Definition
Email inbox placement is how often your emails land in the recipient's inbox rather than a spam folder or a promotions tab. It is a more meaningful measure than raw delivery because a message can be delivered yet filtered away.
Placement is driven by sender reputation, authentication, list health and engagement. Filters use positive signals, like opens and replies, and negative ones, like complaints and deletions, to decide where your mail belongs.
To improve placement, authenticate your domain, keep lists clean and permission-based, send relevant content that earns engagement, monitor with seed-list or placement tools, and fix deliverability issues as they surface.
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Related Glossary Terms
Abandoned Cart Email
An abandoned cart email is an automated message sent to customers who added items to their online shopping cart but left without completing the purchase. It is one of the highest-converting email types in ecommerce.
Abuse Complaint
An abuse complaint is a report from a recipient who marks an email as spam, which negatively affects sender reputation and deliverability.
AI Content Detection
AI content detection refers to the growing ability of email clients, spam filters and consumers to identify machine-generated email copy. It matters for deliverability, trust and engagement in an era of mass-produced AI marketing email.
AI Email Summary
An AI email summary is a short, machine-generated overview of an email's key points, shown by Gmail, Outlook and Apple Mail before a recipient opens the message. It is reshaping how email marketers think about subject lines, preview text and open rates.
ARPU (Average Revenue Per User)
ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) is a metric that measures the average revenue generated per email subscriber over a specific period, used to evaluate list value and campaign effectiveness.
Attention Rate
Attention rate is the percentage of email opens that last longer than 5 seconds, distinguishing genuine reads from passive opens, preview-pane views, or Apple MPP auto-loads.
Frequently Asked Questions
It is the percentage of your emails that reach the inbox rather than spam or promotional tabs, a truer measure of deliverability than raw delivery.
A message can be delivered yet filtered away, so placement tells you whether your mail is actually reaching the useful inbox where recipients see it.
Authenticate your domain, keep your list clean, send relevant engaging content, and monitor placement and reputation with seed-list or deliverability tools.