Deliverability Test

Before launching any campaign, you need to know if your messages are actually being seen. A deliverability test isn't a generic 'spam score' check; it's a real-world simulation of your sending infrastructure to see if you land in the primary inbox, promotions, or spam.

Skipping this step is like flying blind—you push 'send' on thousands of emails without knowing if anyone will ever see them.

Running a reliable deliverability test without the right setup is frustrating and often misleading. Most teams run into the same set of issues.

1. Relying on generic spam checkers. You use a tool that gives you a 9.8/10 score. This score means nothing. It doesn't tell you how Gmail or Outlook's algorithms will actually filter your specific email, from your specific domain, with your specific tracking links.
2. Using a biased test environment. You send a test to your personal Gmail, it lands in the primary tab, and you assume everything is fine. Your personal inbox has a long history with you; it's not a neutral environment and gives a false positive result.
3. Inability to isolate the root cause. An email goes to spam. Is it the new domain? The tracking link? The subject line? Without a structured test, you're just guessing. You change the subject line, it still goes to spam, and you've wasted a day without learning anything.
4. Burning domains on live “tests”. You run your test by launching a small live campaign. It gets a 0.5% reply rate, and only then do you realize you have a deliverability problem. It's too late—you've already damaged your domain's reputation on a failed campaign.

A professional outbound team doesn't guess about deliverability. They have a repeatable, reliable process for testing that gives them a clear, binary answer: Inbox or Spam.

The ideal state looks like this:

1. A Neutral Test Bed: You have a set of dedicated, neutral inboxes (e.g., fresh Gmail, Outlook, and Google Workspace accounts) specifically for receiving test emails. They have no pre-existing relationship with your sending domains, mimicking a true cold recipient.
2. Controlled Variables: You can easily send the exact same email from different domains to test infrastructure. Or, send different email copy from the same inbox to test content. Every test changes only one variable at a time.
3. Actionable Results: The outcome is simple and clear: Did it land in Primary, Promotions, or Spam? There's no ambiguous score. You know exactly what to fix. tracking_link_v2 causes spam? You stop using it. domain_A lands in spam but domain_B doesn't? You know domain_A has a reputation issue.
4. Proactive Diagnosis: Testing is a pre-flight check, not a post-mortem. You confirm deliverability before a single prospect is contacted, preserving your domain reputation and ensuring campaigns have a real chance of success.

You can run a structured deliverability test manually. It requires discipline but provides invaluable insight into your infrastructure's health.

Here’s a high-level process:

1. Establish a Test Bed. Create a handful of new, clean receiving inboxes across major providers. A good starting set is one free Gmail, one free Outlook, one Google Workspace account, and one Microsoft 365 account. Do not use your personal inboxes.
2. Create a Baseline Control. Write a simple, plain-text email with no links, no images, and no tracking. This is your control variable. The goal is to test the raw reputation of your sending infrastructure first.
3. Run the Infrastructure Test. Using your outbound platform, create a sequence that targets only your test bed inboxes. Send the baseline email from each of your warmed-up sending inboxes. Log in to each test inbox and check where each message landed.
4. Introduce Campaign Variables. If the baseline lands in the primary inbox, duplicate the campaign. Now, add one new element, like your standard signature, a calendar link, or pixel tracking. Send again. Did it go to spam? You've found a potential culprit.
5. Document and Repeat. Keep a simple spreadsheet of what passed and what failed for each sending domain. This becomes your internal playbook. Run this test before any major campaign launch or whenever you notice a sudden dip in reply rates.

Running these tests manually is tedious. An infrastructure-first platform centralizes the entire process, making it a routine pre-flight check instead of a painful fire drill.

Look for core functionality that helps you:

1. Manage Test Inboxes: Keep your sending inboxes and your test bed receiving inboxes organized in one place.
2. Use a Realistic Sequencer: Use the exact same campaign sequencer for tests that you use for live campaigns, ensuring the sending conditions and email headers are identical.
3. Isolate Variables Easily: Quickly duplicate campaigns and change one variable at a time (e.g., toggle tracking, swap copy, change the sending inbox) to run controlled tests without rebuilding from scratch.
4. Unify Reporting: Get a simple, centralized view of where your test emails landed across all test inboxes without having to log into five different accounts.

SuperSend is designed as this execution + infra layer for outbound teams sending at volume. It provides the tools to manage your sending infrastructure and run these kinds of structured, real-world tests before you risk your reputation on a live campaign.