How to send a test email or SMS message

Overview

It is critical to test your emails with as many devices and browsers as possible before sending the email to your audience to ensure your email will look as amazing as possible to as much of your audience as possible. Read on to learn how to send a test email to yourself before sending it out into the world!

In this guide

• Test email limitations
• Send a test email
• Send a test SMS
• Troubleshooting

Test limitations

Test sends do not function exactly like live sends, and are intended primarily to view email and SMS formatting as users will see it in their inboxes. Test sends have the following limitations:

• The unsubscribe link in the email footer will take you back to your Sendlane dashboard or the Sendlane login page, not to the update subscriptions preferences page
• Personalization will populate with data from a randomly selected Contact profile in your account, even if you send a test email to an email address that has a Contact profile with the included personalization completed
• Abandoned product blocks used for abandoned checkout or abandoned browse automations will not populate because, in a test email, no abandonment data has been collected by your website
• Review request links will not point to the review submission form
• Contact cards sent via test message may render with special characters

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Send a test email

You can send a test email in the email builder for both Campaign and Automation emails.

To send a test email:

1. Click Send Test
2. Enter the email addresses of anyone you want to receive the test email
3. Optional - Click the Save emails as your default test recipients checkbox to avoid having to enter the same email addresses every time you send a test email
4. Click Send

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Send a test SMS message

You can send a test SMS message in the SMS builder for both Campaign and Automation SMS messages.

To send a test SMS message:

1. Click Send Test
2. Enter the phone number of anyone you want to receive the test SMS message
3. Optional - Click the Save phone numbers as your default test recipients checkbox to avoid having to enter the same phone number every time you send a test email
4. Click Send

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Troubleshooting

When I try to send a test SMS, I see an error that says, "Your phone number is set to DO NOT TEXT"

If your phone number is on do not contact lists, you may see this error message when sending test SMS messages, even if your phone number is subscribed to SMS in Sendlane.

Text unstop to your Sendlane account's phone number, then try sending your test SMS again.