What is Seed list?
A seed list is a group of test email addresses, held at different mailbox providers, that you include in a send so you can check where the message arrives.
The addresses belong to you or to a testing service, so someone can open each mailbox and see whether the email reached the inbox, a promotions tab or spam. It is the raw material behind an inbox placement test.
Seed addresses are not real customers. They have no purchase history and do not engage, which can make them behave differently from your audience. Some providers also treat them with suspicion, so results are indicative rather than exact.
Keep your own small seed list covering the main providers your customers use, and refresh it when mailboxes go stale. Use it to catch obvious problems before a send, not to measure performance.
A worked example.
A hypothetical tea company keeps a handful of its own test mailboxes at the big providers. Before each launch it adds them to the audience, checks where the email lands, and notes any difference. One day all copies land in spam at one provider, so the team holds the send and investigates.
Common mistakes.
- Treating seed results as the same as real subscriber results
- Keeping stale addresses that nobody checks any more
- Mailing the seed list only after problems appear
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