This article describes the Virtual Inbox Test feature that is available when creating and editing templates and messages. The test is a great way to see how a template or message will render in various desktop, mobile, and web-based email clients before the message is sent.

Feature availability

Virtual Inbox Test is available in:

Template Designer on the Review & Activate tab
Message Designer on the Review & Send tab

Two parts of the test

The Virtual Inbox Test has two parts:

The Spam Test checks whether your template or message passes the spam filter test (which scans your template or message for common spam triggers).

TIP: Check out our Deliverability Best Practices and Avoid Spam Triggers in Mailing Content articles for information on things that you can do and not do in order to avoid common spam triggers in your templates and messages.

The Render Test is more a collection of "rendering previews" of your template or message in the various email clients.

TIP: Virtual Inbox Test is run on a variety of email clients. You can view the list of email clients that are currently included on the Email on Acid "active email clients" page. Scroll down and click to view the full client list.

We'll look more closely at these results below, after the example test.

Run a test

You can run a virtual inbox test on any template or message. When you do, though, keep in mind:

The results of a test on a template reflect only the layouts and elements that have been added in order to build that template.
The results of a test on a message include all of the template collateral and all of the message content (text, images, videos, link, etc.) and are, therefore, more representative of what you can expect when the message is sent to recipients.

In this section, we'll edit an existing Message Designer message to run the virtual inbox test on it. The steps are similar for a template, except that you navigate to Messages > Templates.

To edit a Message Designer message:

Access the Admin interface.
Navigate to Messages > List.

TIPS: On list pages, click a column header to sort on that column; click again to reverse the sort order. Click the columns count below the list to add and remove columns in the current view.

On the Messages list, locate the message for which you want to run the virtual inbox test and either:

- click the hyperlinked name of the message or
- click elsewhere on the row to select the message and click Edit.

TIP: To keep the current list page open, right-click the hyperlinked name and open the message in a new tab or window.

The message opens on the Design tab of Message Designer.

Click the Review & Send tab and scroll down to the Virtual Inbox Test section.

Click Run Test to start the test.

NOTE: If a test has previously been run for this message (or template), the Virtual Inbox Test section displays differently; the options are described in Previous tests, below.

After a few minutes, the test results display.

Test results

The test results display right in the section when the test has completed.

Spam Test Results

The spam test results offer "failed" and "passed" counts only.

Click a colored bar to expand the section and view the results.

Failed tests (orange bar)

There aren't any indicators of what caused the test to fail.

Review the message (or template) and check for issues and possible spam triggers.
If you make any changes, run the test again to check whether they were successful.

Deliverability Best Practices and Avoid Spam Triggers in Mailing Content have information on things to check, and things to do and not do.

Passed tests (green bar)

This is a list of email clients in which there were no spam-related issues with the virtual test.

Render Test Results

This section has previews of the message (or template).

Click a tab (Desktop, Mobile, Webmail) to view the previews for that type of email client.
Use the scrollbar (or mouse wheel) to vertically navigate the previews in each type.
Click Back to close the test-results panel.
- Because you have now done a test, the section updates to the "Previous tests" version, as described below in Previous tests.

You can also click one of the previews (e.g., Libero Firefox) to open it in a larger view.

Use the scrollbar (or mouse wheel) to vertically navigate the message.
Click the dropdown to either:
- manually specify an email client or
- scroll through the list to select a different email client.
Click Back to return to the three-tabs previews list.

Previous tests

If you have previously run a test on a message (or template), the Virtual Inbox Test section displays as shown below.

NOTE: This is based on the unique and permanent message ID (or template ID) that has been generated by the system. This ID does not change, irrespective of how many changes are made to the message (or template).

Click the dropdown to select a previous test and then click View Results (refer to the sections above for information).
Click Run Test to run a fresh virtual-inbox test. This test will be added to the "previous test" dropdown.