SiteVista launches a cool email testing service
Posted by Mathew Patterson on January 9, 2007
If you read Mark Wyner's recent email testing opus you may have despaired at how time consuming and complex it all seemed. Even though you know it is sensible and necessary, it seems like a lot of work.
Fortunately for all of us without Mark's commitment to excellence, SiteVista have today released the first version of their email testing service. SiteVista's web page testing service has had great reviews, and this new service looks set to match it.
So what is an email testing service anyway?
Basically, it's a quick, simple and efficient way to find out how your carefully crafted html email is going to be variously displayed or mangled by different email clients. You put your email in, and you get back a bunch of screenshots, just like a web page testing service.
Right now you get screenshots from:
- Outlook 2000 / XP / 2003 / 2007
- Outlook Express
- Hotmail
- Gmail
Apparently more will be added soon, including Apple Mail, AOL, Yahoo! Mail, Entourage and Eudora. For each client you get one screenshot of your email in the inbox / preview pane, and one of the email as it appears when opened. So within minutes you can find out how hotmail users will see your email, whether your header fits into the Outlook preview pane and what kind of ads Google is likely to run next to it!
If you've ever had subscribers emailing you saying they couldn't see that photo, or your text was unreadable, you know why this is a vital service.
How does it work?
SiteVista have made this incredibly simple. The signup process is quick and painless, and literally within one minute I was testing my first email. To start a new test, you are given a specific email address to send your email to.
You fire off your html email to that address, let SiteVista know, and you are immediately taken to the results page.
Over the next few moments (from seconds to a minute or two) all the spots in the grid are filled as the screenshots appear. You can click on each one for a full size view, and it is worth noting that you can see the full email, not just a screenful. SiteVista rather grandly call this 'FullPage technology'.
Any problems are easy to spot, and you can then go away and make whatever corrections are needed before running another test. Your account contains a record of all your previous tests, so you can go back and check your results at any time. It's all fantastically straightforward and logical.
How much does it cost?
If you are a freelancer, you can have up to 50 tests a month for USD$49, which is great value. Even better, if you sign up by this Friday the 12th, you can lock in your account at USD$39/month for the life of your account.
Businesses can have unlimited access for up to 10 people for USD$149/month. For the full details, including annual rates at a discount, check out the pricing page.
So you like it then?
Yes, we all think it is a great service. There's a couple of questions I'd like to see the SiteVista site cover, like what screen sizes and resolutions the email clients are at. I also would like to know if the email clients have been left with their default settings or not.
Other than that, SiteVista's email testing service looks like a really useful tool that can save you a lot of wasted time and money testing and sending emails. If you want to make sure you are giving your email campaigns the best chance of success, you need to test them. SiteVista have given us a simple and cost effective way to do that.
What do you think? Do you do any cross-client testing for your emails now? Would you give SiteVista's service a try?
14 comments so far
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Dean
wrote on January 9, 2007 9:35 PM
Seems a bit expensive to me. Plus how does it allow for the reiterative aspect of these things (test, fix, test, fix, test etc)?
Dave Greiner
wrote on January 9, 2007 10:24 PM
Dean, trust me, compared to other competing services which can run into the thousands of dollars, $39/month is a great price if you're designing and testing emails regularly.
In regards to suitability to iterative testing, I guess it depends on how many tweaks you need to make. When using something like our test design tool, you can easily make a change to your design, save it and then send it to SiteVista in a single click for a re-test.
I think it's perfectly suited to iterative testing. If you're making lots of small changes to your design then testing these changes across 6 or 7 different environments, it can get frustrating real fast. A tool like this makes this process a whole lot more efficient.
Kel
wrote on January 11, 2007 3:04 AM
OK - But when will they add Mail for the iPhone ;-)
Kel
wrote on January 11, 2007 10:35 AM
Hmm, speaking of testing... I missed this before. Ug..
http://f6design.com/journal/2007/01/10/microsoft-drops-the-ball-with-outlook-2007/
Outlook 2007 will use the Word 2007 render engine instead of the mildly frustrating IE7 engine. Er.. ok.
fyre
wrote on January 12, 2007 10:26 AM
Sounds like a good idea however until it offers more options (think about it - there are lot of email browsers out there) I don't see it as viable option as half of the provided environments can be tested on most peoples computers already for free.
Dave Greiner
wrote on January 12, 2007 1:39 PM
I agree Fyre, but with Thunderbird, AOL, Apple Mail, Eudora and Entourage coming in the next few weeks it becomes much more cost effective.
Judi Sohn
wrote on January 13, 2007 5:11 PM
Looks fantastic, but I can't justify the cost until they add AOL, Eudora, Yahoo and the other promised services. It annoys me when services launch "beta" or not complete but expect folks to pay right from the start.
Jt
wrote on January 18, 2007 7:40 AM
Looks good, but like others, I think it will need more supported programs to make it really worth it.
Paul Farnell
wrote on January 19, 2007 4:40 AM
@Judi: I understand how that could be frustrating, but we wanted to get it out there as soon as it was fully stable, even without the broader range of client clients. Already it seems to have saved people a lot of time, and they've been very pleased with the price.
Thanks to everyone for the feedback, and to Campaign Monitor for featuring us. We're working on getting the additional email clients available as soon as we can!
Nathan Clark
wrote on January 19, 2007 8:38 AM
I've never found it that cumbersome to run with all the apps open for a few minutes when testing. Perhaps the best niche for this would be re-testing a campaign before the weekly / daily version goes out.
But for the initial design of a message, the discipline of seeing it work with your eyes, in the app, is a must.
Randolph Resnick
wrote on January 31, 2007 9:26 PM
We do mailing every quarter. I'd definitely go for $10 for a one-shot test when they have more complete support. For $20 I'd want to see iterative (up to five tests or something like that) or, and I think this'd be ideal, a "points" system where for a single price you get a credit to do so many tests. I'm posting this as constructive criticism to indicate what I would be interested in seeing. The idea is a good one and I hope they make it evolve in power and choice of price structure.
John Y
wrote on February 6, 2007 11:52 PM
I can't recommend this site. We paid for the $19 one-shot service, and the payment process was so convoluted (mainly due to Mastercard's security, it has to be said) that I forgot what password I'd registered with.
There is no password reminder button. There is no contact phone number. Emails went unanswered. The service we paid for has now expired, and we haven't even got to use it. My email requesting a refund has, similarly, gone unanswered.
If this is the level of customer service Sitevista offers, then I sincerely hope someone more customer-focused sets up a competing service very soon, because that's the last $19 our company will be giving Sitevista.
A hint, guys: if you're offering a service that's only valid for one day, you need to answer email queries from customers having problems WITHIN THE HOUR.
John Y
wrote on February 21, 2007 10:27 PM
Update: SiteVista have refunded our money and given us a week's free credit. It's a pretty cool service, but seems a bit slow at the moment, especially with the webmail. It might mean our test mail got dropped by Google, Yahoo and AOL as spam, of course...
Steve K
wrote on June 8, 2007 12:14 AM
They really should offer a free trial account with like 10 tests and not charge you 20 bucks for a day worth of testing. Sending lots of newsletters ourselves, the video does not help us to decide whether or not to use this service.
Got anything to add?