Send Preview

What Is Send Preview

Send Preview is a rendering of an email as it will be sent to a recipient. After the initial preview, you can proceed through the rest of the recipients on the list to see the preview for each.

If you preview recipients on a list or group, you can also click the subscriber's email address to display the subscriber properties. You can change the attributes for a subscriber on the screen to see how the change will impact the presentation. 

Note: If you change the subscriber properties here, unsubscribe from a test email that you send, or access the subscriber's profile center and make changes, those changes are permanently applied to the subscriber. You might benefit from creating a test subscriber whose properties you can change as needed for previewing.

If you preview recipients on a data extension, you can pause your cursor over the email address to display the primary key of the record. To preview recipients for a data extension, the data extension must meet one of the following criteria:

• Contains an email address field type.
• Is linked to the subscriber table via the Subscriber ID.
• Is linked to the subscriber table via the Subscriber Key.

The send preview feature does not emulate the particular operating system, environment, and email client of the subscriber. To see how the email will appear in different email clients, use the Inbox Preview feature. 

Why Use Send Preview

Use Send Preview when you wish to view an email as your recipients will when they receive it.

How to Run a Send Preview

The Inbox Preview uses the email rendered by the Send Preview to determine what to display, so you must run the Send Preview before you can run the Inbox Preview. Before you begin this procedure, your account must contain the following items:

• The email content to preview 
• A subscriber with the desired attributes for which to preview an email

Use the following steps to run the email preview:

1. Select the Content tab.
2. Select my emails. Select the subfolder that contains the email, if applicable.
3. Select the checkbox next to the email to preview.
4. Click the Send Preview button from the toolbar.
   The email preview screen appears.
5. Complete the Recipient Selection section:
   • Select a Recipient - Select the list (including All Subscribers), group, or data extension that contains the subscriber for which to preview the email.
   • Select a Subscriber - Select the subscriber for which to preview the email.
6. Complete the From Field section:
   • From Name - Select the from name and address you wish to use. 
7. Complete the Header/Footer Options section:
   • Delivery Profile - Select the delivery profile you wish to use. 
   • Header - Select whether to display the default header or no header in the preview.
   • Footer - Select whether to display the default footer or no footer in the preview.
8. Click Generate Preview. 

Note: If the subscriber you select for the preview has a status of Unsubscribed (red), any test send from that generated preview will not be delivered. If the subscriber you select for the preview has a status of Bounced or Held (yellow), you receive the following error when trying to perform the test send: "Your test email has not been sent because the selected subscribed is not active."

How to Test Send a Previewed Email

After you use the send preview feature to render an email according to the attributes of a particular subscriber, you can send the email to an email address that you enter. For example, you might send the email to your own email address to receive the email in your inbox. Use the following steps to test send the email you are previewing:

1. Generate a send preview according to the How to Use the Send Preview procedure above.
2. Click the Send Test Email button from the toolbar.

The Preview Email window appears.

3. Complete the Preview Email window. You can enter only one email address in the To: field. You may see a Cc field below the To field. If you have this functionality enabled in your account, you can add up to four additional email addresses. The Send button is only active when the email addresses are in the correct email address format. Every email address will receive the same email and be able to view the header. 
4. Click Send.