Send Test Email - how it works

On some occasions you may find the Send Test Email page not behaving how you think it should and claiming that "No contacts exist for this filter" when you try to send. This article aims to demystify why this happens and to explain what Etelligent's doing behind the scenes.

If you select a Test Filter from the Test Filter dropdown at the bottom of the page, Etelligent simply sends the Email to the contacts it pulls out.

If, however, you enter some values into the First Name, Last Name and E-Mail boxes at the top of the page as shown below, the following string of events occurs:

• Etelligent looks for a DataSource with the name of the value in the E-Mail box (which I'll refer to as "EMAIL" from now on). If it doesn't find one, a new DataSource called EMAIL is created.

• Etelligent looks for a contact record with an email address of EMAIL. If it doesn't find one, a new contact record with the details entered is created and added to the EMAIL DataSource.

• Etelligent looks for a Filter called EMAIL. If it doesn't find one, a new Filter called EMAIL is created that pulls out any contacts (of which there will be only one) that are in the EMAIL DataSource.

• Etelligent will then check that the Filter called EMAIL pulls out at least one contact record. If there are none, Etelligent displays an error message, otherwise the Test Email is sent.

One important factor to be aware of is that the Test Filters Etelligent creates only pull out contacts that are part of the DataSources they use. This means that a specific contact record needs to be subscribed for an Etelligent-created Test Filter to return any contacts.

If you try to send to a Test Filter by selecting it from the Test Filter dropdown (or by manually entering an email address that Etelligent has already performed a Send Test Email to) and Etelligent returns an error message stating that: "No contacts exist for this filter. Or contact has been unsubscribed. Please check the test filter.", it is likely that the particular contact record that's a member of the DataSource Etelligent created when the first Test Email was sent to them, has been unsubscribed.

The easiest way to sort this is to go to Contact Search in the navigation, enter the email address of the contact you're trying to send a Test Email to and check that the record with the lowest Contact ID is subscribed by making sure the "remove" field is set to "No".

One final point is that Etelligent doesn't dedupe Test Sends so if you send to a Test Filter you've made manually that pulls out all contacts with your email address, and you're in your installation multiple times, you'll get multiple emails.

If you still have problems sending a Test Email, click the Technical Support link in the top-right corner of Etelligent and submit a support request.