As you progress through the creation process, the campaign testing will become available. These tests are designed to check your campaigns content and functions, helping to encourage client interaction and maximise your deliverabilty.
Before testing a campaign, you will need to attach a mailing list. This is so the system can send you a test using the details from a contact in the list.
On this page:
Send Test Email
Once you have finished creating your campaign, we recommend sending yourself a test copy before launch to ensure the email looks and works as expected.
The 'Send Test' button will immediately send a test email to the address of the current user and a notification will appear at the top of the overview screen. The button is available from the Overview page as well as within the content editing interface, both HTML and Text pages.
Note: if a campaign contains both HTML and Text, the test email will contain both messages.
More test options...
Further testing options are available via the 'More test options...' link, such as sending a test email to a different address.
Send to
You can select a number of options to determine who will receive the test email using the drop-down menu.
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Sending to a single email address: You can simply enter this manually.
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Sending to multiple email addresses: You can manually insert a maximum of 6 addresses, each entered onto a separate line.
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Sending to another Adestra user: Clicking the 'Select User' button allows you to select from a list of available users.
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Sending to an Adestra User Group: Use the drop-down menu to select from a list of available user groups.
Text Only
It is possible to omit sending the HTML content by selecting 'Send only text content', in order to just receive the text content when testing.
Subject tag
The 'Subject tag' appears at the beginning of the email subject line to identify the test emails in your inbox. You can change the tag using the text box provided.
Populate the test using
You also have the option to populate the test using a particular contact's details, which can be useful for testing personalisation.
- An automatically-selected contact: A single contact will be selected automatically from your specified mailing list.
- A specific contact from your list: This allows you to choose a specific contact from the attached list.
- Several contacts: This provides a text box to enter multiple email addresses to use.
- Automatically generated example data: Dummy data will be used instead of real contact data.
Note: If criteria for conditional content is not met and no default values are in place, blank values will be displayed in the test.
Content and Spam Check
For more advanced testing of the content of your campaigns, the Content and Spam Check function allows you to test your campaigns in several different email clients. This will display your emails as they will appear to different recipients including on mobile devices, allowing you to check that the campaign will display as intended in all email clients.
Further Testing
There are further testing options available within the campaign launch process, including a spam check and link check. For more information please refer to the Launch documentation.
FAQ
Will my account be charged for sending test emails?
No, test emails are not chargeable.
Are tests recorded anywhere?
No, any tests sent will not be recorded.
Is there a way to send a test that doesn't use a real contact?
No, but you can add a "dummy" contact to the list and select that as a specific contact for the test.
I sent a test using the 'several contacts' option and didn't receive anything, why?
The system will send one email to each 'Send to' address for each contact it finds in the core table that match the contact addresses you have entered. If it can't find any of the email addresses you provided, no tests will be sent.
I put an email address into the 'several contacts' box that isn't on my list, and I still got an email, why?
The system will look for the contact anywhere on the core table, not just the list.