Every other placement tool reports “inbox” vs “spam” for Gmail. But “inbox” can mean Primary (where it gets read), Promotions (where it gets buried), Updates (transactional), or Social (forgotten). Reply rates differ by 10x between Primary and Promotions.
- Primary / Promotions / Updates / Social / Spam / Unknown.
- Detected via IMAP label inspection — the actual category Gmail applied.
- Both consumer Gmail and Google Workspace seeds covered separately.
Why the folder matters more than “inbox”
- Primary: treated as a real conversation. 2–5x reply rate vs Promotions.
- Promotions: bulk grouping. Users scroll through in bursts, reply rate low.
- Updates: transactional. Almost never answered by a cold prospect.
- Social: platform notifications. Irrelevant for cold outbound.
- Spam: terminal.
Reporting “Gmail placement: 65%” without folder breakdown hides whether 65% is Primary or Promotions. The business impact is dramatic.
How we detect it
Our Gmail seeds are real mailboxes. When your test email arrives, we read the IMAP labels Gmail assigned (CATEGORY_PERSONAL, CATEGORY_PROMOTIONS, CATEGORY_UPDATES, CATEGORY_SOCIAL, SPAM). That's the ground truth — not an inference.
Workspace vs consumer
Gmail Workspace domains can disable category tabs entirely. We report that case as a separate result so you can see whether your B2B reach is landing in a one-tab Workspace inbox (where categorisation doesn't apply) or in a multi-tab consumer inbox.
Run a free test. Per-seed folder reporting with no signup.