Conditional content tests using unique message permutations

Testing for unique message permutations allows you to evaluate conditional rules specified in the Deliver document against the recipient data specified in the recipient list. When you run a test mailing to view unique permutations, Deliver processes all of the recipient list specified in the test run configuration and generates a single example of every possible variation of the message.

For example, if your document contains one conditional element with five possible conditions, and your customer data contains rows that satisfy each of these five conditions at least once, your test run will contain five messages. Even if the recipient list contained a million rows, the test run for unique permutations would generate only five messages.

The number of messages generated can increase quickly, depending on the number of conditional elements, the complexity of the conditional rules, and the variation in the recipient data. The possible variations also depend on the interplay of the conditional elements that the document defines. If your document contains two conditional elements, one with five conditions and another with three conditions, and your customer data contains rows that match each of these eight conditions at least once, your test run will contain fifteen (5 x 3) emails.

Note: Deliver does not generate unique message permutations for nested conditional content defined by advanced scripts for email. Unique permutations reflect only the variations created by personalization rules defined in the Message Editor.

A test messaging run for unique permutations sends the different versions of the messages to a test distribution. Each address in the distribution receives all of the unique versions of the message, based on the recipient data in the recipient list that you selected for the test messaging. Message is never sent to your customers or prospects when you test for unique permutations. For more information about test distributions, see Test distributions.

If Unica has configured a default test distribution for your account, you can send the unique permutations to the default test distribution.

If Unica has not configured a default test distribution, you can perform a Test Send with Custom Settings. Using this option, you can select where to send the unique versions of the message.