How to Send Test Email: Comprehensive Guide
A test email can be a great way to test functionality; when you send test email, you confirm if your email account is sending and receiving emails as intended. But what’s the correct way to send test emails?
Test emails mean different things for email users on mail providers such as Gmail/Yahoo and for email marketers. In this guide, we cover both.
What is a Test Email?
A test email is simply an email you send to yourself or another trusted contact to check if your email account is working correctly. It’s like a quick trial run before you start using your email regularly for important communications.
First, we will cover explain the benefits of sending test emails for email users and how to actually do it. Then, we will dive deeper into test emails in email marketing, where they play a far more critical role.
Mailbox Users: Why Send Test Emails?
Imagine setting up a new phone number — you’d probably call yourself to make sure it works, right? A test email is similar.
Sending a test email when you set up a new company or personal email account is a crucial step in ensuring smooth communication.
Let’s review the 9 reasons why it’s a good idea:
- Verification: You can double-check if you entered your email address accurately.
- Test incoming mail: It confirms that emails can be successfully delivered to your inbox.
- Test outgoing mail: It verifies that you can send emails from the new account.
- Email client configuration: It ensures your email client (Outlook or Apple Mail) is set up correctly to access the new account.
- Identify email server problems: By testing, you can detect any issues with the email server, preventing communication breakdowns during critical times.
- Test email deliverability: Check if your emails are being mistakenly marked as junk by spam filters.
- Confirm sending limits: Identify any limitations on attachment size or types.
- Effective communication: It ensures important emails are delivered and received without delay.
- Time management: Prevents misunderstandings caused by email issues.
By taking a few minutes to send a test email, you can save yourself time and frustration in the long run. It’s a small investment that can significantly benefit your personal or professional life.
Email Users: How to Send Test Email
To send a test email, follow these simple steps:
- Open the email client and start a new message.
- In the “To” field, type a tried and tested email address.
- Write a simple subject line; something like “Test Email” is sufficient.
- Now write a brief message like “This is a test email.”
- Send the email.
- After sending the email, log in to the trusted email account and check the inbox for the test email. This will confirm if emails can be sent and received successfully.
This test should be repeated on the smartphone email app and also via web access.
Email Marketing: Send Test Emails For These Reasons
For email marketers, a test email is an essential step in the email marketing process to ensure all types of email campaigns run successfully and error-free.
Let’s check out the various aspects of email marketing that testing can help you optimize.
1. Email Deliverability
Email deliverability tools assess the quality of your domain and IP reputation; if they’re poor, you will face deliverability issues. Such tests also check that proper authentication methods (DKIM, SPF, DMARC) are in place to enhance deliverability and security.
2. Content and Design
Email testing tools help you ensure the message aligns with email branding guidelines, including logos, colors, fonts, and overall style. You can also confirm that the core message is clear, compelling, and effectively communicated. It also offers an opportunity to confirm your mobile email marketing is on point.
If you’re using email personalization, testing can verify that any personalized elements (recipient’s name, personalized offers) are correctly implemented.
3. Technical Checks
With email tests, you can ensure the email’s HTML and CSS code are correctly formatted and will render properly across different email clients.
4. Spam Filter Testing
Spam tests run the email through spam filters; such tests can help detect elements that could cause the email to be marked as junk.
5. Segmentation and Targeting
By sending test emails, you can confirm the email is being sent to the correct customer segment of the audience and that any segment-specific content is appropriately included. This is a good way to test whether dynamic email content adjusts correctly for different recipient segments.
6. Performance Metrics
Test emails help verify if tracking codes (UTM parameters, email tracking pixels) are correctly embedded to measure open rates, click-through rates, and other performance metrics.
By sending a test email, marketers can identify and resolve issues before launching the campaign, ensuring that the final email is polished, professional, and effective in achieving its goals.
Email Testing in Email Marketing: What to Test
There is a range of email tests you can run as an email marketer. With adequate testing, you can significantly ramp up the email performance.
Check out the different types of email tests that are available to you:
| Email test | Test description | How it works |
|---|---|---|
| Deliverability | It assesses the likelihood of emails reaching the inbox rather than being marked as spam. | It analyzes sender reputation, email authentication, and content for spam triggers. |
| Rendering and device formatting | It ensures emails display correctly across email clients (Outlook) and devices (desktop, mobile, tablet). | It provides previews of how the email looks in different clients and devices. |
| Spam | It evaluates the email against common spam filters. | It analyzes components such as subject line, content, and domain reputation. |
| Link and image validation | It verifies that all hyperlinks and images in the email are working and loading correctly. | It checks for broken links and ensures URLs lead to the correct destinations. |
| HTML/CSS validation | It ensures the HTML/CSS code used is error-free and compatible across different clients. | It validates the code for errors and compatibility issues. |
| Load time analysis | It measures how quickly the email loads in different email clients and devices. | It assesses the size of images, scripts, and content to ensure quick loading. |
| Accessibility | It ensures the email is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities. | It checks for screen reader compatibility, color contrast, and alt text for images. |
| Email authentication | It verifies proper email authentication methods (SPF, DKIM, DMARC). | It ensures these protocols are correctly implemented and emails pass authentication checks. |
How to Send Test Email Messages in Email Marketing
Sending test email messages is a critical step in email marketing, allowing you to identify and fix issues before your campaign reaches your audience.
