The method
How to check an email campaign before you send it
Most campaign mistakes are not hard to spot. They are missed because nobody looked at that one thing on that one day. The pre-flight method is a fixed order to look in, so nothing depends on memory.
The inbox line
Sender, subject and preview text. They are all a reader sees before deciding to open.
Inside the email
Links that work, images with a fallback, and one clear thing to do.
The send
The right list, a signed domain, a working unsubscribe and a sensible hour.
What a reader sees before opening, and what they do not
Picture your campaign in a full inbox on a phone. It is one row among dozens. The row has a sender, a subject and a line of preview text. Everything else you worked on is behind that row.
This is why stage one comes first, and why the checker on this site looks only at those three fields. If the row fails, the email inside is never read.
Sender name seen
The first thing read, and the main reason an email is trusted or ignored.
Subject line seen
Shown in full on a desktop, and cut short on a phone.
Preview text seen
The grey line after the subject. If you leave it empty, the inbox fills it for you.
Your design not seen
Colours, layout and logo load only after someone decides to open.
The offer in detail not seen
Terms, prices and dates in the body are not read by people who skip the email.
The button not seen
A call to action has no effect in an unopened email.
The effort not seen
Nobody in the inbox knows the campaign took a week. They see one line.
Five rules for a check that gets done
-
RULE 01
Check after the last edit
A check done before the final change checks a different email. Make the checklist the last thing you do, not the first.
-
RULE 02
Send the test to someone else
You know what the email is meant to say, so that is what you read. A second person reads what is on the screen.
-
RULE 03
Click, do not look
A link can look right and go to the wrong place. Click every one in the test email, in a private browser window.
-
RULE 04
Read it on a phone
That is where the subject is cut off, the button is too small and the image pushes the text off the screen.
-
RULE 05
Fix the cause, then add a check
When something goes wrong after a send, add one line to your checklist. That is how a checklist becomes yours.
Questions about the method
What is an email pre-flight check?
A short, fixed list of things to confirm just before a campaign is sent: the inbox line, the content of the email and the send settings. It borrows the idea from aviation, where routine tasks are checked from a list, not from memory.
Why three stages?
They match the order in which things go wrong for a reader. First they see the inbox line, then the email itself, and the send settings decide whether they should have received it at all.
What does "lift" and "drag" mean in the checker?
Lift is what helps an email get opened: a clear subject, useful preview text and a sender name people know. Drag is what gets it ignored or reported: capitals, repeated punctuation, spam-sounding phrases and misleading framing.
Does this replace testing in my email tool?
No. Use the test send, link checking and rendering previews your email tool provides. The checklists tell you what to look for; your tool is where you look.
Final call
A sent email cannot be unsent.
Check the inbox line before it leaves. Free, no account, nothing uploaded.