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Campaign Testing

Because launching a campaign in Prospect Insight often requires a lot of different elements to flow together, you'll want to take the time to test your campagins before you deploy them to your prospects. 

Testing Forms/Landing Pages

 Forms should always be tested for functionality, meaning you should fill out your own form and submit it. Here are some things to look for:

• Does your form look and feel the way it should?  
• Does your thank you content or redirect location provide a user friendly experience?
• Do the links in your thank you content work correctly?
• Did you receive the correct autoresponder email, if applicable?
• Did you test prospect get picked up by automation rules as expected, if applicable?
  Note: this may take up to 10 minutes.

When testing forms, it will be necessary to clear your cookies if you want to re-test the form. Pardot recommends using an alternate browser for your tests (if you typically use IE, use Firefox to test, etc) in order to prevent you from losing any passwords or personal information stored with cookies. You may want to view your form in multiple browsers to account for any formatting variations. 

Testing Emails 

It is important to test your emails when you are preparing a new template to be used. This will ensure that your email looks the way you intended and also allows you to test for deliverability.

There are two options for sending test emails. For both options, it is recommended that you send the email to multiple addresses, included business and free email providers, to ensure optimum deliverability. You should also follow all links in the email to confirm that they work properly. 

Sending Test Emails from Within the Email Builder (variable tag data not visible)

When creating an email template or draft, you will find a "Send Test Email" button at the bottom. Clicking the button with allow you to type in email addresses to send a test. Using this function, all variable tags will appear as they do in the editor, as %%tag%%. You will not see the items substituted by the tags. Additionally links will not be tracked or rewritten by the system. The behavior of rewritten links may change slightly and it is recommended that you also use the testing method below.  

Sending Test Emails with Yourself as a Prospect (variable tag data inserted)

1. Create a test list - Click Marketing, Lists, and Create new list. Name it something like "Internal Test List".  
2. Create yourself as a prospect - If you are not already a prospect in the system, go to the Prospects tab and click the "Create New Prospect" link. Create a prospect for each email address you'd like to test with. Be sure to add them to the test list that you created above.
3. Send yourself an email - In the Marketing tab, select the email module and then the "Send New Email" link. Send to a list and select your test list. Fill in the email with the appropriate test template and send the email. The email you receive should include all variable tag data (for example, if you used the %%first_name%% tag, you should see your name displayed). Links will also be tracked/rewritten by the system and will appear using your vanity tracker domain.

When you are testing your emails, you may want to keep in mind the following factors:

• Does your email get caught in spam filters?
• Does your email appear correctly in multiple email interfaces (Outlook v. Gmail, etc)?
• Do the links in your email work properly?
• Will readers who don't load images still get an information-rich email?  
• Does your unsubscribe page provide a positive user experience?

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