How To Send a Test Email with MailChimp

When launching a new email marketing campaign, it’s important to first gauge the campaign’s effectiveness by sending a test email to a small segment of your mailing list. This will help you determine whether the content and design of your campaign deliver the message you intend, and if there are any potential issues with how the campaign is being delivered.

This tutorial will walk you through the steps you need to send a test email in Mailchimp.

How to Send a Test Email

Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing services, and for good reason. It’s packed with features that make emailing a breeze. From its clean and clutter-free interface to its powerful search function, Mailchimp makes it easy to perfect your marketing campaign.

And with its handy shortcuts and intelligent auto-completion, you can quickly compose and send messages without leaving your inbox. But where Mailchimp really shines is in its robust marketing automation tools.

You can create sophisticated email campaigns targeting specific customers and segments with just a few clicks. You can also track the performance of your campaigns in real-time, making it easy to adjust and improve your marketing strategy on the fly.

But for all the positives, launching a campaign without sending a test email would be a big mistake.

A test email allows you to see how the email will look in terms of layout and design and ensure that all the links and call-to-actions work correctly. It’s also a good opportunity to test whether the subject line and preview text are effective in getting people to open the email.

Perhaps most importantly, a test email gives you a chance to catch any typos or errors that could mar an otherwise successful campaign. Proofreading an email before it goes out is always important, but it’s especially critical when sending it to a large list of people. A small mistake can make your business look unprofessional, so it’s always worth taking the extra time to send a test email.

Let’s look at the steps needed to send a test email in Mailchimp.

1. Sign in to your Mailchimp account
   
2. Click on the “Campaigns” tab. This should open a list of campaigns you’re currently running or preparing to launch.
   
3. Navigate to the campaign of interest and click on the “Edit” button on the far right.
   
4. Click on the “Send a Test Email” text below the preview box. This should open a test sub-window where you can set the parameters of the test, including the recipient’s email address and a personal message.
   
5. Type the email address of the recipient. You can also send test emails to other Mailchimp users on your account by checking the box next to their respective email addresses.
   
6. Click on “Send test.”
   

And with that, you’ve just sent a test email that should give you a firm idea of what the final campaign will look like. All recipients can respond to the email with their feedback. All of that feedback is sent directly to your account through an inbound email address.

Mailchimp Test Email Not Sending

If you’re looking to launch your email campaign immediately, deliverability issues with the test email can be a major setback. The email may fail to arrive in the inbox or bounce for all addresses associated with a specific domain.

To ensure that your emails are delivered successfully, it’s important to understand the potential causes of deliverability problems.

(a) Your Test Campaign Used Corporate Emails or Work Email Addresses

When it comes to test messages, spam firewalls at companies can be particularly strict. A test email sent to multiple addresses simultaneously within a corporation can be flagged as spam. If this happens, the only way to get around it is to request your IT department to allowlist Mailchimp servers.

Corporate email firewalls can also block messages with the same “To” and “From” email addresses. If the test recipient’s email address is the same as the sender’s, you should consider using a different email address as the recipient. Business emails or free email services like Yahoo or Gmail can be used.

(b) Your Test Campaign Sender Address Is a Free Email Account

While free email services, like Yahoo and Gmail, can be used as your “From” email address in Mailchimp, we don’t recommend it.

This is because businesses using Mailchimp may be considered unsolicited marketing agents, and these free services have policies that can sometimes cause delivery issues for emails deemed to come from marketers.

For example, Gmail is more likely to mark Mailchimp emails as spam if they’re coming from a free Gmail account. To avoid deliverability issues, we recommend using a custom domain for your “From” email address. Not only will this help ensure that your emails reach your subscribers’ inboxes, but it also creates a more professional impression.

(c) You Have an Unauthenticated Domain

Domain authentication is a security measure that verifies the legitimacy of the sending email address. This is helpful if you want to demonstrate that your messages are being sent from a legitimate source (i.e., your own domain) and not from a spoofed or fraudulent address.

Domain authentication works by cryptographically signing each message with a unique key that’s associated with the sending domain.

When you’re sending an email in Mailchimp as part of a test campaign, Mailchimp will check the signature against its list of authorized domains. If the signature matches, the system marks the sending email as an “authorized source.” If not, the sending email is considered high-risk, and messages may not get delivered.

Luckily, Mailchimp offers a domain authentication tool. However, you may need a bit of web development knowledge to complete the authentication process.

(d) Your Test Email Includes Placeholder Content

The so-called “filler text” in your test emails can cause deliverability problems. Even though this kind of text is intended only for temporary use, it can still trigger spam filters and cause your email to be blocked or sent to the spam folder.

Therefore, it’s important to use real content in your test emails, or at least make your placeholder text look as realistic as possible. To do this, avoid using words like “test” or “testing” in your subject line, and instead use something that would be found in a real message.

For the body of the email, try to use actual content or generate realistic-looking placeholder text. You should avoid using tools like Fillerama and Lorem Ipsum that generate random text that can appear suspicious.

That way, you can avoid accidentally triggering the spam filter and ensure your message gets through.

FAQ

How many test emails can I send with Mailchimp?

Users can send up to 12 test emails with the free plan for every campaign. With paid plans, users can send up to 70 test emails.

View the Campaign in the Eyes of Your Clients

Before launching an email marketing campaign, it’s crucial to send a test email (or multiple test emails) to ensure that the campaign is formatted correctly and displays properly on various devices and email platforms.

Sending a test email also lets you see how your subscribers will engage with the campaign and let you make necessary tweaks before the campaign goes live.

Have you launched your test campaign in Mailchimp? If yes, were there any challenges?

Let us know in the comments section below.