Stuck in the Promotions tab
Gmail quietly files your newsletter under Promotions and your open rate drops by half. No bounce, no spam complaint, just readers who never see the issue land.
// for newsletters
Land in the inbox, not the Promotions tab.
You write to thousands of Gmail and Yahoo readers every week, and a quiet slide into the Promotions tab can halve your open rate without a single bounce. Unspam shows you which tab each provider drops your issue into, and what in the email pushed it there, before you hit send to the whole list.
The deliverability problems we hear most.
Engagement decay drags the whole list
List growth looks healthy, but the cold half of your subscribers signals low engagement to Gmail and Yahoo. The dead weight you never prune quietly buries delivery for the readers who actually open.
The 2024 bulk-sender rules
Send 5,000+ a day to Gmail or Yahoo and you need passing SPF, DKIM, DMARC, one-click unsubscribe, and a spam rate under 0.3%. Miss one and your mail gets throttled or bulk-foldered with no warning.
Why teams like yours pick Unspam.
// placement
Inbox or Promotions, for every provider you send to.
See whether your issue lands in the primary inbox, the Promotions tab, spam, or goes missing across Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, ProtonMail, AOL, and Zoho. The tab is where consumer newsletters live or die, and it is the number Substack, beehiiv, and Kit never show you.
PLACEMENT · 6 PROVIDERS · 4s 4 / 6 INBOX
G gmail.com inbox · primary
O outlook.com inbox · focused
Y yahoo.com inbox
Z zoho.com inbox
P protonmail.com promotions
A aol.com spam · junk
primary inbox rate 67% · ↑ 4 pts this week
// attention
See where readers actually look in your issue.
An AI eye-tracking heatmap predicts attention across desktop and mobile, so you know whether your lead, your CTA, and your sponsor slot are landing before you ship to the full list.
recording eye-tracking
Your renewal is on the way
Hi Pat,
Just a heads up, your Hirely Pro plan renews soon. The card on
file is Visa •••• 4242. Update your details if anything has
changed.
Manage billing →
attention
high
medium
low
How it works.
01
Send your issue to Unspam
Add the Unspam seed address to your test segment in Substack, beehiiv, Ghost, Kit, or Mailchimp and send a real issue, exactly the way subscribers receive it.
02
Get a score
See your spam score, the SPF/DKIM/DMARC verdict, one-click unsubscribe and blocklist checks, plus a heatmap of what readers look at first.
03
See the tab per provider
Inbox vs Promotions vs spam vs missing across Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, ProtonMail, AOL, and Zoho. The tab consumer readers never dig out of.
04
Put it on Autopilot
Schedule a re-test for every issue or every week. Get an alert the moment your spam rate climbs or you slip out of the primary inbox, before the next send goes out.
A few common workflows.
The moments newsletter operators and creators reach for Unspam. Most run two or three of these on every issue without thinking about it.
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Pre-send tab check on every issue
Send to Unspam before you send to the list. Confirm Gmail files this week's issue under Primary, not Promotions, while there is still time to fix the subject line, image ratio, or link count.
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Bulk-sender compliance audit
Verify SPF, DKIM, DMARC alignment, one-click List-Unsubscribe headers, and your spam rate all clear the Gmail and Yahoo 2024 requirements before you cross the 5,000-a-day threshold.
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Platform migration check
Moving from Mailchimp to beehiiv, or Substack to Ghost? Run before-and-after placement tests so a new sending domain does not quietly drop you into spam on day one.
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Sponsor and ad-slot placement
Run the heatmap on a sponsored issue to confirm the ad slot actually gets attention, and check that the heavier promotional layout did not knock you into the Promotions tab.
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Re-engagement and sunset campaigns
Before you mail the cold half of your list, test placement so a low-engagement segment does not tank the domain reputation you rely on for your active readers.
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Weekly deliverability monitoring
Put a recurring Autopilot test on your main sending domain. Get alerted the week your spam rate creeps up, instead of finding out from a cliff in open rates a month later.
// FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
What newsletter operators and creators ask before their first test.
Does Unspam connect to Substack, beehiiv, Ghost, or Kit? +
No, and that is on purpose. Unspam does not plug into any platform's API. You add the Unspam seed address to a test send in your tool and mail it a real issue, then read the results in Unspam. That means it works the same whether you publish on Substack, beehiiv, Ghost, Kit, Mailchimp, or your own SMTP, because we grade whatever actually arrives at our seed list.
My open rate dropped but nothing bounced. What happened? +
That is almost always the Promotions tab, not the spam folder. Gmail re-classified your issue and most readers never check Promotions, so opens fall while your delivery numbers look fine. The inbox-placement test shows you the tab per provider, and the spam score tells you which signals (image-heavy layout, link count, subject phrasing, broken authentication) pushed you there.
Will Unspam help me meet the Gmail and Yahoo bulk-sender rules? +
Yes. Every test checks SPF, DKIM, and DMARC alignment and confirms your one-click List-Unsubscribe header is present and valid, the headline 2024 requirements for senders over 5,000 a day. You can drill into individual records with the SPF checker, DKIM checker, and DMARC checker. Keeping your spam rate under the 0.3% threshold is what Autopilot monitoring is for.
Does Unspam warm up my domain or send my newsletter for me? +
No. Unspam is a testing tool, not an email service and not a warmup product. We do not send your issues and we do not run engagement automation. We measure where your real sends land and tell you what to fix, so you can pair us with whatever platform you already mail from.
How do I keep a growing list from hurting my deliverability? +
List growth without pruning is the fastest way to bury your engaged readers. Inactive and invalid addresses lower engagement signals and raise bounce rates, both of which Gmail and Yahoo weigh heavily. Sweep your list with the email verifier to drop invalid addresses before a big send, and check overall sending health with the email health check.
How long does a test take? +
The spam score, authentication, and heatmap come back in under a minute. The full inbox-placement test takes roughly 1 to 3 minutes depending on how many provider seeds run. The free plan includes a monthly quota and the AI fix assistant, with no card required.
// ready when you are
Write the issue. We'll make sure they see it.
Run a free test on your next newsletter. No card, no signup, just the tab it lands in and how to fix it.