How do you test placement before major campaigns?

You're about to send to your whole list. Before you hit send on a major campaign, you need to know if your mail will actually hit the inbox. That's where pre-campaign placement testing comes in.

The idea is simple: send a test version of your actual campaign to a wide range of test mailboxes (called seed lists) across major providers. Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, AOL, and others all filter mail differently. A test send shows you which providers will inbox your message and which might folder it to spam or bulk.

Your test send should be the exact message you're planning to send. Not a placeholder. Not a template. The actual subject line, the actual content, the actual links. If you change it for the real send, the test results won't apply.

And once your test sends land, check that your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC all pass. Authentication failures will destroy your placement. Pull your results and review them by provider. If you're hitting Gmail's inbox at 98% but landing in Outlook spam, that's a different problem than hitting spam everywhere.

Look at your sender reputation using postmaster tools before you send at volume. Google Postmaster Tools, Microsoft SNDS, and Yahoo's postmaster all show you how mailbox providers see your IP and domain. Red flags include high complaint rates, being on blocklists, or consistent spam folder placement.

Time this test early enough that you can fix problems before your campaign deadline. A placement test the day before launch doesn't give you room to repair authentication or warm up your sending IP.

Next step? Before your next major send, run a seed test to at least Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo. If you're seeing spam folder placement, dig into your authentication and reputation metrics before launching at full volume.