Email: Doing a test run

This task pertains to using Unica Campaign to send email communications from Acoustic Campaign. It is important to do a test run before committing to a production run.

About this task

A test run is extremely important because it is your opportunity to confirm that the mailing is properly configured before you deliver it to customers. Never do a production run without first doing a test run.

Typically, you do a test run after you finish configuring the Email process in an Unica Campaign flowchart.

The purpose of the test run is to confirm connectivity between Unica Campaign and Acoustic Campaign and to spot-check several emails in Acoustic Campaign. For example, if you used Unica Campaign to override the Subject line in the email template, you must confirm that the correct substitution was made.

A test run in Unica Campaign never sends a production email to customers, even if Send email to all contacts immediately (in the Email configuration dialog) is checked.

Important: See the IBM Marketing Cloud documentation for complete information about doing email test runs. This topic covers only a small portion of the process (testing from Unica Campaign to Acoustic Campaign).

Procedure

  1. Use Unica Campaign to open the flowchart (in Edit mode) that contains the configured Email process.
  2. Limit the test run to just a few records. You will remove this restriction later, after the test run is complete.
    Note: This step is recommended but not required.

    If you do not limit the test run, the entire contact list is sent to Acoustic Campaign during the test run, which is unneccessary and time consuming.

    1. Double-click the process box that provides input to the Email process. For example, if a Select process is connected to the Email process, open the Select process configuration dialog.
    2. Select the Cell size limit tab.
    3. Use the Limit output cell size option under Test run output cell size limitations to restrict the number of records. Typically, 5 or 10 records are sufficient for a test run.
  3. Save the flowchart.
  4. Open the Run menu and use one of the Test run options to do a test run of the flowchart, branch, or process.

    The contact list is sent to Acoustic Campaign but no emails are sent (regardless of whether Send email to all contacts immediately is selected).

  5. In Acoustic Campaign, use the Test Mailing feature to send a test email and confirm that the email content and contact list are correct. (You can do a Normal Test or a Quick Test, but Quick Test sends HTML mailings, not text only.) A test mailing is typically sent to a "black hole" address or an internal marketing email address.
    Confirm that all of the selections that were made in Unica Campaign are accurately reflected in the test email. For example:
    • If you changed the Subject line in Unica Campaign or made any static value substitutions for variables, confirm that they are correct in the test email.
    • Confirm that the Acoustic Campaign contact list includes all of the expected fields from Unica Campaign.
    • Confirm that the contact list was either created or updated, depending on which selection was made in Unica Campaign.
    • Confirm that the test send was saved in the correct folder on the Sent tab in Acoustic Campaign.
  6. Follow all of the instructions in the IBM Marketing Cloud documentation to confirm that the email is properly prepared.

What to do next

If you encounter any errors, resolve them and then do another test run. When you are satisfied with the test run results, you are ready to do a production run. See Email: Doing a production run.