Posted by Introduction
You fire off an email, but does it hit the mark or miss it entirely? It depends on the email testing tools you work with.
In this chaotic email universe, everything from the signup stage to the landing in the inbox has the potential to derail. If you don’t address these missteps, they’ll chip away at the efficacy of your email as a marketing tool and impact the experience.
What does your company need to draw out the utmost potential of email marketing? Let’s get down to brass tacks by examining every email testing tool available, including when and why to use them.
Types of Email Testing Tools
Finding the perfect email testing tool can be like finding a needle in a haystack.
Your company might have a specific hurdle to clear: whether you’re looking to optimize emails, ensure error-free HTML email efforts, or test variables about email deliverability.
Each problem calls for a distinct type of instrument, just as a fisherman selects a specific hook depending on the fish he’s aiming to catch. In this article, we will explore five different types of email testing software.
You’ll soon find that email testing tools aren’t as daunting as an unexplored cave – they can be as easy to understand and implement as your favorite recipe.
Types:
- Email Address Validation’ – it does what it says on the tin. Want to ensure that your freshly baked marketing loaf isn’t going out to expired addresses? This is the tool for you.
- Html Email Previews- Next up in our orderly parade of tools is ‘HTML Email Previews’. Is there anything more distressing than baking up a beautiful cake, only to discover all the icing has slid off? This tool ensures your visual efforts don’t go unnoticed by letting you preview your dessert before serving it up.
- Email quality assurance- Our third entrant is ‘Email Quality Assurance Testing’. Just as a chef uses this knife, so should you use this tool, slicing through any potential bugs or issues and ensuring your contacts enjoy an unspoiled feast.
- Email A/B testing’, – our fourth contender, allows for trial-and-error experimentation – much like first mastering soufflé – with different aspects of your emails, helping in optimization with recipient preferences in mind.
- Inbox Placement/Spam Testing- Finally, our journey through common testing tools concludes with ‘Inbox Placement/Spam Testing’. If your emails were pizza deliveries, wouldn’t it be disastrous if they all ended up in the wrong street? This tool verifies they’re reaching the desired destination – the inbox and not the spam bin.
Some folks have a knack for hunting down free downloads, resorting to fake identities or temporary emails. Tools designed to block these fraudulent contacts from your list are termed email verification tools.
1. So, what’s an email validation service?
An email validation service determines whether an address is real by testing to see if it can be reached. It’s straightforward. It checks if an email is valid by trying to connect with it. Some tools substantiate emails during signup; others comb through your comprehensive list. These are essential. After all, folks abandon personal emails, move on from universities, and switch jobs, leaving old accounts to gather dust.
What is the need for this bulk email testing tool?
Sure, sending a message into oblivion seems absurd, but why else does it matter? A great deal revolves around your standing as a sender and how likely your messages are to reach receivers.
An unread email is like a ghost—nonexistent (invalid email address) yet managing to pull down your engagement rates. In addition, invalid emails result in high bounce rates, which can impede deliverability. Mailbox guardians like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook are quick to spot low engagement and high bounces.
The real menace here, however, is the spam trap. Picture this – deserted accounts resurrected into spam traps. The trap snaps shut if you try to message one of them. Consequently, mailbox providers might shove your genuine messages into the cluttered world of junk mail or block you entirely.
Now, how about a solution? A double opt-in system could be the way forward. New contacts affirm that they wish to be part of the list. They remain outside your list until they acknowledge the link in a verification email. That sounds reasonable.
Who needs an email validation tool?
Imagine being a bulk email sender, your list swelling daily with data from fresh customers and potential clients. The gravity of verifying each email can’t be overstated. It’s akin to maintaining a well-pruned garden. Email Validation is required for email list hygiene.
myEmailVerifier offers a solution that verifies emails and consistently monitors the entire email list. Think of it as a cleaning service for your Email list.
With myEmailVerifier’s Bulk Email Validation API, you can immediately dismiss fake or invalid email addresses before they enter your database. This handy tool also recognizes frequent email typos and provides corrections. Bulk email validation can only get as easy as this.
Unlike other email testing tools for email verification, myEmailVerifier stands tall amongst its counterparts. Rather than relying on faulty SMTP handshakes, it utilizes real-time send data and is impressively quick.
2. A sneak peek into HTML email preview
Ponder over this anecdote about a digital advertiser who had no clue that his seemingly perfect emails appeared as scattered confetti in some well-known email clients. At the same time, they looked flawless in his preferred ESP editor.
