5 steps to thorough email marketing testing

There are usually two types of mistakes that are found in email marketing campaigns, the first a simple typo and the second a bad link that may impact deliverability. Both can have a negative impact on your brand, the first makes you look sloppy with no attention to detail and the second may mean the email doesn’t even get delivered to the inbox!

Below I’ve outlined some easy to implement testing tricks that should prevent these from happening:

1.    Set up a proper testing process with your team

Ad-hoc testing is usually where the typo style mistakes happen, if your team aren’t working through the same testing process when every campaign is sent out then this will start to occur. Set up a definitive process that must be done and signed off by both the tester and their manager so they are accountable for what they are doing.

2.    Use the tools your email marketing provider has given you

Different providers will have different tools but all of them should have a spam checker available. This is an automatic tool that will scan your finished email for any potential spammy problems that you may not even know exist and will recommend you change them.

Other tools at your disposal may include a test which shows what your email looks like in different inboxes. All inboxes have slight differences as to how they show things, for example hotmail won’t show alt text with images switched off so you’d only see a greyed out box. These differences should impact your decision on how you create your email.

3.    Don’t leave the testing to one person

If they’ve written and created the email then when they check it over it will most likely read as they think it should. Send a test campaign to the whole team as they will all find different mistakes. You could use this as an opportunity to let sales or customer services know what campaigns are going out – tell them when and why it’s going out and ask that they scan over the email for any errors before it goes.

4.    Send tests through your software

A lot of people will test a campaign by forwarding a design or using a one to one. You need to set up the campaign in your software from start to finish to make sure everything from links to subject lines are working properly.

5.    Use a checklist

If people have a list to go through and sign off then it will negate forgetting something. Eventually it will become second nature but until then it helps to prompt and also gives physical proof that the testing has been done correctly. One that my team uses can be found here: http://www.pure360emailmarketing.co.uk/the-email-marketing-checklist