Understanding Seed Addresses

Seed addresses are important for testing. However, they are limited in what information they yield. This article will provide information on seed addresses and their limitations. Article Contents Seed Addresses and Limitations Other Recommendations			Available with:
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Seed Addresses and Limitations

A seed address is a purpose-built email account that is used for testing email delivery and inbox placement. Email marketers often create test accounts at the major email providers (Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft, and the like), along with other test addresses at domains belonging to themselves or their clients. Domain blocking or poor inbox placement can tell email marketers about sender reputation. Seed addresses reveal certain sender reputation aspects, such how spam filters judge the email's content or the infrastructure from which it was sent.

While test lists are certainly helpful to check how your email renders in different environments, SharpSpring does not recommend that you solely rely on seed lists to test deliverability. This is because the largest email receivers (Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft, and the like) have intricate and personalized spam filters. As such, the deliverability to one seed address is not representative of other addresses with different engagement profiles. Given that seed addresses do not behave like actual users, this is even more of an impractical comparison.

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The source of your data, and how user engagement is respected over time, is much more important to deliverability than the specific content tested with seed addresses.

The way to get into an inbox is to start with permission, such as having a clear sign-up process that confirms consent before sending email. In regards to permission, SharpSpring recommends using confirmed opt-in methods and forbids the use of purchased lists.

Once contacts been added to your mailing list, use all the data at your disposal to adjust the frequency that individuals receive email. This could be, for example, historical email opens and clicks, website visits, or purchases. If you see that a recipient that no longer engages with you, practice proactive list management and remove them from your mailing list. It is hard for spam filters to calculate good reputations for senders with large segments of unengaged recipients, and your email deliverability can be harmed if you do not respect user engagement.