Automated Email newsletter checking: never forget to check!

Email marketing is widely used by senders with an (online) marketing background and those who don’t have that feel yet.

Also not all senders have the knowledge or tech savvy to go into this thing we call html code. I know some e-mail marketers that rather jump out the window then digg into what is known as “E-mail HTML”!

First some E-mail newsletter checking

One of the things I totally recommend before every email marketing send is that you go through an email marketing checklist and make sure that there are no critical errors in your email. The quality of your email, certainly is one of the success factors. Making sure there are no errors seems logical. Making sure your email displays right seems logical, but sadly enough, a lot of emails don’t pass the test. Both on the marketing and the technical side.

Online tools that do automated E-mail newsletter checks

Luckily you don’t have to do all by hand. There are some (online) tools around that can automatically check your code. You might know litmus and emailonacid, they can show you screenshots of your email in multiple browsers and do some code checking as well.

Not a bad idea to do that kind of check. Although it will not prevent you from making a poor or untargeted email, it will check and see if there are any apparent errors. (or save a lot of time trying to find what actually is messing your email design up).

Automated E-mail newsletter checking with Email success

I took a look at a new tool called emailsuccess, it’s free after registration. If your e-mail contains broken links, faulty code, missing images, or incorrect structure the tool will make sure it gets higlighted and suggest improvements..

Smart part is that it will show the critical errors first and then you can go over to less severe errors, all color coded. It will also allow you to hide annoying checks, it has about 250 and if you have taken a look at a problem and chosen that it is not that big of a deal, you can hide that one so it doesn’t keep popping up every time. You can personalize the results that way.

It sure looks like they have been using the tool themselves too, because that is what you will notice as being very annoying (too many small problems).

It is possible to see the HTLM coding with the faults highlighted, and the tools gives some hints into how you can resolve them.

Doing a test send for an email newsletter automated check

You will have to send your email over, instead of copy and pasting in the code. Kind of a pain when you are developing outside your normal ESP system and coding it. On the other side that is also logical because it is the only way the tool could check the authentication and signing of your email and check email headers. Like going through an email deliverability checklist and catching some deliverability problems along the way.

Actually you don’t have to go to the tool, just send to a personal e-mail address and they will send you an email with a link to the full report once the check is done.
First impression, pretty slick tool. It can’t hurt to run your e-mail past it. It won’t make your email a direct success, but can save some embarrassment and painful mistakes.

What is your testing process? Feel free to leave comments below.