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 that you're satisfied with how it looks in different email clients and devices.
In this article, you'll learn different methods to test your email.
Send a test version of your campaign
Sending a test version of your campaign lets you 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.
Use this test to do a 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.
This test can be done from the Campaign Settings page and the Campaign Summary page.
Before you start:
- You can send a test email to up to 5 different email addresses using this method. Each email address needs to be separated by a comma and a space
- Conditional content, personalization tags, link actions, and any other pieces of information tied to a contact will not render in this type of test
- Any actions (opens, link clicks) taken by your test contact(s) will not be captured or recorded
- 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). To help resolve this, we recommend whitelisting our IP ranges
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Classic Designer: From the Campaign Designer, click the Gear icon. This is located above the right sidebar. A Settings modal will appear.
Email Designer: From the Designer, click either the Gear icon or Test Email icon. -
Type the email address you would like to send a test to in the "Test Your Campaign" Field.
- Click "Send Test."
- Click the "Test and preview" button.
- A modal window will appear. Type the email address you would like to send a test to in the "Send Test Email" Field.
- Click "Send."
Desktop preview
The Desktop Preview shows you how your email looks on both desktop and mobile at a glance. You can use this to see how your design translates from desktop to mobile while changing your email.
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 the Campaign Settings page and the Campaign Summary page.
Using the Email Designer (launched 2022):
From the Campaign Designer, click the Preview icon. This is located above the right sidebar to the left of the gear icon.
A modal will open, and you can view your email on both desktop and mobile.
Using the Classic Designer:
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- From the Campaign Designer, click the Gear icon. This is located above the right sidebar. A Settings modal will appear.
- Click the "Desktop Preview" button.
A modal will open, and you can view your email on both desktop and mobile.
Applies to all email designers.
The Desktop preview from the Campaign Summary page lets you view the email from a specific contact’s point of view, allowing you to see how personalization tags and conditional content will render.
You can also use this to view the plain text version of your email. This option only displays the desktop version of your email.
To access this version of the Desktop preview:
- From the Campaign Summary page, click the "Test and preview" button.
- Click the "Desktop Preview" button.
A modal 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 click “Text.”
Email Client Preview
Email Client Preview (also called Inbox Preview) lets you 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
Customers on the Plus and Professional plans receive five free previews per month. Customers on the Enterprise plan can access unlimited previews. Sharing previews does not count against your monthly preview limit.
The Email Client preview can be accessed from the Designer.
Email Designer (launched 2022):
- From the Campaign Summary page of your email, hover your mouse over your campaign design and click the "Edit design" button that appears.
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Click the Test Email icon. This is located above the right sidebar to the left of the gear icon.
- A modal window will appear. Click "View compatibility" button.
A modal will load where you can view your email and click between the available email clients.
Clicking the “Share This” hyperlink on the left pane of the modal will generate a link you can share with any team member. Sharing a preview does not count against the number of previews you receive per month.
Classic Designer:
- From the Campaign Designer, click the Gear icon. A Settings modal will appear.
- Click the "Email Client Preview" button.
A modal will load where you can view your email.
Clicking “Share This” on the lower right corner of the screen will generate a link you can share with any team member. Sharing a preview does not count against the number of previews you receive per month.
Send your campaign to a test list
With this option, you can create a copy of your campaign and send it to a list of test contacts. You’ll want to make sure you have at least a few different contacts in that test list with different email clients (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 lets you 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) are captured and accessible in the Reports section of your account.
If you wish to send your automated campaigns 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. To help resolve this, we recommend whitelisting our IP ranges.
- Go to the Campaigns Overview page.
- Click the down caret for the campaign you wish to copy then click "Duplicate."
- The copy of the campaign you created will appear at the top of the Campaigns overview page. Click the "Continue" button for that campaign.
- On the Campaign Summary page, click the test list you wish to send the campaign to. Make sure no other list is checked in this step.
- Click "Send Now" to send your campaign to a test list.