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Seed list placement tests

Updated Apr 1, 2026 · 4 min read

How daily seed tests work, what they measure, when they fire alerts.

On this page · 3
  1. How the test runs
  2. What gets surfaced
  3. When alerts fire

Seed list testing is the only direct way to measure inbox placement. Inboxlee runs a daily test on every live mailbox against a 24-mailbox seed list spread across Gmail, Workspace, Outlook, M365, and Yahoo.

How the test runs

Once per day, each mailbox sends a probe to the seed list. The seed list inboxes are monitored, and we record where each probe lands - primary, promotions, spam, or missing entirely.

The probe is unobtrusive: a short, generic message with no links or images, sent at off-hours so it does not interfere with your real campaigns. It does not count toward your daily send limit.

What gets surfaced

  • Primary inbox placement rate - the headline metric.
  • Per-provider breakdown - Gmail vs M365 placement often diverges.
  • Trend line - week-over-week change is more meaningful than day-to-day variance.
  • Per-mailbox detail - one bad mailbox can drag a cohort.
  • When alerts fire

    Default thresholds: alert if primary placement drops below 75% on any individual mailbox for 2 consecutive days, or if cohort-wide placement drops more than 15 percentage points week-over-week. Configurable in Settings → Notifications.