Regularly running a deliverability test is one of the best practices to avoid the spam filters and improve your deliverability. At MailReach, weâve seen that most of the time, deliverability testing is often done in an incomplete or biased way. In this article, weâll cover how to properly run a deliverability test and check if your email will land in spam, categories or inbox.
Just before you go further in this article, weâre thrilled to announce that after months of development and fine tuning, we have finally released our free email spam test.
It has been developed and optimized with much love and passion to give you the most reliable spam score and deliverability check.
This deliverability test, combined to our email warm up service, offers a very effective and global cold email deliverability solution.
Because, yes, as youâll understand it by reading this article, most deliverability tests are biased and not reliable today.
Good reading.
Weâve seen so many times people run deliverability tests and wonder why their results are so different than the reality of their campaign statistics.
Because most people are not aware that their sending tool alone can make them land in spam.
Itâs not just about the email content or the reputation of the domain / IP. Sometimes it can just be the tracking domain automatically added in your emailâs HTML by your email sending tool.
For further info about this, check our article How to Prevent Emails From Going to Spam.
In all cases, when doing a deliverability test, you need to send your email exactly as if you were emailing your real target.
To know where your email will land, thereâs only one way that really reflect the reality of your deliverability : sending your email to a significant number of inboxes and see where it lands. Period.
Because we often see people saying âHey, I donât understand, my emails are landing in spam but I have 10/10 on Mail-Tester.
Breaking news : a lot of people have 10/10 on Mail-Tester and land totally in spam.
Because Mail-Tester does not tell your where your email lands. Itâs mainly here to scan your email and see if you respect the best practices.
According to us, using Mail-Tester.com can be relevant to check if youâre in any blacklist, if your DNS records have been properly set up, etc.
But keep in mind that the best way to know your real deliverability and test your email for spam is by sending your email in real conditions to inboxes and check where it lands.
This one answers a very common problem we see nearly everyday at MailReach : a lot of people run deliverability tests and base their results on email providers that are not used by their real recipients.
It can totally bias the results since email providers donât filter email the same way. And even inside Google, there are differences of spam filtering between @gmail.com addresses and paid Gmail (G Workspace). Same for Microsoft between @outlook.com addresses and paid Outlook (Office 365).
Let us explain that.
Letâs say youâre in the B2B area. The market share of email providers in B2B is around 60% for Google Workspace and 40% for Microsoft Office 365 (source : SuiteGuides).
This simply means that your recipients are either on Google Workspace or Office 365.
When testing your deliverability, if you land in inbox for all Google Workspace and Office 365 mailboxes, but are landing in spam in @gmail.com addresses, that doesnât mean youâre doing bad.
For example, Gmail could recognize that your sending a B2B email to a @gmail.com address (generally used for B2C) and put it in spam because thatâs not consistent according to their ârulesâ.
In all cases, we recommend that when doing a deliverability test, focus on the inbox services used by your recipients.
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MailReach is compatible with any inbox / SMTP
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A deliverability test is a way to measure the deliverability of your emails.
Itâs usually done by sending an email to a list of several inboxes (the best option) or to a single address (this way can give poorer results).
The deliverability testing tool will then analyze your email and give you information in order to improve your deliverability.
A good deliverability test tells you where your email land on different inbox providers and checks several elements such as blacklists, DNS records, links, etc.
The result of a deliverability test is usually a score which helps you measure your efforts in order to improve it.
To run a deliverability test, you can use a deliverability testing tool like MailReach email spam test or another one. There are usually two options of doing it :
â Send an email to a given list of different inboxes. This is the most reliable way of testing your deliverability since you send directly from your address to the final inboxes.
â Send an email to a single inbox that redirects to several inboxes. We donât recommend this option as it can bias the results of your deliverability test since itâs not done in the exact same conditions as if you were sending directly from your address.
Once you have sent your email, you receive your result with your score and improvements you can do.
The best tool for email deliverability testing has to be reliable, non biased, relevant and helpful.
To meet these requirements, the email spam checker tool should allow you to :
â Send your email to a list of inboxes instead of sending to a single address that redirects your email to several inboxes behind. This is crucial to avoid biasing your results. A good deliverability test is done in real sending conditions.
â Send your email to inboxes on different inbox providers and on the most important ones.
â Filter your results depending if you target personal or professional inboxes. The big providers such as Google and Microsoft can easily understand if you talk business to a personal inbox and put you in spam. You need to check your deliverability on the inbox type you target. If you only target professionals, donât look at personal inboxes.
Unfortunately, there are no multiple tools that meet these criteria, MailReach Spam Checker is the only one : https://www.mailreach.co/email-spam-test
