Testing your campaign

Testing your campaign before sending it out to your list is a critical step in your email marketing process. We recommend using different methods to help ensure that your links are working properly, personalization tags are rendering, the correct conditional content (if using) is displaying, and more. In addition, thoroughly testing your email allows you to see how your email looks in different email clients and devices so you can make adjustments as needed before sending your message out to your list.

Send a test version of your campaign

Sending a test version of your campaign will allow you to see how the email looks in a specific recipient’s email client. You can also use this method with multiple team members to see how this email looks in different email clients and devices.

This test is useful to do a final, quick review of content and to make sure all links and buttons are taking you to the correct destination when clicked. Replies to test can also be received by the “From” email address.

Conditional content, personalization tags, link actions, and any other pieces of information tied to a contact will not render in this type of test. In addition, any actions (ie, opens, link clicks) taken by your test contact(s) will not be captured or recorded.

This test can be accessed from two different places in the Campaign Builder:

Campaign Settings

1. From the Campaign Designer, click the Gear icon.

2. Type the email address you would like to send a test to in the "Test Your Campaign" Field.

3. Click "Send Test."

Campaign Summary page

1. From the Campaign Designer, click "Next."

2. Type the email address you would like to send a test to in the "Send Test Email" Field.

3. Click "Send Test."

Make sure that the email address receiving this test message is different than the “From” email address. If these two email addresses are the same, you may not receive the test email as it can get blocked or go to your spam folder. In addition, you may experience deliverability issues if the “From” email address and “To” email address share the same domain (ie, @mycompany.com). 

 

Desktop preview

Desktop preview shows you how your email looks in both desktop and mobile at a glance. You can use this to see how your design translates from desktop to mobile while making changes to your email. It’s important to note that this should not be used as your only design test as each email client and device renders html differently.

The Desktop preview can be accessed from two different places in the Campaign Builder:

Campaign Settings page

1. From the Campaign Designer, the Gear icon on the upper right corner.  

2. Click the "Desktop Preview" button.

A new window will open where you can view your email in both desktop and mobile.

 

Campaign Summary page

The Desktop preview from the Campaign Summary page will allow you to view the email from a specific contact’s point of view, allowing you to see how personalization tags will render as well as conditional content. In addition, you can also view the plain text version of your email. This only displays the desktop version of your email.

To access this version of the Desktop preview:

1. From the Campaign Designer, click "Next."

2. Click "Desktop Preview."

A window will open where you can view the desktop version of your email:

To see how this email will look for a specific contact, type their email address in the email address field located on the top right of your screen. Then click “Preview.”

To view the plain text format of your email, click the “Format” dropdown and select “Text.”

 

Email Client Preview

Email Client Preview (also called Inbox Preview) allows you to see how your email will appear across the following email clients:
Gmail
Yahoo
Apple Mail
Outlook (Outlook.com, 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016)
iPhone
iPad

This is an optional paid service for customers on the Lite Plan. Customers on the Plus and Professional plans receive 5 free previews per month and customers on the Enterprise plan have access to unlimited previews.

The Email Client preview can be accessed from two different places in the Campaign Builder:

Campaign Settings modal

1. From the Campaign Designer, click the Gear icon located on the upper right corner.

2. Click "Email Client Preview."

Campaign Summary page

1. From the Campaign Designer, click "Next."

2. Click "Email Client Preview."

Clicking the Email Client Preview button from either the Campaigns Settings modal or the Campaign Summary page will load the Compatibility Preview Window where you can view your email. 

Clicking “Share This” on the lower right corner of the compatibility preview screen will generate a link that you can share with any member of your team so that they can see how the email renders in different email clients.

Send your campaign to a test list

After you have created your campaign you can create a copy of it and send it to a test list. You’ll want to make sure you have at least a few different contacts in that test list with different email clients (ie, work email, yahoo, gmail, etc) and that you and/or members of your team have access to those email accounts.

Sending the actual campaign to a test list will allow you and your team members to see how the campaign will look on different email clients and devices. In addition, you can test personalization tags, conditional content, link clicks and actions, buttons, and more. All contact actions (link clicks and opens) will be captured and accessible on the Reports page.

If you wish to send your automation email to any test contacts, simply add them to the automation using the bulk edit tool.

If the “From” email address and “To” email addresses in the test list share the same domain (ie, @mycompany.com) you may experience deliverability issues. 

1. Create a copy of the campaign you wish to test. To do so, click the down caret for the campaign and click "Duplicate."

2. The copy of the campaign will appear at the top of the Campaigns overview page. Click "Continue."

3. On the "Select List" step, click the test list you wish to send the campaign to.

Make sure no other list is checked in this step.

3. On the Campaign Designer page, click "Next."

4. On the Campaign Summary page, click "Send Now" to send your campaign to a test list.