emails as spam hurts your reputation over time.
Check Your DMARC Compliance
Use our free tool to check your domain's SPF, DKIM, DMARC, MX records, and more in seconds.