This article is about the Testing stage in a Marketing Tools broadcast. There are several stages which can be worked on individually (and in almost any order):
- Setup – the name and type of broadcast
- Audience – who the broadcast will go to
- Message – the broadcast message itself
- Testing – testing the message by sending tests to yourself, colleagues or a seed list
- Sending – sending the message
- Reporting – reporting on a sent message
Testing a broadcast
Once your message, or messages, are ready, it is highly recommended that you send test emails and/or SMSs before hitting send on a broadcast to a live audience.
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SMS If testing SMS, you will receive the message if the test recipient has a valid phone number for that supporter. |
Your test email or SMS is an opportunity to double-check that your links are working, images are rendering properly, there are no typos, landing pages are working properly, and so on.
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Note that the subject lines of test emails will have [TEST] prepended to them. |
When you reach the testing stage, you will see a screen like this:
Left hand side of the Testing screen
On the left hand side you will see a list of messages within the broadcast (if you only have one Core message, then you’ll see only one).
Within this list, you can check or uncheck the messages you want to test, and you can also edit the message, send a test, or delete the message from the broadcast.
Right hand side of the Testing screen
This side allows you to Add email addresses for testing. Once added they will show within the first dotted area.
You can either add an email address by typing into the box and clicking Add, or (Previous Test Recipients), so you can click the + icon next to previously used addresses to add these into the test send. As of release 4.8, testing is now possible without a pre-selected audience, so you can test how it will appear whether you have figured out your audience yet.
You can also include a Seed List, which is a preset list of email addresses.
Preview the Email
As of release 4.8, you can preview the email(s) in your browser and also grab a URL to share with others.
Sending the test messages
Click “Send Test Message” once you are ready to send. You can then review the email within the inbox.
Notes
- If you have one-click unsubscribe enabled in your broadcast, testing the unsubscribe link will unsubscribe the test recipient. Remember to change their opt-in back to Y after testing
- Subject lines of test emails will have [TEST] prepended to them
- Test emails do not pre-populate landing pages
There are a number of ways you can get an important secondary review of your email campaign before sending it out to your larger audience. One option is to include an email audit service as part of your standard testing procedures. There are a variety of paid and free services that provide a useful review of your emails, how they look in different inboxes, your sending reputation, and so on.
Here is a short list of example email auditing services you could choose from: Email Audit, Email on Acid, Litmus, 250ok, Mail Tester
Troubleshooting
- If you do not receive your email, ensure your domain is authenticated.
- You can also test sending to a non-work email domain (e.g. gmail.com) since your IT department may have additional verification checks for emails sent from senders using your domain
- As ever, contact Support if you are still having problems