List Armor

Seed Monitoring

Detect compliance violations by planting seed addresses in your suppression lists.

On this page

Overview

Seed monitoring plants test email addresses into your suppression lists to detect when affiliates violate email compliance rules. When a seed address receives an email, the system automatically detects it, records the violation, and alerts you.

Key Benefits
  • Catch affiliates who ignore your suppression lists
  • Monitor the full email subscription lifecycle
  • Build an audit trail for compliance enforcement
  • Reduce spam complaints and protect sender reputation

Seeds detect violations automatically

Professional Feature: Seed monitoring is available on Professional and Free Trial plans.

Seed Types

Suppression Seeds

Purpose: Detect affiliates who ignore your suppression list.

These addresses are added to your suppression list exports. Any email sent to a suppression seed is an immediate violation.

Default: 3 per affiliate

Journey Seeds

Purpose: Test the complete subscription lifecycle.

Journey seeds go through signup, active subscription, unsubscribe, and monitoring. Emails after unsubscribe are violations.

Default: 1 per affiliate

Journey Seed Lifecycle

Journey seeds test whether affiliates properly honor unsubscribe requests:

Stage What Happens Emails = Violation?
Signup You add the journey seed to an affiliate's mailing list Not monitored yet
Active Period Seed receives emails normally (default: 14 days) No — Expected
Unsubscribe System automatically unsubscribes the seed Transition
Grace Period Buffer time for emails already in queue (default: 7 days) No — Grace allowed
Monitoring Active monitoring for post-unsubscribe emails Yes — Violation

Getting Started

1. Enable Seed Monitoring

  1. Navigate to your campaign
  2. Click Seed Monitoring in the campaign menu
  3. Click the Settings button
  4. Toggle Enable Seed Monitoring on
  5. Adjust seed counts and timing if needed
  6. Save your changes

2. Seeds Are Auto-Generated

When you enable seed monitoring, the system automatically generates realistic seed email addresses for each affiliate. These seeds are included in your suppression list exports.

3. Activate Journey Seeds (Optional)

For journey seeds, manually subscribe them to the affiliate's mailing list, then mark them as "Activated" in the system. This starts the active period countdown.

Important: Seeds only work if affiliates download your suppression lists. Ensure affiliates are regularly fetching updated lists.

Configuration

Setting Description Default
Enable Seed Monitoring Turn seed monitoring on or off for this campaign Off
Suppression Seeds Number of suppression seeds per affiliate 3
Journey Seeds Number of journey seeds per affiliate 1
Active Days Days journey seeds stay subscribed before unsubscribing 14
Grace Period Days Buffer days after unsubscribe before monitoring starts 7

Using the Dashboard

Access the dashboard from Seed Monitoring in the main navigation.

Statistics Overview

Total Seeds
All active seed addresses
Total Hits
Emails received by seeds
Violations
Compliance breaches
Hit Rate
% of seeds that were hit

Dashboard Tabs

  • Activity: Recent seed hits with filtering (All / Pending Review / Violations)
  • Campaigns: Campaign cards showing seed monitoring status at a glance
  • Seeds: Browse all seeds filtered by type (suppression or journey)

Viewing Violations

Violation Details

Click on any hit to see the full email details:

  • Subject line, from address, and sender name
  • Full email body (text and HTML)
  • Raw headers for forensic analysis
  • Detected ESP (SendGrid, Mailgun, etc.)
  • Sender IP address

Campaign Drill-Down

Click on a campaign to see affiliate-by-affiliate breakdown:

  • Status indicator: Green (clean) or red (violations detected)
  • Seed counts: Suppression vs journey seeds assigned
  • Hit counts: Total hits and violations per affiliate
  • Recent violations: Last 5 violations with timestamps

Marking as Reviewed

After investigating a hit, mark it as reviewed to clear it from your pending queue. You can also flag false positives if the system incorrectly identified a violation.

Email Alerts

When a seed is hit, you receive an email alert containing:

  • Campaign and affiliate name
  • Seed email address that was hit
  • Detection timestamp
  • Email subject and sender
  • Direct link to view details in the app
Configure alerts: Update your contact email in customer settings to ensure you receive violation alerts.

ESP Webhook Integration

Connect your Email Service Provider (ESP) to receive bounce, complaint, and unsubscribe notifications that can automatically update your suppression lists.

Supported ESPs

SendGrid
Mailgun
Amazon SES
Mailchimp
Klaviyo
HubSpot

Setup Steps

  1. Navigate to ESP Integrations
  2. Click Add Integration
  3. Select your ESP provider
  4. Copy the webhook URL provided
  5. Configure the webhook in your ESP's dashboard

Auto-Suppression Options

Option Description
Auto-suppress hard bounces Automatically add invalid addresses that permanently fail
Auto-suppress spam complaints Automatically add recipients who report email as spam
Auto-suppress unsubscribes Automatically add recipients who opt out

Best Practices

Suppression Seeds

  • Include seeds in every suppression list export
  • Review violations promptly
  • Use the defaults (3 per affiliate) for good coverage

Journey Seeds

  • Use the affiliate's actual signup form
  • Track signup dates for your records
  • Document the process for compliance evidence

General Recommendations

  • Check dashboard weekly — Review pending violations regularly
  • Act on violations — Follow up with affiliates who violate compliance
  • Keep records — Export violation reports for compliance documentation
  • Start with defaults — The default seed counts work well for most campaigns

Troubleshooting

  • Verify seed monitoring is enabled for the campaign
  • Check that the affiliate is linked to the campaign
  • Ensure seeds haven't been deactivated

  • Verify your contact email is correct in customer settings
  • Check your spam folder
  • Confirm seed monitoring is enabled

If a hit is incorrectly flagged as a violation:
  1. View the hit details
  2. Click "Mark as False Positive"
  3. Add notes explaining why

  • Verify the webhook URL is correct in your ESP
  • Check that the ESP integration is active
  • Review ESP webhook logs for delivery failures

Glossary

Seed
A test email address used to monitor compliance
Hit
An email received by a seed address
Violation
A hit that breaks compliance rules
Suppression Seed
A seed that should never receive email
Journey Seed
A seed that tests the full subscription lifecycle
Active Period
Time when journey seed is subscribed and receiving email is expected
Grace Period
Buffer time after unsubscribe before monitoring begins
Monitoring Period
Time after grace period when any email is a violation

Need Help?

If you have questions or need assistance with seed monitoring, our support team is here to help.

Contact Support