Testing an email activity

By testing an email activity, we can receive and view your marketing email as though we are a target customer. Use store preview to register as a test customer who belongs to the customer segment specified in the email activity.

This procedure is designed for use in a testing environment. Avoid testing email activities directly in a production environment.

Before beginning

Ensure that your email activity is ready for testing, which means createdd:

• The customer segment that the email activity is intended for.

• The email template to use for the email activity.

• The email activity, which references the customer segment and the template.

In addition, confirm with the site administrator that email accounts are configured in your test environment so that the test email can be sent and received.

Procedure

1. Open the Marketing tool.

2. Deactivate the email activity, open it, and change the Send date to the current date, for testing purposes. We can change it back to the correct date after you finish testing.

3. In the Customer segment table, double-click the customer segment that is the target for the email activity. Review the properties of the customer segment so that we are aware of the criteria that a test customer must meet to receive the email message. Close the customer segment.

4. Activate the email activity.

5. Launch store preview.

6. Register as a test customer using the store registration process:

   • Specify a valid email address for the test customer. To open the test email message later on, we must have access to the inbox for the email address.

   • Select the registration option to opt in to receive marketing email messages.

   • Select any additional registration options that define the target customer segment. For example, if the target customer segment is Female Customers, specify the gender of the test customer as female.

7. If the target customer segment has more criteria that must be met, use store preview to meet the criteria. For example, if the customer segment is Customers Who Have Purchased Cameras, purchase a camera in store preview.

   Now the email activity should be ready to be sent according to the send time for outbound email accounts that is configured in the Administration Console. We can check with a site administrator to find out what the configured send time is.

8. Do one of the following things:

   • Wait for the configured send time to arrive. If the configured time is passed for the day or is during the night, we might need to wait until the following day.

   • Ask a site administrator to force the email activity to be sent so that you do not have to wait. Information for site administrators is provided in Forcing email activities to be sent right away during testing.

9. To view the test email message, check the inbox for the email address specified for the test customer.

Related concepts
Email activities

Related reference
Troubleshooting: Marketing activity is not sending email messages as expected