Details
Many email programs (think Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, Microsoft Hotmail, Yahoo, etc) employ their own standards for displaying email content - thus, the way an email displays in your email program may be different to how it displays in another program.
Although standards are getting better, there are still many inconsistencies between email programs (especially when it comes to mobile versions of your email). Some don't display background images, others won't animate a .GIF image (instead choosing to display the first frame only), others won't display rounded corners - and some remove colours from buttons.
The best way to see how your email performs in a variety of email clients is, of course, to test it in a variety of clients - but who has the time to install 5 different versions of Outlook, and create test email addresses for Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo... that's where Litmus comes in.
While you can use our platform to send a test email to yourself, this only allows you to test its appearance in your own email program. Litmus allows you to test your email in many email clients - of different ages and version numbers, automatically ...including on different devices!
Litmus is one of the world's most popular and comprehensive email testing services - and we have an integration with them, built right into our platform!
How-to Guide
Litmus testing is available for free on some of our plans, while other plans require the purchase of testing credits.
If you have any conditional content or wildcards in the email you're testing, you will need to select a single contact from a list to use for populating either of these. If you don't have any conditional content or wildcards in your email, you won't need to choose a contact.
- Select Messages from the sidebar.
- Click the ellipsis () next to the email message you wish to test and select New inbox test from the options.
- Select the email clients / device combinations you wish to test your email in.
- Click to continue.
- Confirm the details and click to continue. Inbox testing will now commence. Please allow several minutes for the testing to complete. The more clients chosen, the longer the test will take.
- Once complete, your test results are shown. You can click on each preview image to view the email in full, switch between them, and so on.
- When done, you can leave this area and navigate elsewhere. If you ever want to see the test results again, or re-run the test, simply come back to the Messages area, and click the Inbox Tests tab at the top to locate previous tests.
Purchase Testing Credits
If you're on a plan which does not include unlimited email testing credits, you will need to purchase some before you can run a test.
- Log into your account and click the cog icon at the top right.
- Select the Inbox Test Credits tab.
- Complete the details on-screen to purchase testing credits.