Sending test emails that insert sample names from dynamic field

[Anonymous]

Hello -

New to Marketo and trying to figure out how to send a test email so that I can see whether it's inserting the Lead Name from {{lead.First Name:default=there}}. With other email programs I have used in the past, it's been quite simple - if you send a test email without a sample "to" selected, it inserts the default (as there would be no First Name to pull); if you send a test email with a person selected as the sample, it inserts their first name.

Regardless of whether I send the sample with or without a lead selected, my test emails are all just showing: 

{{lead.First Name:default=there} (strangely - only with one closing bracket, even though there are 2 in the HTML)

Am I doing something wrong here - either in the email query or in how I'm sending tests? Or is this some quirk with Marketo sample emails?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Update: apparently the "edit me" text isn't actually meant to be edited? If I leave it as just "default=edit me" then the text will send just a blank space instead of dropping in a default text item. Anyone know how to get this default text for the cases where you may not have a first name field?

In addition, I'm also seeing this odd little text at the bottom of the email which is outside of the HTML area that I input into the template. At the very bottom, there is this:

"-->"

Any clue on what it is and how I remove it?

[SanfordWhiteman]

"-->" is the close of an HTML comment.

Correctly opened and closed HTML comments look like this:

    <!--I am a comment-->

Seeing that text in your e-mail indicates that the HTML is incorrect. Hard to say what else is going on without seeing the full markup.