Inbox Placement Monitor: always-on inbox placement for the mail you already send

Inbox Placement Monitor needs no test codes, no API calls and no SMTP passwords. It watches the mail you already send, through the platform and infrastructure you already use, so what you see is how your actual campaigns are being placed.

What is inbox monitoring?

Inbox monitoring is inbox placement testing that never stops. Instead of building a special test message and sending it once, you include a set of seed mailboxes in the campaigns you were going to send anyway. Each seed is a real mailbox at a major provider, so when your campaign arrives, the provider files it exactly as it would for a subscriber. Inbox Placement Monitor reads where each copy was placed and reports it back to your dashboard within minutes.

How it differs from a one-off seed test

A one-off seed test tells you where one message landed at one moment. That is useful before a big send, and it is what our Inbox Placement Tester does. Inbox Placement Monitor answers a different question: where is the mail I am actually sending landing, day after day?

• No test codes: many one-off tests need a code or token in the message so the result can be matched. Inbox Placement Monitor matches messages by your verified From domain, so your campaigns go out unchanged.
• No re-sending through your SMTP: some tools ask for your SMTP credentials so they can send a test copy on your behalf. Inbox Placement Monitor never needs a password or API key. The seeds receive the same copy your subscribers receive, sent by your own platform.
• Continuous, not a snapshot: every campaign that includes the seeds adds to your 30-day picture, so you can see a change in placement when it happens instead of at your next scheduled test.

What you see for each message

Every copy that reaches a seed is listed in your dashboard with:

• Placement: Inbox, Spam/Junk, the Gmail tab it was sorted into (Promotions, Updates, Social or Forums), or Focused/Other at Microsoft.
• Authentication results: whether SPF, DKIM and DMARC passed for that copy.
• Sending IP: the IP address the message was delivered from, so you can tell which part of your infrastructure carried it.
• Headers and .eml download: the full message headers and the original .eml file, ready to inspect or share with your ESP or a consultant.

The "where your mail landed" chart

The dashboard summarizes the last 30 days by provider: what percentage of your messages reached the inbox and what percentage went to spam. Gmail tabs count as inbox, because a message in Promotions or Updates was delivered to the inbox and is visible to the subscriber. If one provider starts trending toward spam while the others hold steady, you know where to look first - authentication, the sending IP or the content of that campaign.

Alerts when mail misses the inbox

You don't have to keep the dashboard open. Set up alerts and we email you the moment something goes wrong:

• Lands in spam: any copy that ends up in a Spam or Junk folder.
• Misses the inbox: spam, Gmail tabs such as Promotions, or Outlook's Other folder.
• Inbox rate drops: your inbox rate at a provider falls below a level you choose over the last 24 hours.
• Authentication fails: SPF, DKIM or DMARC didn't pass.

Pick a domain and provider or watch everything, send alerts right away or as a daily digest, and choose up to five people to notify. Each problem is reported once per domain and provider, with a reminder if it's still happening a day later, and you get a short "back to normal" note when mail reaches the inbox again.

Providers covered

Inbox Placement Monitor uses more than 70 seed addresses across Microsoft 365, Outlook.com/Hotmail, Gmail, Google Workspace, Yahoo, AOL, iCloud and Zoho. That covers both consumer mailboxes and the business mailboxes that B2B senders care about.

Why we ask you to verify your domain

Because Inbox Placement Monitor works from the mail you send, it has to know which messages are yours. You prove ownership of your From domain with a single DNS TXT record at _cc-verify.<your domain>. Only mail from domains you have verified is shown in your dashboard, and subdomains of a verified domain are included automatically. Domains are re-checked weekly to confirm the record is still in place.

Plans and limits

Inbox Placement Monitor is included with the Inbox Placement Tester plan ($19.99/mo) and with The Works ($99/mo). Both include:

• Up to 5 monitored domains
• 1,000 messages per month
• 30 days of message history

Need more domains or messages? We put together custom packages - contact us. Compare all plans on the pricing page. Already a member? Open Inbox Placement Monitor in your account.

Sign up and add your first domain

Frequently asked questions