Our inbox inspector will tell you if your email will get blocked by spam filters.
But diagnosing the exact reason your email was blocked can be extremely difficult.
The only way to really figure out why your message was blocked is to systematically test each variable: change your subject line, and send another test email. Go check all your test accounts. Did it get blocked again? Well, change this link. Still blocked? Change another link. Wasn’t your links? Swap out the images. Not it? Change your content. Over and over, till you find the culprit. Then, do all that again for the next spam filter. Complete p.i.t.a.
So we automated all that with our new Delivery Doctor tool. Push one button, and we’ll automagically slice and dice and analyze your email and run dozens of tests until we find the root of your block.
Then, we tell you what to fix…
Delivery Doctor's Diagnosis of your problem
You’ll find the Delivery Doctor at the bottom of the Pre-Delivery Checklist screen (the last step before sending out your campaign).
Click the button, and we’ll start analyzing. Depending on how many tests we have to run, it could take a while. So we send you the results via email. Please don’t sit there and watch the spinning animation (if you really enjoy spinning animations, this one’s much more fun).
Keep in mind that if you have a problem with your email, and you run the Delivery Doctor, we actually send this to real accounts (setup with consumer ISPs and B2B filters). We test for common issues, like subject lines, links, email content, images, and more. This means that, depending on the nature of your problem, as many as 44 different tests might be run on your email.
Because it’s such an intense diagnosis, we can’t offer this to everybody. It’s totally free to use, but is only available to users on paid plans (not to our freemium users). Also keep in mind that this tool is still in beta. We’re already seeing hundreds of tests being run, just hours after launching it, and due to heavy loads we’ve had to remove a few of the tests we perform (slow down, people!). It’s beta. In due time, we’ll add more test criteria and really refine the product.
I like the sound of this feature! I haven’t used it yet, and I have a quick question – what is the difference between Delivery Doctor and Inbox Inspector?
I’m guessing that the Inbox Inspector is still there for the freemium accounts, but if I have a paid plan, is there a reason to still use the Inspector?
I’d say the Inbox Inspector is like going to your primary physician to get a physical. They’d do a very broad, comprehensive round of tests, and if they spot something wrong, they’d send you to a specialist (Delivery Doctor) to really examine what the problem is, give a diagnosis, and then prescribe treatment. That last part is the key difference.
I see. So then I should do Inspector first, then Doctor? In which case, might I suggest a tweak? It would make more intuitive sense to put the Inspector box on the right and the Doctor box on the left in the final Confirmation step. Or even number them.
Right now, the presentation hierarchy makes the relationship between the two tests unclear. If anything, the current placement would probably lead people to do Doctor first, then Inspector, especially since Doctor is free. (Or lead people to think that they only need to use Doctor and not Inspector. I would hazard to say that the first instinct toward “paid options” is that they’re more optional and less important than free features.)
I don’t know what future plans for the Doctor is, but maybe ultimately, it may be better to combine the two, and making Doctor an additional step in the Inspector process.
Lisa, I totally agree. The Doctor is free, so I run it. The other is not (nor do I really understand what it costs, why it costs what it costs or why I need it) so if the order should change, numbering them, or reversing the order would indeed help!
Great product. Will definitely try this with my premium account.
Cheers
Alex
So I’ve tried the Delivery Doctor on a few campaigns and noticed that it checks 2 spam filters and 1 ISP. Will this list be growing or is this all we need?
For telling you what’s getting blocked and what to fix, this is plenty. We run up to 44 individual tests every time you click that button. But yes, we’re looking into adding even more.
Okay, but it says it says it’s only checking 2 spam filters and 1 ISP and the campaigns pass 2/2 spam filters and 1/1 ISPs. If it’s checking 44, why does it look to the user like it’s only checking 3? :)
Jeremy – Sorry for the confusion. We run 11 tests on your email. If your email is blocked, we’ll swap your subject line out with something else. If you still get blocked, we run another test, such as swapping out your links. If you still fail, we swap out content. And on and on. So depending on what’s getting you blocked, we might have to run 11 of those types of tests. We do those across 2 B2B and 2 B2C spam filter scenarios. We do plan to add more spam filters. As far as placement on the page goes, I’m sure it doesn’t matter, because people will click the free one no matter whether it’s left or right. And that’s fine by us!
Okay, cool. So it’s checking 2 spam filter scenarios, which is why even though you’re doing 11 tests, it only shows it as testing 2 spam filters.
@Jeremy
I’ve been using the In-Box Inspector on my last few campaigns and it is really useful. Our campaigns can have a lot graphics and tables. The test lets me see how those things actually appear without having to have 7 gazillion email account/client software combinations setup. I did the math it is actually 7 gazillion. Especially for my first campaign I was surprised at how different clients saw the same HTML.
[...] Long term, we want users to know that our plan is to bundle the Inbox Inspector with our free Delivery Doctor feature, and to make this a comprehensive testing suite that’s available as an a la carte [...]
Hello there
I’m curious, would delivery doctor work with my email campaigns – I send out in Icelandic…
Also, how much does it actually cost to use the service? I’m very small scale and therefore qualify for the free mailchimp service, can I just buy some credits to use delivery doctor? How many credits are needed per email scan?