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Email clients (like Gmail, Apple Mail or Outlook), operating systems and devices change frequently. Because there are potentially more than 300,000 different ways to represent an email, email QA testing is actually the only way to verify what your email will look like when it arrives in your subscriber's inbox.
But sorting and checking how each email appears across multiple email clients and devices is time-consuming. There is a better way.
We put together this list of email testing and monitoring best practices from our team of Litmus email experts to help you find new ways to test smarter and send error-free emails faster and ensure that they remain error-free!
1. Know which email clients are important to your audience
Our Litmus customer support team is often asked about the most popular email clients. You can find this information updated every month on our email client market share page.
Knowing the most popular email clients can help you stay on top of trends. However, smarter testing starts with knowing which email clients your individual subscribers are most likely to use.
Litmus Email Analytics can help you pinpoint these so you know which email clients to focus your attention on when composing emails.
With this insight, you don't have to waste time trying to make a preview in Outlook 2010 look perfect when, for example, no users are opening it. Make sure to customize your default email client list to reflect what your subscribers use.
2. Organize your email client test lists
Litmus Email Testing Profiles (available on Plus and Enterprise plans) lets you create custom lists of email clients and devices relevant to your business and workflow – and tag them in a way that's relevant to your team makes sense.
Whether you want to add some email clients to a “Troublemakers” list or create another one for “Dark Mode,” you can switch between preset lists of email clients and devices to get your message sent to you Build and debug easily – right down to your final test before sending.
If you make last-minute changes and need to run another quick test before hitting send, email test profiles make it easy to see which test to run. And you can easily create, edit, and delete lists as your business needs change.
Please note that the email client defaults you set for yourself will not apply to other users who may be in your Litmus account, and that each Litmus user will have their own unique Litmus test address for submission of tests has.
Litmus Email Testing Profiles
3. Be aware that you are testing the latest devices
Apple released the iPhone 15 and iOS 17 in September 2023 and sold 235 million units. It makes sense to know what subscribers who have updated their devices or operating system version will experience on them. To provide this insight, Litmus email client support has been expanded to include the latest devices:
- iPhone 15 (iOS17)
- iPhone 15 Dark (iOS17)
- iPhone 15 Plus (iOS17)
- iPhone 15 Plus Dark (iOS17)
Want to preview how the latest iOS will appear on an older iPhone device? You can refer to the resolution size of the devices to understand the rendering. For example, the iPhone 14 has the same resolution as the iPhone 13 and 12. This means you can check out the latest iPhone 14 (iOS16) email client previews to see how the iPhone 13 and 12 do too would be displayed on iOS 16.
4. Preview the email from the subscriber's perspective
Email service providers (ESPs) may change your email code when sending it, which may affect how it appears. Since your subscribers receive the email sent from your ESP, send a test from your ESP to Litmus. This way you can be sure to see what you see – and identify any problems caused by the ESP.
(Submitting your test also ensures that you receive shortened spam test results in the Litmus Previews and Quality Assurance tab below.)
Pro Tip: You can better manage your preview usage in Litmus Builder by customizing your default email client list and waiting to review previews until you're almost finished. If there are problematic previews, select only those (or add them to the “troublemakers” list mentioned above) so you can focus only on running the previews you need.
(Have a client preview request via email? Email hello@litmus.com to share your requests. Our engineering and product teams look forward to hearing what people want next!)
5. Make sure your emails drive subscriber action
The most perfect email in the world can get lost in the shuffle if subscribers can't access it quickly.
If the loading speed of an email is longer than a second, Litmus email designer Hannah Tiner makes sure to check whether the email needs to be further compressed – as longer loading times can be expected with long or image-heavy emails.
A Litmus test shows you how many images are in your email, how large each image is, and the total size of all images.
Tiner also recommends checking the following:
6. Don't skip the spam test
The days of avoiding certain phrases to avoid the spam filter are over. The intricacies of email deliverability and the factors that determine whether your emails arrive in your inbox are far more complicated than avoiding a phrase.
Follow authentication and interaction best practices to avoid being marked as spam – and always take the time to do spam testing so you can identify any issues that could affect your sending – or prevent your message from reaching yours Target group reached.
7. Use integrations to your advantage
Being able to preview, test, and troubleshoot your emails without switching between tools can further simplify testing and streamline your production process. Litmus ESP integrations and the Litmus extension make it easy to test emails – including some ESPs that support dynamic content – with a single click.
8. Look for problems
You don't have to wonder if your email looks good when you send it today, but what happens if it changes tomorrow because an image no longer displays or a link is broken? Litmus Email Guardian monitors your emails and notifies you of any significant changes so you can fix them before the next send.
Email Guardian monitors your email for unexpected changes caused by updates to webmail clients such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Outlook and Outlook 365 Desktop, or other external factors.
Email Guardian also monitors your link functionality so you can view your link journeys, preview your link targets, and be the first to know if your email contains a broken or slow-loading URL. Monitor as many emails as you want. Let Litmus Email Guardian help you make your subscribers' experience exactly how you intended!
Create your very own Auto Publish News/Blog Site and Earn Passive Income in Just 4 Easy Steps
