This feature is available to users with Author level or higher permissions. Take a look at this article to learn more about the different access levels for a MailChimp account.
You can use the Inbox Inspector to test an existing campaign, a custom template, or you can create an inspection-only campaign solely to run an inbox inspection. Over 30 different email clients and spam filters are available for testing with the Inbox Inspector. Inbox Inspections are included with monthly paid accounts and inspections may be purchased in free and Pay-As-You-Go accounts.
Contents
- Starting an Inbox Inspection
- Once you start an Inbox Inspection...
- View Inspection Results
- Available Previews
- Available Spam Filter Checks
Starting an Inbox Inspection
Test an existing campaign
If you have a campaign that you'll be sending to your subscribers, you can run an inspection from the Design Step or the Confirm step of the Campaign Builder. Just hover over the Preview & Test menu and select Run Inbox Inspection from the drop down.
Jump ahead for the next steps.
Test a custom template
You've created a fancy new template, and want to test it out. You could apply that template to a campaign and run an inspection, or you can test the template on its own, without any campaign-specific information. From the code view for your template, click run inbox inspection below where the template code appears to begin the inspection process.
Skip ahead for the next steps.
Run an inspection-only campaign
On the Campaigns page, there's an Inbox Inspection button. This is an Inbox Inspection ONLY campaign type that you can use if you want to test your inspections, but not use MailChimp to send your emails.
- Once you click the Inbox Inspection, we'll remind you that an inspection-only campaign isn't for sending, and is just for test purposes. Click build a test email to proceed.
- In the Setup step, set your campaign information, such as subject line, title, and tracking options.
- Choose a template in the Design step, or provide your own code, and set up your HTML content.
- The Plain-Text step lets you create and modify the plain-text version of your campaign.
- Once you've provided all of your content, click run inbox inspection on the Confirm step.
Once you start an Inbox Inspection...
- For Pay-As-You-Go and free accounts, confirm your billing information in order to proceed. Purchased inspections include all of the available previews and spam filters automatically.
- For monthly accounts, when you click the run inbox inspection button, a box will pop up to allow you to choose the programs to be tested.
- Run Inbox selection will run the email providers, mobile platforms and spam filters that your subscribers use the most. MailChimp will use the user-agent stats for your list to determine which email programs are most used by your list. If you don't have any list history, we'll use a list of the 10 most common programs.
- Manual client selection lets you choose a combination of up to 10 email clients, mobile devices, and spam filters for testing. This is great if you only want to test how your email looks on a cellphone or if you just want to test spam filters. For some email programs, you can choose to see previews in different browsers (Explorer and Firefox) to see how the browser affects the way things look.
- A confirmation page will appear once the processing is started. Here is where you have a banana break, get a cup of coffee, work on some reports, and call your favorite Chimp while the inspection runs. It hits test inboxes real time, so give it a while (generally from 15-20 minutes up to 2 hours).
View Inspection Results
Inbox Inspection reports are available for 30 days after they've finished running or 7 days after the campaign has been sent. There are a few ways to access inbox inspections that you've already run:
- On the Campaigns page, hover over the campaign title and click on the inbox inspection link.
- On the Reports page in your account, we've created a smart folder that holds Inbox Inspections in one convenient place. Choose the inbox inspections smart folder on the left side, under the campaign folders.
In your report, you'll find the different variations of each email client program selected. For example, you'll be able to look at Outlook 2003 with images on and images off as well as see what it might look like if someone is viewing in the preview pane. This lets you see the weird quirks of individual email clients - like how Gmail extracts YouTube clips and displays them separately from your email in some cases or how your subject line appears, in case some programs may be cutting it off.
Available Previews
- AOL Mail (Explorer)
- AOL Mail (Firefox)
- Apple Mail 4
- BlackBerry 8900
- BlackBerry Curve
- Color blindness
- Gmail (Explorer)
- Gmail (Firefox)
- Hotmail (Explorer)
- Hotmail (Firefox)
- HTC HD7
- iPad 2
- iPhone 3GS
- LG Optimus
- Lotus Notes 6.5
- Lotus Notes 7
- Lotus Notes 8
- Lotus Notes 8.5
- Me.com (Firefox)
- Nokia N96
- Outlook 2000
- Outlook 2002/XP
- Outlook 2003
- Outlook 2007
- Outlook 2010
- Plain Text
- Samsung Intrepid
- Thunderbird 2.0
- Thunderbird 3.0
- Yahoo! Mail (Explorer)
- Yahoo! Mail (Firefox)
Available Spam Filter Checks
- Barracuda
- FastMail
- Gmail
- GMX
- HTML Validation
- HushMail
- Link and image validation
- Lycos
- Mail.com
- MessageLabs
- MobileMe
- Outlook
- Postini
Notes
You can run the Inbox Inspector on campaigns created with our design tools or on campaigns where you have provided your own HTML code.
Inbox inspections are available for 30 days after they've finished running or for 7 days after the campaign has been sent.