Email Testing: What Is It, 10 Tools, and Best Practices (2024)

There may be more options than ever to reach customers, yet email consistently gets results. However, email marketing is more involved than it might appear on the surface. Sending out campaigns without any plan in place can lead to wasted time, money, and undue frustration.

Email testing has a place in your marketing strategy and execution. Here’s why it’s helpful for businesses, its benefits, best practices, and the leading email testing solutions of 2024.

What is email testing?

Email testing allows you to evaluate specific elements of an email campaign so that it follows best practices. You’ll need to play around with subject lines, content, design, timing, and segmentation to find out what speaks to your target audience. Looking at data related to open rates, click-through rates, and conversions can help you refine your emails and get better results.

Why is email testing for companies important?

Email testing can save companies from coming up short. Testing is a low-stakes way to determine which campaigns might work and identify ones that need some attention before they’re blasted out to the email list. For example, do new customers respond to welcome emails? Do they want refund emails as well as to see money in the bank? Testing can let you know the answer.

3 Benefits of Email Testing

Higher Open and Click-Through Rates

Email testing can help you take the necessary steps to refine elements such as subject lines and content. It can also give you insight on email deliverability and which emails may no longer be in use. This intentionally can help you increase open and click-through rates. In the longer term, you might be able to close more deals because the message speaks to them and avoids issues such as high spam scores that land your emails in spam filters.

Better Engagement with Subscribers

Most people’s inboxes are a flurry of activity, with dozens, if not hundreds, of emails coming in each and every day. Companies are competing with each other for attention, and the reality is that most people won’t open emails without a catchy subject line because they have so many to go through.

Focus on sending targeted and relevant content to your current subscribers. Ensure you segment your audience and send the correct, targeted emails to each group.

More Conversions and Sales

A marketing campaign should lead to conversions and sales. Testing and refinement can move more prospects along in the sales funnel and lead to more sales. To get more sales, you need to create the best email for the customers you’re reaching out to (complete with links to buy your products or services).

Best Practices for Email Testing

Test Subject Lines and Preview Text

The subject line creates the first impression so you’ll want to put in time and money to craft ones that will prompt someone to open. The same goes for preview text. This copy can tell readers more about what they can expect from the email.

Test Email Content and Design

Email testing can help you produce a final product that gets your message across while looking professional. A/B testing can help you glean insights into where you might invest your energy to refine the email.

Test Timing and Frequency

The timing of an email matters. You might see if there are variations when pushing out emails at various times and days. Testing is smart, but don’t overdo it or you might risk turning people off.

Importance of Segmentation in Testing

Grouping by demographics, interests, and past behavior can help you create emails that get clicks instead of getting sent to spam. In 2024, personalization is king. Use it to your advantage and you’ll see how prospects respond better.

Best 10 Email Testing Tools of 2024

Litmus

Litmus can be a helpful tool for pushing out emails across multiple devices and email clients. Users claim it’s easy to use and the testing features provide clarity on how and where to tweak campaigns to get maximum results.

Litmus starts at $99 a month.

Mail-Tester

Mail-Tester can help you avoid the dreaded spam folder. It works by identifying potential deliverability issues early on so you can make adjustments accordingly.

Pricing starts at 50 euros for 500 tests.

Wormly

Wormly’s real-time monitoring and alerts for email servers offer peace of mind in terms of email deliverability and performance. It can also alert you to incorrect or inactive email addresses so you can remove them from your database and avoid spending money on sending email blasts to unused or closed accounts.

Try Wormly for $44 per month (base).

Email on Acid

Email on Acid offers a way to create more polished emails that can improve marketing ROI. You can take the guesswork out of testing, troubleshooting, and tracking emails by turning to this helpful tool.

Email on Acid starts at $74 per month per user.

Brevo

Maybe you want to do more around A/B testing. This solution makes it easy to compare different versions of their emails. You can send up to 300 emails a day with their free plan.

Paid plans start at $25 per month.

GlockApps

GlockApps promises superior deliverability testing and monitoring tools to help you cut through the clutter. Its reporting features can help you determine problems affecting deliverability so you can adjust and get back on track.

GlockApps has a free plan, and paid plans start at $85 per month.

Stripo

Not everyone has an eye for design, and that’s OK. Stripo makes email design a breeze. You can benefit from a drag-and-drop interface, plus plenty of templates. All of this can help you push out emails that get noticed.

Stripo has a free plan, or you can start with the $15 monthly plan.

Mailtrap

You can use Mailtrap to test and send email campaigns in a simulated environment. Instead of hoping for the best, you can produce emails that actually get opened.

Try Mailtrap for free or upgrade for a minimum of $14.99 per user/month.

Moosend

Moosend’s marketing tools include A/B testing, automation, and personalization. Its segmentation feature can help you set up campaigns that reflect where people are in their buying journeys and relationships with your company.

Moosend doesn’t have a free plan, but you can try a 30-day free trial or pay $9 a month for the Pro plan.

How To Optimize Emails

Behind every successful email campaign is a winning strategy. You can optimize emails by trying the following:

Choose a Recognizable Sender Name

This should be a name that people know and trust, such as the company name or someone who has clout.

Craft an Attention-Grabbing Subject Line

Subject lines shouldn’t be the Great American novel. Instead, they should be short, engaging, and relevant to prompt action. You might research keywords that are associated with excitement or high energy, as these can pique interest.

Personalize Email Content

Emails should reflect the recipient’s preferences, demographics, and other factors to make the communication more personalized.

Write Engaging Emails

The subject line isn’t the only area where copy matters. The contents of the email should also reflect clear language and incite positive feelings.

Design With Mobile in Mind

We live in a mobile world. As such, you need to ensure email marketing campaigns look good and function in this context.

Use Graphics and Rich Text

Text alone won’t get the job done. Take the time to invest in high-quality images, videos, and infographics to get your point across.

Add Shareable Links

You can get more mileage out of your emails by subtly asking for subscribers to share them. Many platforms allow you to embed social media buttons and shareable links to make this easy.

Include CTAs

Every communication should have a clear ask. Spell out the desired action and make it easy for people to take the next step.

Include an Option to Unsubscribe

People might want to opt-out for a host of reasons. Sometimes it’s nothing personal. They might get too many emails and need to scale back. Whatever the reason, offer a simple and easy way to unsubscribe.

Podium: A Smarter Way to Manage Leads

Email marketing is one source of leads, but people connect with you in other ways, too. Instead of trying to manage multiple leads on multiple platforms, Podium makes it easy to connect and respond. A single inbox can help you follow up with leads faster and increase the likelihood of a sale.

Look to Podium as part of your overall marketing strategy. Watch a demo and see this solution in action.