Sending test emails of your post

Sending a test email allows you to preview how your post will appear in the inbox, helping you ensure it appears and functions as intended. You can send test emails to team members or any email addresses you specify, making it a best practice in verifying the design, layout, and overall look of your post.

We'll start with some quick tips to get you started, followed by a step-by-step guide to walk you through the process of sending a test email.

Quick tips to get you started

• Test emails vs. A/B testing: Sending test emails is different from A/B Testing, which allows you to test subject lines with a portion of your audience. A test email sends the entire post to yourself or your team, so you can check how it renders before sending it to your subscribers.
  
  
• Launch plan limits: Users on the Launch plan can send up to 4 test emails to yourself. If you are a team member added to a publication on a paid plan, you will have access to sending to your team or to outside emails, but only on the paid publication you have access to.
  
  
• Paid plan users can send up to 10 recipients per test email: While there’s no overall limit to the number of emails a paid plan user can send, test emails can only be sent to a maximum of 10 recipients at a time.
  
  
• Simulated Subscriber option: This feature lets you test personalized content as if it’s being sent to one of your subscribers. Though the email is only sent to the specified test addresses, it displays how it would look for that subscriber, making it great for testing personalization utilizing merge tags or the Referral Program.
  
  
• Magic Links may not work in test emails: There are a few reasons why Magic Links might not function properly in test emails.
  
  
• Test emails won’t include the ‘unsubscribe’ header: No need to worry — beehiiv automatically adds a one-click unsubscribe option to every published post, in compliance with the 2024 Security Mandates, even if it’s not visible in your test email.

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How to send a test email of your post

1. From the left panel Dashboard, click Start Writing, or open a post that you would like to edit.
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. The Post Builder will open on the Compose page. After writing or editing your post, click the dropdown arrow next to Preview.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. In the dropdown, you can select team members to send the test email to by checking the box next to their names.
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. To send the test email to other addresses, enter up to 10 email addresses in the provided box, separating each with a comma.
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. If you want to simulate sending the email to a specific subscriber, select a subscriber from the dropdown menu under Simulated Subscriber. Any merge tags in the email will automatically be personalized with that subscriber's information.
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. Click Send test email to send your test email to the addresses you’ve entered.