Monitoring placement
📖 3 min readUpdated 2026-04-19
Your email tool reports 'delivered', but delivered could mean inbox or spam folder. Monitor actual placement.
Tools
- Google Postmaster Tools
- Glock Apps inbox placement tests
- Seed addresses (inbox accounts you check manually)
Signals to watch
- Inbox placement rate
- Gmail spam folder rate
- Junk folder at Outlook
Actions
- Placement below 90%? Fix before scaling
- Sudden drop? Investigate recent sends
- Quarterly audit
What to do with this
- Schedule the 15-minute weekly check as a calendar block, skipping it catches problems 2-4 weeks late
- Set automated alerts in your ESP for thresholds (bounce, complaint, placement), alerts catch issues before your weekly review
- Test inbox placement from multiple seed lists, single-source monitoring misses provider-specific deliverability issues
- When metrics drift, pause that domain same-day, continuing to send through degradation compounds the reputation damage
- Quarterly deep audit: review all domains, segment send rates, and full authentication config, catches drift annual reviews miss