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Litmus Guide

Litmus QA Testing Guide

Litmus is the all-in-one, easy-to-use set of solutions your team needs to create emails that convert and get more from your marketing. Simply connect to your ESP, and we’ll equip you with a powerful set of tools to help ensure your messages get heard. From pre-send testing to post-delivery data to high-performance insights, it’s everything you need to cut through the clutter.

Setting up litmus email

Litmus gives you the ability to create your own custom email address to send test to the platform. While this is not required (you have a default email when account is created), this makes it easier to remember.

While we can also upload or copy and paste HTML code, sending an email test from Sailthru is the recommended route.

  1. Click on the ACLU Affiliate on the top right
  2. Click on Settings
  3. Go to Account menu option on the left-hand menu
  4. Under Litmus address, add the email you want to use to send test in.

Sending a test email

While we can also upload or copy and paste HTML code, sending an email test from Sailthru is the recommended route. The reason for this is because we use custom code in Sailthru, that only works on Sailthru. So if you copy and paste the code anywhere were, things like your logo and footer links will be broken.

  1. Choose Unsorted Emails from Home page left-hand menu
  2. If there are no emails in the inbox, you will see a button with a copy address.
  3. There might be emails in there already, if so it will look like this. You will not see the copy address button. This is why creating a custom email that is easy to remember is recommended.
    1. We don’t suggest using the New Email button. It adds more steps than needed.
  4. Once you’ve copy the email, head over to Sailthru and from the Test Send button add the litmus email address.
  5. You’re email should be in the Unsorted Email folder.

Reviewing a test

Litmus gives us a number of useful tools that will help make sure our emails have little to no errors when we send them out. Whether that’s advising on Subject lines or how emails look on certain email clients, the platform gives you tips on what doesn’t work for email.

  1. To review an email, you can click on the image preview shown, or if you hover over the email, you will see a series of Blue buttons that represent the menu options you will have when reviewing and email.
    1. Summary
    2. Builder
    3. Preview & QA
    4. Proof
    5. Analytics
  2. The first page you are taking to is the Summary tab. This page will provide you with:
    1. A list of checks for reviewing emails
    2. Send date of email (Do not use)
    3. Status of email (Do not use)
    4. Description (Do not use)
    5. Tracking (Do not use)
  3. The Builder tab should be ignored. Please skip this section
    1. If you find yourself here, don't make any changes as you cannot copy this code back to Sailthru because of our conditional content like send name and email.
    2. If you are clicking to another tab, select Don’t Update when this message comes up. We don’t want it to change the code we sent in .
  5. The Previews & QA tab will provide you with the most useful information to reviews to make sure your emails will not have any errors causing it to be sent to Spam.
    1. Previews
      1. This section will show you a preview of your email on every email client we are supporting.
      2. These are chosen by national based on our list composition, and analytics from Litmus, Sailthru, and 250ok on what our devices are being most used.
    2. First Impression
      1. This section if the first thing the subscriber sees when they get the email.
      2. It will call out certain words that are not recommended to be used on email.
        1. While this is useful, its not always 100% accurate. Free is a spam trigger work when used in subject line. Litmus will also flag Freedom even though it is not a Spam trigger word, but can potentially be flag by the emails clients.
      3. You also have the ability to preview how it looks on devices. This is useful if you have a long subject line and want to see where it gets cut off.
    3. Accessibility
      1. This section will point out any flags to review and what passed.
      2. You can also hear the screen reading of your email. Our templates have been updated to make sure we are using best practices to make sure our content reads properly. This is good to check copy as well, cause anything off or missing, can easier be caught.
      3. NOTE: Because of the way our templates are coded, you will always see the “Your email contains text with a justified or centered alignment" flag. This flag can be ignored.
    4. Links
      1. This section shows you all links you have on the email.
      2. NOTE: You will always see an error for Instagram link and also the beacon. No need to worry about these two.
    5. Tracking
      1. This section will show you the tracking codes you have added to your URL.
    6. Image Blocking
      1. This section will show you the email will all images turned off so you can check to see that alt codes are correct.
    7. Loading Speed
      1. This section will show you how long it takes your email to load. This is incredibly useful to make sure your images are optimize for emails.
      2. Email should load in under 0.3 seconds. Email that take longer will cause the user to disengage.
    8. Spam Testing
      1. This section will show you any flags that could lead your email to be send to a spam folder automatically.
      2. These check for the authentication signature to make sure email clients know that this is an email from us and not a spoof.
      3. You will also see any block list that our IP is associated with.
        1. The a good portion of the time, you will see a SORBS, which is a low level spam list that comes and goes.
  6. The Proof tab is where you can leave any comments.
    1. Section Overview
      1. Email Section
        1. Here you can review the links, highlight copy that should be replaced.
      2. Comment & approval Section
        1. This is where you will find comments and approval.
      3. Version Section
        1. This is where you set up a new version of the email to be sent.
    2. Leaving comments
      1. Highlight the copy you would like update and choose add comment.
      2. Leave the comment you would like. It will automatically at the person who send the test in. You can also use the @ symbol to tag anyone else.
      3. Once the changes have been made, send a new version and a member of the CAN team will mark them resolved as we QA the new version.
    3. Sending new version
      1. In order to send a new version in, you will need an updated email address Litmus will provide to make sure it ends up under this campaign. If sent to the originally litmus address, it will just create a new test instead of version.
      2. Click New Version button
      3. Copy the new email address and send an updated test from Sailthru.
      4. You can check to see if the new version arrived by looking at the Version section to the which you are currently looking. You will be able to see every version that was set in, by clicking the Version: # link and choosing which version you want to view.
    4. Final Approval
      1. Once the email is approved, you will see on the Approvals section.
      2. Once this is approved, a CAN team member will also provide the correct suppressions that will be needed for the send as a comment.
      3. Once the email has been approved, you can move this test to your affiliate folder.
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