Seed List

Are you seeing deliverability issues for specific domains in your Domain Reporting? Are your open rates lower than they have been in the past? Are you suddenly seeing your emails get stuck in the Junk Folder?
 

If you answered yes to any of these questions, now may be the time to consider using the Validity Seed List. The Seed List contains between 300-600 email addresses, at various providers and ISPs available, all owned and managed by Validity. When an email is sent to this list, the inboxes report how many of the emails landed in the Inbox, Junk, or went Missing. This inbox placement report is sent to the emfluence Validity account, giving us a diagnosis of your inbox placement with various providers.
 

If you suspect that you’re having deliverability issues at a specific inbox, this seed list is a great way to test it.

Here’s how you use it:

Create a group with the seed list addresses. Either add that group to your send, or copy and send an email to the Seed List at the same time of your next scheduled email. Since these addresses are not real recipients, and won’t open the email, sending in a separate segment will avoid non-views affecting your reporting for an email. However, on large sends over 50,000, you could also simply add the seeds to the email as an additional group rather than making a copy of the email. The larger the send, the less likely the small number of seed list addresses are likely to affect your metrics.

emfluence Support will receive and forward the results when they become available. This will usually take at least a day.
 

Validity updates this list multiple times a year by adding new addresses and removing some old ones. If you haven't sent to the seed list in awhile and plan to do so, reach out to emfluence to make sure you have the most up-to-date list. Lists missing newer addresses could sho deliverability issues where none exist.

If you suspect inbox placement issues because of lower than usual open rates, or zero opens for an entire domain (see your domain report for this), you can begin sending to your new Seed List. Please be mindful when using the Seed List, it’s really only necessary to use if you suspect deliverability issues, or have put strategies in place to fix issues and need to retest. Testing once a month, or quarter, is about the right frequency if you suspect or know that you have inbox placement issues.

As stated above, Validty regularly updates the list. Contact support@emfluence to get the newest version of the seed list.