Written by Venkat Nookala · Last updated 2026-07-22
Send to a set of owned seed mailboxes and read where each message actually landed — Inbox or Spam. It's a sample you control, and it measures placement without manufacturing engagement. Provider dashboards like Google Postmaster and Microsoft SNDS confirm reputation. Open-tracking pixels infer delivery unreliably; direct placement checks do not.
There are three honest ways to know where mail lands, in increasing confidence. First, provider dashboards — Google Postmaster Tools and Microsoft SNDS — report domain and IP reputation, spam rates, and authentication results for mail you already send. Second, receiver-side placement testing: send a copy to seed mailboxes you own, then read those inboxes and record Inbox vs Spam. This is the only method that observes actual placement rather than inferring it. Third, complaint and bounce signals from your own sending logs. What does not work: treating open-tracking pixel rates as "inbox rate" — opens are suppressed by image blocking and inflated by security scanners, so they tell you almost nothing about placement. Humerly runs the pre-send audit and can run owned-seed placement measurement: we measure inbox placement on seed mailboxes we own, as a sample, and we do not measure where your live production mail lands.