Seven tips to foolproof your campaign
In short: Before you hit send, check seven things: your content, images, calls to action, URLs, merge tags, mobile layout, and how the email looks in different email clients. Fix typos and errors, keep images light with real text beside them, make sure every link works, and send tests to your own accounts, using a different subject line for each test.
While marketers spend a lot of time ideating and designing email campaigns, many often hit send on a campaign without making sure elements like the text, images, CTAs, and URLs work properly. If these aren't verified before sending, you run the risk of not being able to offer the perfect campaign for your contacts and of the campaign not achieving the desired conversions. To get the best out of an email campaign, you need to build time into your schedule for one last glance at various aspects of your campaign so you can verify that they're working correctly before you hit the send button.
Here are some tips that you can follow to deliver campaigns that hit your conversion goals:
Proof the content
An email campaign's content is one of the most important factors that determines its performance. When a mailbox provider's receiving server receives a campaign, its content will be scrutinized to identify patterns of spam. If the email content has grammatical errors or spammy words, the receiving server may quarantine the email or move it to the spam folder. Today's filters weigh your sender reputation and recipient engagement more than any single word or typo, but errors and spammy wording still hurt trust and look like spam to filters and to people; see why emails land in the spam folder. After crafting a campaign, comb through the copy to identify grammatical errors, typos, and spammy words. Proof the subject line and pre-header too: see how to craft a dynamic subject line. Ensure that the content is relevant to the recipient's needs, interests, age, gender, and other demographic factors. This will give you the best chance of ensuring your email lands in the recipient's inbox.
Verify the images
Images are an integral part of an email campaign. Whenever you craft an email campaign, ensure that the images load properly on different devices and are perfectly aligned. Also, ensure that you don't use images that are more than 1 MB in size. If you use images that are more than 1 MB in size, there are chances your emails might land in the spam folder. Also, we recommend you use a ratio of 60% text to 40% image. This is because some email programs, such as Outlook, don't download images until the recipient allows it, so the text needs to convey the message. Add alt text to your images for the same reason. Image file size does not count toward Gmail's clipping limit, but the code that displays images does; see how to prevent Gmail from clipping your emails.
Verify the CTAs
Calls to action—or CTAs—are the gateway to achieving conversions. Double check that your CTAs are visible and clickable. Verify the CTA text to ensure that there are no typos. We recommend using "action-oriented words" that trigger the recipient's interest and drive them to click the CTA button. See how to improve open and click rates for more on call to action buttons.
Verify the URLs
If your email content has URLs, ensure that they work properly. Use link-checker tools to ensure there's a functioning site on the other end. Also, make sure that the URL doesn't have multiple redirects, and avoid shortened URLs (see the do's and don'ts for email campaigns). We urge you to ensure that the URLs in your email don't take the recipient to blacklisted sites. If a mailbox provider's receiving server receives an email with URLs that take recipients to blacklisted sites, the receiving server may quarantine the email.
Test the merge tags
Using merge tags is the best way to personalize email content. Merge tags retrieve the first name and last name of the email recipient from a mailing list. They can also be used to insert YouTube videos as well as subscribe and unsubscribe links. After crafting the campaign, we urge you to ensure that all the merge tags work properly. Set a default value for each merge tag so the email still reads well when a contact's data is missing, and send a test to a contact that has complete data and one that doesn't. See how to personalize the subject line with merge tags.
Craft mobile-friendly campaigns
Nowadays, people prefer checking their mailbox on the go. So the best way forward is to craft campaigns that are mobile-friendly. We strongly recommend you optimize your email campaign and verify how it appears on mobile phones of different sizes. While doing so, you can also correct alignment issues, if there are any. Check your subject line on a phone too: mobile screens show only less than 50 characters.
Test the campaign on different email clients
Your email campaigns will be rendered differently in each email client. To understand how your campaign will get displayed, we recommend you send your campaign to your test accounts of popular email clients like Gmail, Outlook (including Hotmail), Yahoo, and Apple Mail. This will help you correct alignment issues and craft responsive emails. Don't send several tests with the same subject line: Gmail groups them into one thread, which can make the message large enough to be clipped.
Sometimes, when you send your campaigns to test accounts of Gmail, Outlook, or Yahoo, your email may land in the spam folder. In such situations, you must revisit your email campaign and your sending practices to understand the reason for the spam classification. Learn the best ways to pass through spam filters.
Marketers must realize that the testing phase is an integral part of an email campaign's lifecycle. We urge marketers to spend time on testing as it will help them deliver the perfect email experience for their contacts.