The Scenario
You are an email deliverability consultant. A new client has asked you to run an inbox placement test before they launch their first Instantly campaign. They have 6 subject line and body variants they want to test across Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo.
The variants are in a Google Sheet, one per row, with columns for test name, subject, and body. The client wants test IDs back so they can track results in Instantly.
Tuesday afternoon, the client's campaign launches Friday morning. You have 48 hours.
The slow version:
- Log into Instantly
- Open inbox placement tests
- Fill in the test name, paste the subject, paste the body
- Select the ESP recipient list
- Create test 1
- Repeat for tests 2 through 6
- Copy the test ID for each one, paste it somewhere
- You mixed up the test IDs for variants 4 and 5 and now the client's tracking is wrong.
The fast version is one prompt.
The Easy Way: One Prompt in SheetXAI
SheetXAI reads your variant table and creates each inbox placement test in Instantly, writing the test ID back to the sheet so you have a clean record.
Open the SheetXAI sidebar and type:
Create an Instantly inbox placement test for each row in this sheet (columns: Test Name, Email Subject, Email Body) using the default ESP recipient list, and write the test ID back into column D.
SheetXAI reads each row, calls the Instantly inbox placement API to create each test, and writes the returned test ID into column D. Six rows, six test IDs, no manual copy-pasting.
What You Get
Six inbox placement tests created and tracked in the sheet:
- Tests created — one per row, with the name and content from the sheet
- Column D test IDs — the Instantly-assigned ID for each test, ready for tracking
- No manual test creation — you never opened the Instantly inbox placement UI
- Source of truth — the sheet now maps every variant to its Instantly test ID
The column D IDs are the part the client cares about. They can check test results directly in Instantly using those IDs while you move on to the next client.
What If the Data Is Not Quite Ready
Variant sheets from creative teams are rarely ready to pass directly to an API.
When the subject lines have unresolved placeholders
The copywriter left {{client_name}} in two subject lines as a placeholder for review. Sending those to an inbox test will give you garbage results.
Check the Email Subject column for any Instantly-incompatible placeholders or unresolved template variables. Flag those rows in column D as "REVIEW NEEDED" instead of creating a test. Create tests for all other rows and write the test ID into column D.
When you want to test only the top 3 variants the client prioritized
The client ranked variants in column E from 1 to 6. You want to run placement tests on the top 3 first.
Filter to rows where the Priority column is 1, 2, or 3. Create an Instantly inbox placement test for each of those rows using the Test Name, Email Subject, and Email Body columns. Write the test ID into column D.
When the body column has formatting HTML that needs to be stripped
Some bodies were drafted in a rich-text tool and copied with HTML tags. The placement test should use plain text.
Strip all HTML tags from the Email Body column before creating the tests. Then create an Instantly inbox placement test for each row and write the test ID into column D.
When you want to create tests and immediately pull back the initial placement results in one session
You want to see first results without a second prompt.
Create an Instantly inbox placement test for each row in this sheet. Write the test ID into column D. Then wait 5 minutes and pull the initial placement results for each test ID, writing the inbox, spam, and missing percentages into columns E, F, and G.
The pattern: create, track, retrieve — one session instead of two separate operations.
Try It
Get the 7-day free trial of SheetXAI and open any subject line variant sheet, then ask it to create the inbox placement tests in Instantly. The Instantly integration is included in every SheetXAI plan. For related workflows, see how to export campaign analytics for comparison or the Instantly in Google Sheets overview.