Sending a message to the seedlist

Sending a message to the seedlist

Campaigns are analysed in InboxSys app by sending them to a seedlist. This list consists of 2 parts:

• The trigger - this is an address ending with @app.inboxsys.com.
• The ISP seeds - those are the ISP seeds that are sent to Gmail, Outlook.com, Yahoo, Orange.fr and many others.

Seedlist

You can find your personal seedlist in your InboxSys account by clicking on the cogwheels icon in the far right top.

The ISP seeds are showing in the "Inbox Delivery"-section on the individual campaign results. This section shows if the seeds have arrived to the inbox, the spam-folder, or somewhere else. For all mails received, it is possible to show full mail headers.

In case you would like to test delivery to any ISP not on the list, please don't hesitate to create a support ticket.

Messages to the trigger address are the messages that get actually analysed.

• A message that is not sent to the trigger address, will not be displayed in InboxSys at all.
• Messages sent to the trigger address only will arrive, but show all ISP seeds as "missing".

Messages to the seedlist should be sent as list - in single messages. Adding seeds to CC or BCC will distort the final analysis. If you don't have access to an ESP, you can use Mail Merge for Microsoft or Mail Merge for Thunderbird to simulate list-sending.

Methods of matching triggers to ISP-seeds

By default, seeds are matched based on the sender address and subjectline, it is important that all subjectlines are exactly the same. If personalisation on the subjectline is being used, personalization variables for each address in the seedlist should have the same content.

In case your test messages have different sender addresses and/or subject line, you can choose to set a specific X-Header in order to invoke a different method of matching. Available X-Headers/methods are:

X-Campaign-ID (BETA)

Each time you press "send to list", it's a new "campaign". The X-Campaign-ID contains a unique identifier for a single campaign. Let's say, the campaign ID is "12345678-a". In that case, the X-Campaign-ID should look like this:

X-Campaign-ID: <12345678-a>

Because the campaign ID alone doesn't allow us to match to a specific user account reliably, it's required the campaign has at least one more identifier. This can be the sender address or the subject. One of both is sufficient, it doesn't matter which one.

X-InboxSys-ID (BETA)

The X-InboxSys-ID allows you to send your user-ID along with your campaign ID. This way, the campaign can be directly matched to your user account and no further identifiers are required. In this example, those are your user IDs:

Account name	Account ID
main_account	1234
sub_account	1235

Let's say, for example, the trigger of your seedlist is sub_account@app.inboxsys.com and your unique campaign ID is "12345678-b". In that case, your X-InboxSys-ID should look like this:

X-InboxSys-ID: <1235_12345678-b>

As long as your campaign ID is unique, this matches both your user account and the campaign in question. In this case, no further matching is required. Subject, sender and content can be entirely different.

InboxSys trigger seed unsubscribes

InboxSys calls the headers of all links in all seeds, in order to test if links work. InboxSys is not calling the body of that link! If this little check unsubscribes immediately, that indicates a few severe flaws in the unsubscribe mechanism.

First of all, no-one uses a single-click unsubscribe in the bottom of an E-Mail. It's legally allowed to use a dual-click unsubscribe, so that is the common standard. When you click on an unsusbscribe link, the landing page should show a confirmation dialog. Otherwise, you get bot-unsubscribes! That is basically what we have here: a bot-unsubscribe.

Secondly, we are calling the header of the page, but not the body. Even if there is no dialog, calling the header should only send back header information, but not execute actions that are typically taken after the full page has loaded.

An immediate unsubscribe upon only calling the header of a page looks symptomatic to a List-Unsubscribe link. LU have opposite requirements and best practices from standard unsubscribe links. InboxSys never calls a List-Unsubscribe link, for this exact, obvious reason.

Troubleshooting unsubscribes

• Check your logs to see the reason for the unsubscription
• Request Information from your ESP to explain why this has happened
• InboxSys can assist to converse with ESP to see if their approach can be changed
• Ensure the InboxSys trigger seed is safe-listed

Useful links

• Blog article on seedlists
• InboxSys login
• InboxSys registration