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SOP 001: How to do basic Email Testing

Goal: 
To define simple, repeatable steps to verify that new email campaigns are sent without obvious errors, its content is displayed properly, and it has no broken links.

This is NOT an in-depth testing process. This is meant to be only a simple check that can be performed in under 10 minutes total but that will catch 99% of the common errors in email campaigns.
Ideal Outcome: 
99% of the campaigns are sent without a single obvious error.
Why this is important: 
You can’t take back mistakes made in email campaigns. Your only option when that happens is to send a follow-up email with a correction or clarification, which dilutes the impact of your campaign and can be annoying to some subscribers (resulting in a higher unsubscribe rate.)
Where this is done: 
In your email service provider, Grammarly, your inbox (via your laptop and your phone.)
When is this done: 
Anytime you need to send a new email campaign (whether it’s a batch or automated email) and after the final copy has been written
Who does this: 
The person responsible for email marketing in your organization. If it’s only you, then guess who’s responsible for this :)

Before Starting: Install a couple of extensions/plugins

  1. If you don’t have it already, install Grammarly (the free version will be good enough.)
  2. Install Check my links .
  3. Download the Gmail mobile app from the Android Play Store or iOS App Store .

Use Grammarly to check for simple grammar and spelling mistakes.

  1. Open the email compose window in the email service provider.
  2. Check if Grammarly is able to load in the text editor of your email service provider. You will know because there will be a Grammarly icon in the bottom right corner of the text field.
  3. If Grammarly doesn’t work with your text editor, copy all the text into a new Grammarly document using the Chrome extension. Just click on the Grammarly icon and then click New Document.
  4. Next, check the words or phrases that have been underlined by Grammarly. Accept or ignore all of Grammarly’s suggested changes until the icon on the bottom right corner turns green and shows no more errors.

Check email in Gmail’s web app.

  1. From your email service provider, send a test email to your own Gmail or Google Apps email address.
  2. Make sure your browser window is in full screen and check that the email subject isn’t truncated.
  3. Next, verify that the email’s preview text does not include file names (this can happen sometimes if you include logos in the header of the email and don’t include any copy before the image.)
  4. Open the email.
  5. Check that the email meets the following criteria:
    1. Alignment matches the one used in the email editor.
    2. The font family, style, size, and color matches the ones used in the email editor.
    3. Images load properly and have the proper dimensions and aspect ratio.
  6. Use the Check my links Chrome extension to check for broken links. To do that, click on the extension and wait for the queue to reach zero.
    1. If the “Invalid links” indicator shows a value of zero, then there are no broken links in your email.
    2. If there are broken links in your email, they will be highlighted in red. If that happens, you will need to go back to the email editor and fix the broken link.
  7. Finally, open every link in the email to make sure that each of them is linking to its correct destination URL.

Perform a mobile sanity check with Gmail’s mobile app.

1. Open the test email with the Gmail mobile app and check that it meets the following criteria:
      • Alignment matches the one used in the email editor.
      • The font family, style, size, and color matches the ones used in the email editor.
      • The text is of an appropriate size and it’s easy to read.
      • The text blocks are not wider than the mobile screen.
      • Images load properly, have the proper dimensions and aspect ratio, and have resized to fit the mobile screen.
      • If there is any text on the images that needs to be read by the recipient, make sure that it is large enough to be read without the need to zoom in.