Since there are a wide variety of tools people use to read their email, it's a good idea to test your campaign in several different environments before you send it. The two main types of applications people use to read their email include desktop applications, such as Microsoft Outlook Express, and web based email such as Hotmail and Yahoo!. Each of these environments render HTML emails differently and should be tested.

Desktop Email Applications

The most common desktop email applications include Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, and Eudora. To make testing more complicated, they all come in various versions across multiple platforms. The most common problem caused by desktop applications involves the images in an email not being displayed, so it's a good idea to check your campaign in at least one of these applications.

Web Based Email

Many users have email accounts through services such as Hotmail and Yahoo, and these are known as web based email because they must be accessed through a web site. Using Hotmail as an example, when you view an email it is surrounded by various parts of the Hotmail web site, such as the navigation and even banner ads. Some web based email accounts will even modify your email by removing any stylesheet elements you have included, so it's a good idea to check that your email will still be displayed appropriately despite these issues.

The quickest way to test your campaign is by using the Test Campaign tool, in the Create/Send process. Once you've added your content and selected your recipients, you can easily send a test version of your email to yourself or any other email address.

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