Sending a test email

Sending an email to your audience — whether it's the first time or the thousandth time, can be a daunting prospect.

What if there's a mistake?

What if I send it to the wrong people?

What if it ends up in spam?

We all have our own fears, uncertainties, and doubts when sending a campaign.

Thankfully, EcoSend has a few features to help you out, and one of the most helpful for this situation is the ability to send a test email.

What is a test email?

A test email is a trial run where you send a draft of your campaign to a few people to check it's all OK.

You typically want to send a test email to yourself and anyone else on your team who may be keen to review it before it's sent to your wider audience.

For instance, whenever we send an email out at EcoSend, we typically send it to someone who's good at spotting typos and grammatical errors, someone who has an eye for design, and someone who can check for whether it's aligned with our brand and tone of voice.

Why send a test email?

Sending a test email enables you to catch issues, mistakes, and any unforeseen problems before they reach your subscribers.

You work so hard to build an audience, the last thing you want to do is send them an email that doesn't live up to their expectations.

Sending a test email enables you to spot issues that may not be obvious when you're creating it.

For example:

• How does it look on a mobile device?
• Does it look good in my own inbox?
• Is the sender information correct?
• Does the subject line work with the content?

Frequently asked questions

I sent my test email... why haven't I received it?

Test emails can often get delayed between sending and reaching inboxes. They can also end up in spam folders.

We recommend sending test campaigns to email addresses from as many common mailbox providers as possible — like Gmail and Outlook. This will help to determine if there's a problem with any one mail provider.

Corporate security systems and spam firewalls can be especially strict. If you send a test email to multiple recipients at the same company, this can sometimes flag your email as potential spam.

If you need to send the test email to your work address, we recommend asking your IT team if they can allow it through.

Why are my Variables not working?

In EcoSend, when you send a campaign, EcoSend will choose a contact record to populate for your Variables.

This contact is likely different to the email address you are sending to. But as long as you are seeing the real information for a contact being displayed for each Variable, then you can be sure your Variables are working.

Learn more about using Variables in your emails.

Why did my test email go into spam?

Don't be alarmed if your test email goes into your spam folder.

First, if it does, be sure to mark it as not spam.

Next, ensure you have verified your domain for sending.

Some mailbox providers mark email as spam if it's from the same email address, but didn't get sent by the mailbox itself.

For example, if your work email address is "james@example.com" and you send your test email from EcoSend as "james@example.com" this might suggest to your mailbox provider that the message is spam and to not trust it.

This won't the case for your actual recipients as they aren't james@example.com.

We recommend sending your test email to a mailbox on a different provider and at a different email address — for example your personal email address — to give the best chance of avoiding spam traps and firewalls.