Troubleshooting Test Email Delivery Failures

We know it can be frustrating to take the time to send test email campaigns and then not receive them. There are a few things that could affect the delivery of your test emails.

In this article, you'll learn about some common issues with test emails and tips on how to troubleshoot them so you can get back to work.

Things to know

Here are some things you should know about the delivery of test emails.

• The time it takes for a test email to arrive in your inbox can vary depending on your email and internet service providers (ESPs and ISPs). It can take up to 24 hours or more for test emails to arrive.
• We recommend that you send test campaigns to as many common email servers as possible, like Gmail, in addition to your personal or corporate account to determine if it's a problem with just one email server.

Troubleshooting tips

Follow these tips to give your test email a greater chance for a successful delivery.

Don’t send test emails to a corporate or work email address

• Corporate spam firewalls can be especially strict when it comes to test messages. Also, sending a test email to multiple recipients at a company can look like a spam attack. If you must send the test to your work email, ask the IT group at your company to allowlist Mailchimp's server (other providers may refer to it as "whitelist").
• Corporate email clients may flag email that has the same "To" and "From" email address. If you sent to the same business email you're using as your From email address, try sending to a different business email. Alternatively, you could sign up and send to a free email account, like Gmail, for test purposes.

Use real content instead of placeholder text

• Filler text in test emails can trigger spam filters. Don't use Lorem Ipsum text in the body of the email. If you need to use placeholder text, make it look as much like real content as possible.
• Avoid words like "test" or "testing" in your email subject line.

Use a From email address that is not linked to a free email account

• Free email domains, like Yahoo and Gmail, have policies in place that can cause delivery issues. For more info, check out our article on the limitations of free email addresses.
• If possible, we recommend you register a domain to use as your From email address.

Authenticate your private domain

We use authentication to help ensure the delivery of your email campaigns. To further improve deliverability, you may wish to use a private domain as your From email address and set up your own custom authentication. Learn more about custom domain authentication, or how to set up your own email domain authentication.

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