Testing your campaign

Your Emma account comes with a default audience group called the test group. You can add up to 10 email addresses to it for the purpose of testing email campaigns before they're sent to your general audience.

During the campaign creation process, it's a great idea to send several drafts of your email to your test group. Click on all the links and consider viewing it in different email clients to see what your readers will see. All email clients render HTML slightly differently and, via testing, you'll have a good idea of what these slight variations look like.

Mailings to your test group aren't included in your monthly plan, so test away at no charge.

Managing your test group

Adding members to your test group
Sending a campaign to your test group
Distinguishing a test send from a general send

Adding members to your test group:

From the main audience screen, click Add. It's at the top.
This will open up a blank member record. Fill in the information in the fields provided.
Check test group in the groups list on the right.
The mailing status is already set to active. Leave it that way.
Select Save or Save & add another. Remember, you can add up to 10 addresses to this group.

It's okay for someone to be part of more than one group in your audience. The folks in your test group can also exist in other groups.

Sending a campaign to your test group:
From the main campaigns screen, click on the campaign you'd like to send. Then, click the Send tab.

Set your From name and From email address to show recipients who this email will be from. Whatever you've saved in your Account & billing section will appear here by default, but you can edit the fields here for a particular mailing without changing those settings.
Choose the Signup form that will appear to anyone who clicks the "sign up to receive future emails" link at the bottom of the campaign.
And choose your Delivery style. Standard delivery includes both HTML and plaintext and lets servers choose their preferred format. For testing purposes, you may want to send to your test group twice: once set to Standard delivery, and once set to Plaintext only delivery.
Now, choose the Groups radio button. Choose the test group in the dropdwon menu below Add a group.
Click the Add button to the right.
After you add the test group, you'll see it appear in the You've added box.
Confirm that all details are correct in the Mailing summary sidebar.
Then, click Send your mailing now for immediate delivery. Or use the Send your mailing later option to schedule this test send for a future time and date.

Distinguishing a test send from a general send

Perhaps the most obvious way to distinguish a test mailing is by adding the word 'Test' in the email's subject line. This is certainly okay to do, but you may run the risk of forgetting to change the subject line later, when you're ready to send to your general audience group(s).

Instead of altering the email's subject line, consider editing your campaign's from name in the send tab with a helpful reminder like 'Test' or 'Draft' or 'Hey team, read this.' Next time you send - whether it's a second test or the final send-off - the from address in the send tab will revert back to what you've set as the default (in the Account & billing portion of your account), so you won't accidentally send a real campaign with 'Test' in the subject line.

Using the proof Tab - Checking for common delivery issues
Sending a campaign - Choosing your audience and sending your email

Emma is a member of the Email Sender & Provider Coalition and the Messaging Anti-Abuse Working Group.