Dispatching a campaign is similar to parting with your child for the first day at school: you feel a bit daunted and rack your brains recalling if everything's duly prepared, but at some point you have to let go and wave goodbye because it's time for baby to face the world. 👼
Nevertheless, I have some great news for you: before you show "baby" the door, you can preview and test your campaign email; and once you're comfortable, you can schedule it to be sent later or immediately. 😃
How can I test and preview my campaign email before sending and why should I do it?
There are two ways that you can assess the looks of your campaign before you dispatch it: sending yourself a test email or previewing in browser.
Sending a test email
Testing a campaign in all manner of inboxes is a great idea to see how it would render in different webmail providers and mobile devices and make adjustments if necessary (for instance, to improve legibility). A test email is a truthful depiction of what happens on the applicants' end when they open the message.
To send a test email:
1) Click Send me a test email
2) Insert a valid email address and click Send test email
You should promptly receive the test email, so make sure to check your email inbox as well as your SPAM and Junk folders.
Previewing in browser
Previewing in browser is closest to your actual work and homogeneous because HTML renders the same in all browsers. For that same reason, campaign recipients are also given a link to view the content of emails as it was intended through their browsers, as shown below:
Care that your campaigns look great in browser display to account for rendering differences across email clients, image blocking as a default setting, letting subscribers use the URL of the hosted web version to easily share the email – among many other benefits! 💌
To preview in browser:
1) Click Preview in browser
2) The preview will load in a new tab, so don't close it before viewing
Why do campaigns look different in Outlook?
If you use older versions of Microsoft Outlook, you perhaps noticed the email looks different and weird when you view it in our Outlook account after launching a test email. Please note that's a limitation of Outlook. We have that all fully detailed here.
Schedule your campaign to be sent out later or send now
The proper time to send a campaign is contingent upon the likeliness of it being opened, read/clicked and even responded to. So depending on when it's completed, you may want to delay its' delivery until the perfect moment or push it out at once. Factors such as different time zones, standard working hours, synchronising with outside circumstances, etc., could be relevant.
Send campaign immediately
1) Tap Send now
2) Press Are you sure? Click to send now
This will automatically move the campaign from Planned to Queued and then Dispatched*.
Schedule campaign to be sent later
1) Click Schedule
2) Tap Click here to pick a date and time, select a date on the calendar and press Done
This will immediately move the campaign from Planned to Scheduled and then Dispatched*. You can cancel any time before the due date by pressing Cancel schedule.
Come here to learn more about the state tabs.