Email marketing software shows your campaign on mobile and desktop interfaces. However, the devil lies in how different email clients interpret HTML and CSS. It varies from provider to provider. Hence, visiting CanIEmail.com is a recommendable practice.
Desktop variations of Outlook are particularly notorious for this. But Gmail and other vendors aren’t innocent either. Even though we anticipate that the 2024 version of Outlook will solve some issues, the old editions will be around for a while.
In simple terms, an email preview gives us insight into how an email campaign looks across varying inboxes. Whether it’s a different gadget, a unique client, or another operating system, these previews capture everything. They provide a unique opportunity to spot and correct issues such as mysterious white lines in Outlook or problems with dark-mode emails.
What is the need for this type of email testing tool?
Email campaigns are designed for utmost effectiveness. The entire purpose is thrown off if the emails seem messy and hard to comprehend. Picture the damage it might do to your brand if your emails appear scrambled or devoid of order. Imagine even more challenging scenarios where the email content becomes unreadable. Such rendering inconsistencies can significantly reduce email engagement.
Who Benefits from this type of email testing tool?
This email testing tool is useful for those who have an in-house email developer who manually codes campaigns. It is equally essential for digital agencies and freelancers focusing on email marketing. Wondering why? It ensures their work is error-free.
A report by Sinch Mailjet indicates that roughly 71.5% of global consumers check their emails on mobile devices. This makes it crucial for emails to be designed right for mobile display: responsive, easy to read, and engaging. Mobile device previews provide a handy solution to spot any potential issues.
With Sinch Email on Acid, you get previews for over 100 popular email clients and live devices, dark mode included. It lets you adapt your email testing to suit those important inboxes.
3. A Deeper Look: Email Quality Assurance Testing
Email Quality Assurance (QA) testing offers a comprehensive method to scrutinize the merits of an email campaign. While rendering issues pose a significant challenge, many other aspects must be examined before an email can be deemed ready for sendoff.
The snags could be small, like pesky typos or unintended indecencies, because, let’s face it, we’re all human. Or, you might hit snags that border on serious—broken links, accessibility issues, or even blocklists. Remember to look for these issues so you can rest easy knowing your emails are ready for action.
The minute that campaign hits an inbox, consider it carved in stone.
Several squads trust a marketing checklist via email to certify quality—but the trap is that if it’s completed mainly by hand, it’s an open invitation for mistakes. An automated list translates into a fluid procedure for email testing pre-send off and is much more reliable.
What is the need for this email testing tool?
Although email marketing promises significant returns on investment, every campaign must be primed to utmost perfection for every inbox and subscriber if you desire to milk each campaign for all its worth.
Turning over prospective customers becomes a no-go if busted links fail to direct them to your landing pages. Hurdles in accessibility could render your text unreadable or buttons for email, if on mobile, unclickable. Email marketing campaign bloopers inflict more harm than just tarnishing your brand’s image. Neglecting the task of email quality testing also results in a slash in revenue generated via email.
Who needs this email testing tool?
Whether you’re at the top of the ranks or running a humble online venture, if email is your tool to stir things up and steer customers to your site, quality assurance through pre-sendoff testing is necessary.
At Sinch Email on Acid, we operate using an automated procedure named Campaign Precheck. This method packs in reliable checks for spelling errors and basic deliverability, makes your inbox display more efficient, and implies needed accessibility improvements. Squarely, you have all the freedom to set your quality assurance process according to your needs. And guess what? Alongside this, you get an unlimited testing opportunity with the help of our dependable Email Previews.
4. Email A/B testing
Tests that email validations and previews before booting off a campaign are crucial. Still, another category of tests exists that aids senders in optimizing measurable parameters such as opening rates and clicks.
Email A/B or split testing provides marketing crews an experimental playground to dabble with diversified campaign components and discern what works best. One of the myriad applications could be testing subject lines—you could check which fetches more opens, subject line A or B. Placement, color, and copy of CTA buttons all fall within the testing domain. Even the visuals, headlines, wording, and everything else in your emails are ripe for an A/B test.
What is the need for this email testing tool?
Split testing is a drive to polish your email’s look and wording so that it strikes a chord with your list and encourages email activity. So, do you have a handle on this now?
One’s beliefs about what might prove effective can often fall flat. Even widely accepted best practices may not lead to the most favorable outcomes.
The only indisputable way to ascertain certainty is through conducting A/B tests on email campaigns. The triumphant aspect will frequently catch you off guard. As the world of email marketing espouses, “Always Be Testing” (ABT) for a reason.
For an E.g. Campaign Monitor
Free Trial: set up an account and a campaign at no cost. Going beyond five recipients, though, calls for at least a fundamental plan.
