Monitoring inbox placement for DTC brands

We have mailboxes STILL performing that were setup in September 2024. Meanwhile I see people burning their domains every 30-60 days. The difference isn't luck. It's systematic inbox health monitoring. Most people send emails, cross their fingers, and wonder why their campaigns suddenly stop working. Meanwhile, we're mapping the entire health profile of every inbox we manage, every single week. Our obsession with inbox analytics has led to domains that have sent 150K emails since September 29th with NO deterioration in performance. Here's exactly how we do it: • EmailGuard for inbox placement testing • Zapmail.ai for Google + Microsoft accounts • n8n for process automation • Airtable for data organization and visualization What we track for EACH inbox: → Placement test scores (Gmail, Outlook) → Week-over-week placement trends → Out-of-office response rates → Reply rate fluctuations → Bounce rate patterns → Total volume sent This isn't about current health, it's about predictive maintenance. By analyzing these metrics weekly, we can spot the early warning signs of deliverability issues BEFORE they tank an entire campaign. And yes, you CAN restore the health of an account and domain if you don't absolutely cook it. Example: Last month we saw 50% drop in Google placement for one client's domain. Instead of waiting for disaster, we immediately rotated it to warm up, rotated the sending patterns for that account, adjusted volume, and implemented a 2-week sending pause. The result? Placement recovered within 9 days instead of requiring complete domain rebuild. Most people wait until their campaigns are in the morgue before trying to diagnose what went wrong. We'd rather prevent the disease then perform the autopsy. Are you tracking your inbox health, or are you flying blind with your outbound campaigns?

We've audited over $50M in DTC revenue this year. ↳ Almost every brand had emails going straight to spam. (+ none of them knew it was happening) These weren't small brands. They were 7 and 8-figure companies silently losing $10K-30K monthly. Why? Because 30-40% of their emails never reached the inbox. The worst part?  Their ESP dashboards showed "delivered" stats of 98%+. Here's what we consistently uncover: 1. Misconfigured sending infrastructure → Unverified SPF/DKIM records → Unverified branded sending domain (still?!) 2. Toxic engagement ratios → Consistently sending to unengaged contacts → Even your best customers stop seeing your emails. 3. Hidden spam traps → Lack of exclusion segmentation hurting placement → Not filtering out signups from certain APIs     (TikTok shop emails I’m looking at you) → Each send to fake contacts severely damages reputation 4. Send frequency blindness → Sending daily "because competitors do"    (without the engagement metrics to support it) → Find your audience's sweet spot 5. Zero list hygiene protocol → Keeping subs who joined 365+ days ago + never purchased → Keeping unengaged bloat in hope that one day they purchase    (they won’t…) This isn't theoretical. We're seeing spam placement rates as high as 60%. Fix your deliverability: More emails in inbox ↓ More eyes on your offers ↓ More clicks on your CTAs ↓ More earning potential 

Something invisible is killing your email deliverability. And 75% of brands have no idea it's happening. Here's the problem: Most brands confuse delivery rate with deliverability. DELIVERY RATE = Did the email get delivered? Shows up as "delivered" in Klaviyo Means it didn't bounce back Looks like everything is working fine DELIVERABILITY = Did it reach the inbox? Where the email actually landed Inbox vs spam vs promotions tab What your customers actually see The invisible killer is: Your delivery rate can be 98%. But your inbox placement could be 40%. That means 60% of your "delivered" emails are going to: → Spam folders → Promotions tab → Other filtered locations Your customers never see them. I audit accounts where brands think they have "great deliverability" because Klaviyo shows high delivery rates. But when we check postmaster tools? 50%+ of emails are in spam. No wonder their "optimized" flows aren't converting. No wonder their open rates are dropping. No wonder their revenue is bleeding out. The fix: Monitor inbox placement monthly Scan your domain monthly Check for blacklist listings Fix SPF/DKIM/DMARC authentication Stop celebrating delivery rates. Start tracking inbox placement. Your emails might be perfectly designed. Your flows might be optimized. Your copy might be brilliant. But if they're hitting spam folders? None of it matters.

Smartlead and Instantly.ai integrating inbox spam tests has changed how we are monitoring email deliverability at Growth Engine X. Here’s an overview of what we are doing. First, for those that don’t know, an inbox placement test is when you send a test email to a group of emails that will report back to you where the email landing. Primary, Promotions, or Spam? Now it’s not perfect because your spam filter learns from what emails you mark as spam and obviously these inboxes have never marked anything as spam. So you should know that but I still find these tests useful enough to run now that they are integrated with the platforms. We are now running a test daily at 11 pm EST on all active campaigns and getting the inbox placements. Then, every Tuesday and Friday we will use an internal API to call to list out all inboxes that landed in spam, remove them from campaigns, and tag them so we don’t use them again. We always keep extra inboxes warming for our customers so we will push in the extra fresh inboxes as we remove the ones landing in spam. Everything can be done automatically except selecting the inboxes we will use to replace the ones in spam which I’m not sure is even worth automating. Hopefully, this gives something to think about for those that also don’t use open tracking and need a way to track email deliverability in their cold email campaigns!

