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.

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How it works

1. A test run sends mail from your domain’s configured SMTP to internal seed addresses at Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo

2. After a short delay, Celeric checks those seed mailboxes via IMAP to see whether the message landed in the inbox or spam folder

3. When a test completes, results appear in the Inbox Placement Tests table on the domain detail page (if the table has rows, you’ll see Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo outcomes)

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Running a test

New tests are executed through the platform backend. The domain detail page shows Inbox Placement Tests when completed runs exist for that domain. If you need a test run and nothing appears yet, contact support for the current workflow.

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Reading results

Each test shows results for three providers:

A healthy result is Inbox across all three providers.

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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.