Sending Test Emails

After you have previewed your email, you may want to send a test send to further review your content. The suggested chain of review is:

1. Test send to yourself to check your content. 
   • Proofread your text. You can read your email out loud, copy and paste the text into Word to spell check or print the email to view it differently.
   • Check all links by clicking on them. (Don't forget to resubscribe yourself if you clicked on an unsubscribe link!)
   • Check out different email services and apps, browsers, operating systems and browsers. For instance, does it look good if you open it on your phone.
2. Send a test to your colleagues, supervisor and/or authors who need to review.
   • Once you have made any corrections to your email and you feel it is ready to go, send to colleagues to look over and any authors who may need to vet their work.
   • Then, send to anyone who needs to approve or "bless" the email before sending.

To send a test

1. Save your email, so the test is up-to-date!
2. Make sure the sender address on your email is correct. If you test send from a subdomain other than @explore.wisc.edu, your email will bounce and you won't be able to send to anyone you just sent that test to!
3. Ensure anyone you want to test send to is already added as a contact you have permission to send to in Eloqua.
4. In the upper right corner, you'll find the Actions menu. Select Send Test ...
   
   
   
   If Send Test ... is grayed out, you need to save your email.
   If you are using the HTML editor, you will look for Test Content.
   
   
5. The Test Content window that pops up is very busy. You only need to pay attention to the To: field and 4. Select a test.
   
   
   
   
6. In the To: field, enter the email address(es) you want to send a test to. If you are typing or pasting more than one address, put a comma between each. (Don't forget, you cannot test send to someone you haven't added to Eloqua.)
7. Select the test you want to conduct:
   • Do not use Email Checker! Email Checker checks all the links in your email to ensure they are in the correct format. Because it clicks every link, including unsubscribe (and thus will unsubscribe anyone you are test sending to), do not use Email Checker.
   • HTML Email sends the test email in HTML format. Recommended for most tests.
   • Text Email sends the test email in plain text. Learn more about sending accessible emails.
8. Click Perform Test. 
9. You will see a green bar that tells you the test sends were sent.
   
   
   
   
   
10. Your recipients will receive a test message. The subject line of the message will have *TEST* appended to both ends of the subject line.
11. You can send as many tests as you like. 

Notes

• Don't forget you can preview your email in Eloqua without sending, too. Use both tools (Preview and Test Send) to check your email.
• You must upload any contacts you want to send a test to with a spreadsheet to ensure your contact label is applied.
• Never use Actions > Send to a Contact. This will prevent contacts your test send to from getting the email when you actually send it.
• Eloqua has tips on keeping your content responsive.
• The UW has guidance on creating accessible emails.
• If you are editing the HTML in your email, you may want to look at a CSS guide that is specific to email clients.