This is the third in a multi-part series on precautions you can take when building and testing directly in production. The first part on instance-wide restrictions can be found here. The second part on program-specific restrictions can be found here. Now let's delve into some testing approaches.
- Clone the email program to create a new version for testing. Rename this very clearly; for example, you might choose to prefix this with TEST in the name.
- Immediately switch the Audience to your list of test leads.
- Click on the refresh button to see the new count of leads to validate that it matches the number of test leads:
- Click on the hyperlinked number to view the full list of leads that will be impacted if you run the campaign.
- Once you are confident the program will only impact your test leads, schedule your program for at least 15 minutes from the current time. This allows you extra time to unapprove the program if you discover some mistake.
- Approve the program.
- Test emails through Send Sample Email first.
- Choose an example lead to see what the email would look like with personalized and/or dynamic content for that specific individual but always send to your own email address:
- Use the test stream functionality to mimic a cast to just one specific test lead:
- Add additional filters on smart campaigns that you know will exclude your audience from qualifying until you are ready to remove them. The two most common choices are a reference to the specific email address of the tester and a reference to a seed list (a smart list of email addresses or a static list):
- Test emails through Send Sample Email first.
- Choose an example lead to see what the email would look like with personalized and/or dynamic content for that specific individual but always send to your own email address:
- Add additional filters on smart campaigns that you know will exclude your audience from qualifying until you are ready to remove them. The two most common choices are a reference to the specific email address of the tester and a reference to a seed list (a smart list of email addresses or a static list):
- Delete test leads after you finish testing to minimize reporting impact.
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