Email Sends

Email Delivery Checklist

The items in this checklist are all part of the Email Send process. Each is covered in the Procedures below, and some are shown in the Scenario.  

Before you send an email, follow this checklist to ensure that the email meets your standards before it arrives in subscribers' inboxes:

• Important! Review the deliverability tips to ensure that your email reaches as many subscribers as possible. See the Improving Your Deliverability Rate topic.
• Run the Check Spelling in the content areas in your email.
• Run the Content Detective on your email.
• Preview and Modify Text Versions of Emails (Optional).
• Run the Validation Tool on your email
• Perform a test delivery of your email.

Scenario

Northern Trail Outfitters  has created an email and wishes to send it. However, before they send the email, they check spelling, use the Content Detective, validate the email, and do a test send.

With their email created and saved, Northern Trail Outfitters clicks modify in a content box, and the Edit Content window opens.

They click the  button to check spelling.

After their spelling check is complete a window displays with a summary of the results and changes.

They click OK to close the spell check Save and proceed to repeat these steps to test other content boxes.
When done checking all content boxes they now wish to check their content for any content that may trigger spam filters.
They run the Content Detective by clicking the   button.

There were no problems, and the following screen displays:

They now run the Email Validation by selecting the  button above their email.

The following screen appears:

Northern Trail Outfitters selects Subscribers Lists/Groups and clicks Validate.

The application reported that no problems were found.

Their email had no triggers, and they are ready to now test and send their email. 

How To Check Spelling

Check Spelling is available for the text portions of your static content boxes.

To check spelling, follow these steps:

1. In the navigation pane click Content.
2. Navigate to find your email by clicking my emails, then selecting your email by clicking the name of the email.
3. Choose to modify a static content box , by clicking the modify button.
4. In the content-buildling wizard that opens, click to check the spelling within that content box.

Note: You can check spelling on only one content box at a time.

How to Use the Content Detective

1. In the navigation pane, click Content.
    
2. Click the My Emails folder or whichever subfolder holds the email.
   The email workspace displays the emails in the selected folder. The value in the Content Detective column describes the email's Content Detective status, as described in Understanding Emails.
   
   If the Content Detective status is Not Checked, the Content Detective has not been run on this email (or has not been run since the last time the email was modified). 
    
3. Select the checkbox next to the email and click the Content Detective button to run the Content Detective.
   
   The Content Detective scans your email and then presents a list of the potential triggers (if any) found, along with ways in which you can remove these triggers. If you made any changes to the text version of the email, the Content Detective presents its results separately for the HTML version and the text version.
    
4. The buttons at the bottom of the Content Detective dialog box give you the following options:
   
    Print: You can print the results by clicking this button, which brings up the standard Windows Print dialog box.

Save: You can save the results to a text file by clicking this button, which brings up the standard Windows File Download dialog box with the option to open or save the file (choose the Save option).

Close: Click this button to exit the Content Detective.

If potential problems were found, the Content Detective status changes to Warning until edits are made to the email, at which time  the status will return to Not Checked.

The Content Detective status of OK means that the Content Detective has been run and no potential triggers were found. If the email is edited further, the status will return to Not Checked.

How to Preview and Modify Text Versions of Emails

Note: Modifying the text version of an email should be done only after the content of the email is final. Once you make any changes to the text version, the link between the text version and the HTML version is broken; modifications to one version are reflected in the other unless you restore the link, which undoes all changes you've made to the text version (the HTML version is not affected by any changes you make to the text version).

Follow these steps to view and edit the text version of your email:

1. Click the Content tab on the navigation bar.
2. Click my emails. 
3. Click the folder that contains the email you want to validate.
4. Open the email in the email editor workspace by clicking the name of the email.
5. Click the Edit Text Version tab.
   The Edit Text Version mode of the email editor workspace shows you how the email appears to clients who cannot see the HTML version.
6. Adjust the text as needed.
7. Click the Save button when done.

Remember: Now that you've adjusted the text version, any modifications that you make to the HTML version are reflected in the text version.

If you are going to make further changes to the HTML version and want those changes automatically reflected in the text version, go back into Edit Text Version mode and click the Restore button on this screen. All manual changes that had been made to the text version are lost, and the link between the text version and the HTML version (which allows the application to update the text version as you update the HTML version) is restored.

How To Use The Email Validate Feature

To use the email validate feature, follow these steps:

1. Click the Content tab on the navigation bar.
2. Click my emails. 
3. Click the folder that contains the email you want to validate.
4. In the email workspace, select the checkbox next to the email you want to validate.
5. Click the Validate button in the toolbar.
6. Select your Target of Email Send, either Subscriber Lists/Groups or Sendable Data Extension
7. Click the Validate button.
   If validation problems are detected you are notified which ones; if not the screen should display "No problems found."

More information about Validate can be found on the Validate document.

How To Test Your Email

Testing your email means performing the following steps throughout the creation process:

• Previewing the HTML and text versions of the email: Use the View HTML Version and Edit Text Version modes of your email editor workspace. 
• Previewing the dynamic content (if used) for attributes: Use the Preview button in your dynamic content boxes.
• Previewing the email for a subscriber: Use the Subscriber Preview feature.
• Delivering the email to a test email address: Running through a test delivery of your email is an important final step before sending the email to subscribers. You can test-deliver your email in the following ways:
  • Test list: Set up a list that consists only of test email addresses. If you're the sole tester of the email, then set up a list consisting only of yourself. When you go through the Email Send Wizard, select this list only as the recipient so that the email is generated for just the test email address(es).
  • Suppress this send from Reports: This feature allows you to send the email to all subscribers on the designated list.
  • Redirect all emails to a single email address: If this feature is enabled in your account, the Email Send Wizard includes an option labeled Send All Emails to.  If you choose this option, an email is generated for each subscriber in the lists and groups that you select in the wizard, but each of those emails are delivered to a single test address that you specify.
    The key benefit of this option is that you are able to see exactly how each email looks to each subscriber. If you used personalized Substitution Strings and/or dynamic content in the email, each email contains the data specific to the targeted subscriber.
    However, if the lists and groups that you select in the wizard consist of many subscribers, keep in mind that the test email address you specify receives as many emails as there are subscribers in the selected lists and groups. Sending a very large number of emails to the test email address may not be a feasible option.

Remember: Emails that you send to a test list or via the Email Send Wizard's test option are charged to your account in the same way as any emails that you send to your subscribers.

How To Use the Email Send Wizard

Whether you want to send the email immediately or schedule it for delivery at a specific time in the future, the send process is the same. Please visit the Email Send Wizard page for these procedures.

Note: Be sure to double-check the Email Delivery Checklist before sending the email.