Here’s an 11-step guide on how to send test email messages effectively:
- Prepare your email: Start by crafting a compelling subject line, an engaging preheader text, and the main content of the email.
- Add personalized elements: This is where you add the recipient’s name, personalized offers, or dynamic content based on user behavior.
- Preview email: If the platform has a preview feature, check how your email appears on different devices.
- Use your ESP’s test feature: ESPs typically provide a test function. This is usually labeled as “Send Test Email” or something similar.
- Add contact list: Enter the email addresses of those who will receive the test email; this could be a designated test group.
- Send the test email: Click the button to send the test email to the selected recipients. Confirm the action if prompted by the platform.
- Review the test email: Check your inbox and those of your test recipients to ensure the email has been delivered. Open the email on various devices and email clients.
- Test links/CTAs: Click on each link, button, and CTA within the email to verify they direct to the correct destinations.
- Check personalization: Confirm that all personalized elements display correctly for each test recipient.
- Run a spam filter test: Use the spam testing feature provided by your ESP or an external tool to check if your email is likely to be marked as spam.
- Compliance check: Verify your email complies with relevant regulations, such as including a one-click unsubscribe link and your physical mailing address.
This process helps you catch any issues early and make necessary adjustments, improving the overall effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.
Tools and Platforms to Send Test Email
Email testing tools are essential for ensuring that your email marketing campaigns are effective, visually appealing, and function correctly across various platforms. Below are detailed descriptions of some popular email testing tools and their features.
Litmus
Litmus is a comprehensive email testing and analytics tool widely used by email marketers to optimize their campaigns.
With Litmus, you get these features:
- Email previews: Provides previews of how emails render across 100+ email clients and devices, including desktop, mobile, and web-based clients.
- Spam tests: Analyzes emails against popular spam filters to check for elements that might trigger spam filters. Shares a spam score and suggestions to improve deliverability.
- Link checking: Automatically checks all links, buttons, and images to ensure they work correctly; helps identify broken links and incorrect URLs.
- Personalization tests: Verifies email personalization is working correctly on test emails.
- Code analysis: Ensures the email code is clean and optimized for various email clients.
Email on Acid
Email on Acid offers a range of testing tools designed to help marketers optimize their emails for better performance and deliverability.
Email on Acid lets you test emails with these functions:
- Pre-deployment checklist: An automated pre-deployment checklist that combines end-to-end content checks, deliverability tests, and previews.
- Email previews: It offers previews for more than 100 email clients/devices.
- Spam testing: It runs emails through major spam filters to identify potential issues.
- Accessibility Testing: Analyzes emails for accessibility compliance and provides insights and suggestions to improve email accessibility.
- Image Validation: With this, you can ensure images are functioning correctly. Checks for rendering and load time issues.
- Inbox Display: This function shows how emails will appear in different inboxes and apps, helping you optimize emails for better visual appeal and functionality.
Testi@
Testi@ or Testiat is a user-friendly and simple tool that provides essential testing features to help marketers ensure their emails are ready for deployment.
You get these basic features for email testing:
- Inbox previews: Displays how emails will look on more than 121 different email clients and devices.
- Spam testing: The tool checks the likelihood of your emails getting flagged by mailbox providers. Feedback is provided on elements that may trigger spam filters.
- Blacklist check: The blacklist check will test a mail server IP address against hundreds of DNS-based email blacklists.
SendForensics
SendForensics specializes in deliverability optimization and provides detailed insights into how to improve email performance.
The platform offers email marketers these testing functions:
- Deliverability testing: Analyzes emails to ensure they reach the inbox rather than the spam folder. SendForensics also provides deliverability scores and recommendations for improvement.
- Reputation Dashboard: This feature tracks sender reputation to help improve inbox placement rates.
- Authentication checks: This feature verifies SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are working correctly.
- Spam tests: SendForensics runs emails through multiple spam filters to identify potential issues. It also offers a detailed spam score and improvement suggestions.
Email Preview Services
Email Preview Services focuses on providing accurate previews of how emails will appear across different clients and devices.
With Email Preview Services, you can:
- Preview your emails: Check how emails look on various email clients (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo) and devices (desktop, mobile).
- Test emails for spam: Evaluate emails against common spam filters to identify elements that may cause them to be marked as spam. EPS provides a spam score and suggestions.
- Validate HTML: Check the HTML code for errors and best practices; this ensures compatibility across different email clients and devices.
- Test links: You can verify that all links in the email are functional and lead to the correct destinations.
- Analyze load time: With this function, you can measure how quickly emails load in different clients and devices. This helps you optimize email content for faster loading times.
By utilizing these tools, you can ensure campaigns are well-optimized, visually appealing, and have a higher chance of reaching recipients’ inboxes.
Campaign Refinery: Achieve Consistent Inbox Placement
At Campaign Refinery, we offer robust testing to ensure email errors don’t undermine your marketing efforts. Our testing features let you send test emails with ease, ensuring your campaigns land perfectly in inboxes.
With our segmentation and tagging features, you can also focus on small segments, aiming for significantly higher engagement stats. We have responsive email templates, a simple email editor, and powerful reporting features to ensure your emails consistently hit the mark.
With Campaign Refinery, you can worry less about your emails getting caught in spam– there’s a reason we’re the number 1 ESP when it comes to email deliverability!
Ready to level up your email performance? Apply to become a Campaign Refinery sender today!
