Spam Test

> Before running: verify exact flag names with smartlead --help. Flag shapes shown below are illustrative — confirm against the actual CLI.

/spam-test

You're running a Smart Delivery spam test to check inbox placement and authentication health.

What you need from the user

• What to test — a campaign (test all senders), or specific mailbox IDs?

Step 1 — Kick off the test

For a campaign's senders

smartlead delivery start-test --campaign-id 

For specific mailboxes

smartlead delivery start-test --mailbox-ids ,

Save the returned spam_test_id.

The test sends a test email from each sender to a panel of seed inboxes across major ESPs (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, etc.). Takes ~15 minutes.

Step 2 — Poll for completion

smartlead delivery test-status 

Status flow: RUNNING → COMPLETED (or FAILED).

Poll every 60 seconds. Don't poll faster — wastes API budget.

Step 3 — Get the full report

smartlead delivery test-details  --output json > report.json

Or per-aspect:

smartlead delivery dkim-details      # DKIM auth status
smartlead delivery spf-details       # SPF auth status
smartlead delivery rdns-report       # Reverse DNS
smartlead delivery ip-details        # IP reputation
smartlead delivery spam-filter-report   # Per-ESP placement

Step 4 — Interpret results

For each sender, report:

| Metric | Healthy | Concerning | |---|---|---| | Inbox % (Gmail) | >85% | 80% | <60% | | DKIM | PASS | FAIL or NEUTRAL | | SPF | PASS | SOFTFAIL or FAIL | | DMARC | PASS | FAIL | | rDNS | matches sender domain | mismatch or missing | | IP blacklists | 0 hits | any hit (esp Spamhaus, SORBS) |

Common failure patterns

| Pattern | Cause | Fix | |---|---|---| | DKIM FAIL | Missing or wrong DKIM DNS record | Republish DKIM TXT record at the right selector | | SPF SOFTFAIL | Missing sending IP from SPF | Add Smartlead's sending IPs to SPF, or use include: | | DMARC FAIL with SPF/DKIM PASS | Alignment issue — mail.from domain != From: domain | Use same sending domain for both | | Low inbox % on Gmail despite DKIM/SPF pass | Reputation issue (warmup incomplete, content trigger, IP blocked) | More warmup, change copy, change sending IP | | Outlook inbox 0% | Recipient on Microsoft 365 + bad sender reputation | Wait for warmup to mature, audit signature for spam triggers |

Step 5 — Recommendations

Group findings by severity:

🔴 BLOCKERS — fix before launching

• DKIM FAIL on any sender
• SPF FAIL on any sender
• Inbox % <50% on majority of senders

🟡 WARNINGS — fix soon, not blocking

• DMARC FAIL but DKIM+SPF pass
• One sender significantly worse than others (consider pausing it)
• Inbox % 50-70%

🟢 NICE-TO-HAVE

• DMARC quarantine vs reject policy
• BIMI not configured

Step 6 — Re-test after fixes

If the user fixes something (publishes a DKIM record, etc.), wait 1-4 hours for DNS propagation, then re-run the spam test on the same senders.

Reference

• Smartlead's Smart Delivery docs: https://api.smartlead.ai/api-reference/smart-delivery (or via docs/reference/endpoint-index.tsv)
• docs/learnings/mailbox-warmup-best-practices.md — reputation building

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: MattSezgin
• Source: MattSezgin/unofficial-smartlead-cli
• License: MIT
• Homepage: https://github.com/MattSezgin/unofficial-smartlead-cli

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.