Price tag: A cool $11 per month will cover a mailing list of 100 contacts.
Who needs this email testing tool?
An email marketer who wants superior campaign performance and a deeper understanding of their subscribers must certainly leverage the potential of A/B testing.
5. Testing for Inbox placement and spam
As we go down our list of email testing tools, we reach the fifth and final one. This tool ameliorates an email sender’s existential crisis, which is landing in the dreaded spam folder.
Inbox placement denotes your potential to hit the recipient’s inbox rather than being funneled into spam or rejected by receivers’ mail servers. It might also be known as seed testing or spam testing tools.
“Seed testing” refers to the act of sending test emails to a unique compilation of email addresses, which are referred to as seed mailboxes. These addresses are not actual contacts; they fabricate a report on inbox placement, showing the sender if a mailbox provider is inclined to allow an email in an inbox, direct it to spam, or entirely block it.
A valuable placement report does more than indicate potential email destinations. It pinpoints specific delivery issues that need rectification, including issues with email headers and authentication protocols.
So what is the need for this email testing tool?
The introduction of new directives from Gmail and Yahoo in 2024 has instigated many email senders’ more profound observance of deliverability. Sinch Mailgun’s recent survey, Email and the Customer Experience 2024 reveals that over 72% of consumers use a Gmail account, while over 20% utilize Yahoo Mail. If you’re aiming to connect with people, you need to comply with new requirements.
Understanding how these providers filter emails can help nip deliverability problems in the bud. An appropriate inbox placement testing tool can give you an accurate read of deliverability before the emails reach their addresses.
Who needs this type of email testing tool?
Not all emails hold the same weight. If reliance is placed on transactional emails to keep customers happy and the wheel of business turning, then ensuring those messages find their mark becomes key. Spam is the last place you want transactional emails to show up. But let’s not snub promotional emails—they have their seasonal highs, like during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Did anyone buy those half-priced sneakers?
Authenticity and deliverability are more enigmatic when sending emails than a disappearing magic trick. Who knew, right? Inbox placement testing helps cut through much of this riddle.
Kickbox is clear and concise, neatly presenting data on how many emails successfully reach Primary, Promotions, and Social inboxes.
Its standout strength? Simplicity of integration. A novice can upload Kickbox’s seed list and commence testing easily and quickly. In addition, the connection with widely used email marketing tools like Mailchimp is straightforward and fuss-free. Kind of like fitting a square peg into a square hole. Exactly what you want, without any of the fireworks confetti.
Anyway, are there any free email testing tools?
The answer is yes. Some versions of email testing tools are free on the Internet. However, humdrum clichés such as “Buyer beware” and “You get what you pay for” become apt in this context.
For instance, numerous free email validation tools permit checking only one email at a time. That’s going to be quite the party. Free email testing tools offering spam scores also have contingencies; you can test a handful of emails before reaching a dead-end street, and reliability remains a grey area. Free HTML email previews are typically stingy when it comes to the number of tests and clients permitted.
Surprise, surprise. Numerous blog articles boast free email testing tools, but their actual offerings are nothing more than paid tools making merry with free trials. Someone finds the smelling salts, right?
Fancy a free trial? Sure, nothing wrong there. But for those that value dependable quality, splurging a bit on dependable email testing mechanisms wouldn’t go amiss.
A thorough email testing system
Craving all the email test tools? Here’s a nugget of good news: some resources mentioned here cover more than one test type.
Email Testing Platforms- Conclusion
Turn to Sinch Email on Acid for previews and an all-inclusive email quality assurance platform with your basic deliverability audits.
myEmailVerifier serves up a whole meal of email deliverability features including email validations and inbox placement tests.
Performance fine-tuning, deliverability, and rendering – these can throw your email pathway into chaos quickly.
FAQs
What are email testing tools?
Tools for testing emails let you examine your email campaigns before their launch ensuring each mail reaches its target audience fittingly. They track down invalid addresses, scrutinize content for spam filters, and toss out suggestions to boost email deliverability. It sounds like magic but isn’t that what all good tech feels like?
Which factors to consider while selecting the best tool to test emails?
In this quest, essentials include purpose, integrations offered, monitoring prowess, extra functionalities, and intuitive usability. Want your email campaign performance through the roof? Know what you want and survey the numerous alternatives accordingly.
Which are the best tools to test emails for the business?
Email testing tools abound, but a bunch of them stand head and shoulders above the rest. Have you checked out stalwarts like myEmailVerifier, Zero Bounce, Bouncer, Overloop, GlockApps, Mail Research, and Email on Acid yet?