Preview and Test Your Email
View a walk-through of the Preview step in the emfluence ClickLearn section here.
After you have finished composing your message, it’s time to see what all your hard work will look like. You can preview the HTML and TEXT-only versions of your email within the Marketing Platform or you can send a test email to yourself or anyone else you would like to receive feedback from.
If you are using variable content in your email, you may want to preview some of your contacts to make sure the data looks like you expect. NOTE: When using variables in an email, any contact whose fields are blank on their contact record will be blank on the email. To remove data for a selected contact, click the reset link.
To send a test email, either type an individual email address in the Send Proof Email field and press Send Proof, or select a Test Group from the drop down menu. You can only send proof emails and use contact preview when the person you want to send to is a contact of the emfluence Marketing Platform. If you type in an address that isn't recognized you will be given the opportunity to create them as a new contact.
When clicking Send Proof, you will get a pop-up to confirm you want to send the contact a proof of your email. Click Send Proof to continue. You will receive a confirmation message when the proof email has been sent. In just a few minutes, your message will be sent to your test email recipient(s). As you saw in the Compose step, you will also see a notification on the size of your HTML content (not including images). This will help you know if the size of your email gets large enough where it could cause deliverability issues in some inboxes. If your email is larger than 100KB you might want to examine editing your content.
NOTE: Proof emails can expire, and once they do the links in them (which include emfluence's redirect tracking URL) will fail to function and error if you go back and click on a link in an old proof. Links in proofs of Automated Emails will work for 7 days. Links in Workflow Testing will only work for as long as the test lasts.
One of the features of the emfluence Marketing Platform is the ability to do a Pre-Flight check of your email. The Pre-Flight Check tab is the third tab in the Preview/Test section. This tab will allow you to test your emails against popular Spam filters to see if they’ll pass, and preview your email in common email clients like Gmail and Yahoo! Mail and across various devices. NOTE: These renderings come to us from a provider. Some results may come back sooner than other. Re-clicking the Pre-Flight Check button will not make it run faster. If some renderings are not immediately available, you may need to wait until our provider can return them. emfluence does pay for every Pre-Flight run, so we ask that customers do not abuse the feature.
To send a Pre-Flight check for your email, click "Send Pre-Flight Check," and your results will automatically refresh in the Email Rendering and Spam Filter tabs until the Pre-Flight is done.
What exactly will a Pre-Flight check show you?
Email Rendering: Send your message to the most common email clients, including multiple desktop, web-based, and mobile email renderings, in the form of a snapshot of what the email will look like in each inbox. This will help you verify that your HTML and graphics will render properly across a broad range of email clients and devices. NOTE: Use of embed images is not supported on Pre-Flight at this time.
Spam Filter Check: Test your message to see if it will pass through the most common Spam filters at their basic settings, including Gmail, Yahoo!, Outlook, SpamAssassin, and Barracuda. If your message passes these Spam filters, you’re likely to make it into the Inbox. If it doesn’t, you’ll want to review the Results column to see if any words or content are triggering the fail. NOTE: The addresses where the Pre-Flight is taking place are all based on default settings, have no history with you nor do they have your sending domain in their safe senders list or address book. Even if you see some domains come back as more likely to go to spam, if you do have history with those addresses (in the actual send) that will help them avoid the spam folder.
A pop-up modal will appear that will allow you to click through renderings using the arrows on the sides or the left scroll bar. You can also toggle between images on/off to view the text-only version of your email:
Click the Spam Filter Check to see how the content and subject line of your message perform in various spam filters. If your email fails one or more spam filters you'll see an orange warning symbol next to the tab label. Some spam filters will offere reasons for a high spam score, others will not. It is possible to get a slight spam score but still pass. A fail does not mean no one using that inbox will be unable to receive your email, it just means that a higher percentage on default settings is likely to go to the junk mail folder or possibly not make it to your recipients. Additional steps, such as having your subscribers add your sending address to their address book/safe-senders list, will incerease the chance of your emails getting through.
Also, pay attention to the authentication portion at the top of your Pre-Flight. If you don't see DKIM and Domain Keys passing, please reach out to support@emfluence.com to get the correct files on your DNS.
NOTE: Some inbox spam filters are harder to get through than others, and some are likely not to apply to your contact list. GMX Mail is a German mail service that is likely not well-represented in your list. Mail.com is a free mail service (think a less-used Yahoo! or Gmail) that has a strong filter against marketing messages and is designed to put those in the spam folder. If you have previously run Pre-Flight on an email, you do have the ability to see those results by clicking the Summary Pre-Flight quick link even if you are no longer on the Compose step. If you need to re-run Pre-Flight, however, you will need to return to the Compose step.
After completing the Compose step, as you work through the various other steps on your way to send, schedule, or activate your email, details will continue to be saved. Some of these can be seen by expanding the "Show Details" section. This section will show your subject, from name and address, reply to name and address, the estimated HTML size of your email not counting images (anything above 100KB will trigger a warning), approval status, tracking status, if images were embedded (only available in some accounts), and groups assigned to the email. This section can be hidden by clicking "Hide Details."
