How to Send A Test Email

You have crafted a perfect template, set up the mailing, and are ready to activate it. One click, and your message will be seen by thousands, or even millions, of recipients… But before you hit the “Activate” button, make sure that your email looks as intended in the mailbox.

To do this, send a test message to yourself or your colleagues. We recommend testing your emails in all popular email services (including mobile versions).

By the way, test sending is not limited by the email channel, but also available for SMS messages, push notifications, messenger campaigns, or messages in a custom channel.

What Makes Test Message Sending Useful

Test send allows you to identify a number of issues, including but not limited to:

Formatting errors
Incorrect links
Problems with images or attached files
Incorrect display of dynamic content (e.g., instead of "Welcome, John!" the recipient sees "Welcome, {name}!")
Errors with the template logic
Messages being blocked by ISPs due to content
Incorrect of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, which may lead to the message landing in "Spam" or being blocked
Incorrect message display in some email services or browsers
Problems with color inversion in the dark mode

How to Run a Test Mailing

You can test any type of mailing available in Altcraft: broadcast, regular, trigger, and even MVT. To launch a test, select the desired message and click the "Test" icon:

In a new window, three tabs will be available: "Mailing settings", "Test subscribers", and "Go testing".

Mailing Settings

This tab contains general information about the mailing: the channel, the subscriber base to which messages will be sent, the resource they are subscribed to, and the message template itself. No action is required here.

Test Subscribers

In this tab, you need to select the database with profiles to which you want to send a test mailing. The list will display all available test profiles. Select the ones you need by clicking on them.

A test profile is a customer whose digital profile has the following option enabled:

You can also create a test profile directly in the interface by clicking the "Create new test profile" button. A window will appear on the right where you need to fill in the profile data: first name, last name, email. Be sure to add a subscription to the resource you are using for the current mailing:

By the way, you can test several email addresses at once to check how the message displays in different email clients.

Click the "Create profile" button to save the test subscriber.

Important! A subscriber with this email address must not already exist in the database, otherwise the platform will report an error.

Go Testing

This tab displays the subscribers you have selected as recipients of the test campaign.

To launch the test mailing, click the "Test" button in the upper right corner:

The test messages will be sent immediately to the selected users, and you will see the log with test results:

Important! If the "Number of subscribers received from the source" is 0, this means that the message was not sent to any of the selected profiles. We recommend checking that they have a subscription to the required channel on the resource.

FAQ

1. Does analytics include data from test sends?

By default, test send data is not included in channel and traffic reports. However, you can include it by enabling a special filter: "More" → "Include tests in report".

2. Does a test profile receive only test messages or actual mailings as well?

A test profile receives messages on par with other profiles in the database. That is, when you launch a mailing, it will be sent to this profile, but only if it has an appropriate subscription to the resource.

Conclusion

A test email allows you to ensure that the message will display properly across various email clients and browsers. This is why, instead of rushing to launch a mailing, we recommend checking its functionality by sending messages to yourself and your colleagues first.