I've helped build the email marketing strategy of over 250 DTC brands. Over 50% of them had issues going to the spam folder when we took them over. I can't stress how catastrophic this is. What should be your most profitable channel turns into one of your most wasteful. Here are 5 strategies to land in the inbox and get yourself back on track. 1. Ruthlessly clean your database > Remove typos, spam traps and hard bounces > Reduce sending frequency to long-term non-engagers > Implement webhooks for automated list cleaning going forward 2. Segment with surgical precision > Gmail, Outlook & yahoo have different algorithms > Dissect which one you're having issues with and modify sending cadence > Reduce frequency of sends to low engagers 3. Exclude Apple Mail Privacy Protection opens from your metrics > Apple's MPP pre-loads tracking pixels > Segment your reporting to exclude these > Use clicks only for recipients using this 4. Verify your technical infrastructure > Minor DNS changes can unknowingly hurt you > Monitor your authentication each month and Q/A it > Use tools like EasyDMARC 5. Combat audience fatigue with engagement focused campaigns > Excessive promotions can generate negative signals to ISPs (high spam, unsub rate, etc) > Vary your strategy to include more clickable content > Run competitions encouraging responses to increase positive signals 3 BONUS STRATEGIES TO RECTIFY YOUR SENDER REPUTATION 🧲 1. Leverage Google Postmaster 2. Utilise plain text emails 3. Use Klaviyo's Reputation Repair AI ______ Comprehensive breakdown of each strategy now live on our blog 💪 #emailmarketing #klaviyo #ecommerce

One day, your open rates drop. Replies slow down. Your best-performing sequences suddenly stop working. By then, your sender reputation is already damaged. Recovery takes weeks—if not longer. Most cold emailers don’t realize their mailboxes are getting flagged until it’s too late. Instead of fixing burned mailboxes, prevent them from getting flagged in the first place. Why mailboxes get burned If you’re seeing lower open rates, more bounces, or emails landing in spam, one of these could be the problem: ✖️ Sending too many emails too fast A sudden spike in volume raises red flags with spam filters.   ✖️ Low engagement rates If people aren’t opening or replying, algorithms assume your emails aren’t wanted. ✖️ Spam complaints & bounces Too many invalid emails or spam reports damage your reputation.   ✖️ Poor domain & IP reputation If your domain or IP has been flagged before, every email you send is at risk. How Maildoso protects your mailboxes from getting flagged ✅ Daily reputation monitoring Tracks your sender reputation in real-time, so you catch issues before they kill your campaigns. ✅ IP rotation to avoid spam filters Automatically switches sending IPs to prevent spam flagging. ✅ Daily inbox placement tests Checks if emails land in primary, promotions, or spam (their inbox placement is 95%+ !) ✅ Retire burned mailboxes early Identifies & replaces flagged mailboxes before they hurt deliverability. The real cost of ignoring email health: ⇢ 50% of cold emailers check deliverability only after campaigns fail. ⇢ Inbox issues take weeks to fix, slowing your pipeline. ⇢ Manual mailbox setup takes hours (Maildoso < 5 minutes) Cold email isn’t just about sending. It’s about sending smart. Most sales teams focus only on email copy and volume - but if your sender reputation is bad, none of that matters. Maildoso gives you the infrastructure to scale outbound safely, so your emails keep landing in inboxes while your competitors are stuck in spam. Get it here → https://buff.ly/hxAbjBu

Your emails might not be reaching the inbox - here’s how to fix it Most brands don’t realize they have a deliverability problem until it’s too late. You’re still sending emails. You’re still seeing opens. But behind the scenes? More emails are landing in spam or promotions. Here’s how to protect your inbox placement: 📡 Sending Reputation – ISPs (Gmail, Yahoo) score you based on engagement. ✔️ Warm up new domains, avoid sudden volume spikes. 🛠 Authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) – Without these, providers don’t trust you. ✔️ Set up proper records & align them correctly. 📩 Inbox Placement ≠ Open Rate – A 25% open rate doesn’t mean you’re in primary. ✔️ Test with tools like MailGenius or GlockApps. 🚀 Volume & Frequency – Sending too many emails too fast kills reputation. ✔️ Scale volume gradually & stay consistent. 💀 Dead Weight on Your List – Low engagement signals providers to filter you. ✔️ Suppress inactive subscribers after 90-120 days. Email isn’t just about what you send - it’s about whether it even gets seen. When’s the last time you checked your inbox placement? If you’re not monitoring it, you’re flying blind... #emailmarketing #ecom #ecommerce