Frequently Asked Questions

We generate a code based simulation of your email by analyzing and parsing your HTML and CSS code much like each of the email clients do.

This solution requires a thorough knowledge of what is and is not supported by each client.  In order to constantly update this knowledge base, we use a series of procedures and advanced algorithms for testing popular clients and detecting any changes they make to their web, desktop, and mobile applications.

We also integrate web based email client style sheets which dramatically affect the way your email will render.

For Outlook 2007 and 2010, we send your email through the physical application and parse together a screen capture of the final result.

Generally it takes 1-2 minutes to process your email test results.  This includes your SPAM analysis as well as a preview of your email in each of our supported clients and mobile devices!

We guarantee that our test results are 100% accurate or we will refund your money!

If you run an acid test and find an inconsistency between our simulation and the way your email actually renders in any of our supported clients - we want to hear about it!  For that reason, we have a “Report a Discrepancy” feature built into our user interface.  When using this feature, there is no need to re-submit your code or URL because we include your email, web browser, and operating system in the support ticket.

It is important to note that when using web based email clients (such as Hotmail, AOL, G-Mail, or Yahoo) recipients can receive your email using any of the popular web browsers (IE, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, or Safari). Our acid test is designed to display web email client results as they would appear in the web browser you are running your test in. Here are the steps we recommend:

1.) View your email in each of the standard web browsers until you are satisfied
2.) Run an acid test in Firefox, then open IE and run the same acid test again from your archive.
3.) You can run the same test from your archive in as many browsers as you wish.

In our email simulation tool, we use the term “discrepancy” two different ways:

For those of you who are new to our system, we generate a code analysis for each email client.  In that analysis, we flag lines of code that are not supported in red.  This helps you to identify issues and make necessary changes to your code.  In the top of the results screen, we list the number of discrepancies that where found for each client.

Please do not confuse a discrepancy with a coding error.  In fact, the conflict may or may not alter the final layout in a way and in many instances, a programmer may use certain CSS properties or HTML attributes that work for a majority of email clients but not for others. There might also be other circumstances where they are forced to use code that is not supported in all clients just so that their design will render correctly in all of them.  When certain properties or elements are not “supported” the email client in question simply ignores that code.

The second usage for the term “discrepancy” is intended for customer service and support.  If you run an acid test and find inconsistencies between our simulation and actual email client results - we want to hear about it! For that reason, we have included a “Report a Discrepancy” feature in our user interface.  When using this feature, there is no need to re-submit your code or URL because we include your email, web browser, and operating system in the support ticket.

Our acid test is designed to display web email client results as it would appear in the web browser you are running your test in.  For that reason, it is good practice to run a test in each browser, then log back into your account on another browser and re-run your test from your archive.

This way you can accommodate for every possible combination.

In the interest of saving time, test your email in popular browsers before running an acid test.  This will help you catch any rendering issues from one browser to the next.  From there, run your acid test in IE and Firefox at the bare minimum.

Our application was primarily designed as a developer tool which allows users to see exactly which lines of code where altered by each client.  This code based simulation helps our users learn the in’s and out’s of what is supported by each client without having to guess.  If you review a screenshot, it is not always obvious what to do to resolve issues.

For Outlook 2007 and 2010, we not only provide a code analysis, but we also provide the Outlook code output for each email.  This helps developers learn how their code is being interpreted.

Sometimes our confirmation emails get blocked by SPAM filters, even we can’t outsmart them!  Please check in your junk or deleted folders for your confirmation email.  If you still can’t find it, don’t hesitate to contact us and we will be happy to activate your account.

We currently support the following 18 email clients:

Web Based:
Gmail, AOL, Yahoo (classic), Yahoo (new), Hotmail

Applications:
Outlook Express, Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010, Live Mail, Windows Mail, Apple Mail, Entourage 04, Entourage 08, Thunderbird 2, Thunderbird 3

Mobile Devices:
BlackBerry, iPhone

If we change our pricing, it will only affect future purchases. 

In other words, if you have a subscription your payment will not change no matter what term you have signed up for and it will auto-renew without an increase in price. However, if you want to sign-up for a new subscription or switch to a different subscription term the cost will be based on our new pricing model. If you cancel your account or if your account gets canceled due to a failed re-occurring membership charge, you will be subject to the new pricing if you choose to sign up again.  

The same thing goes for pre-purchased credits.  The new pricing only applies to new credit purchases.

You can cancel your subscription anytime. Just log into your account and click on the “Cancel Subscription” link in your control panel.

Yes, you certainly can. In your control panel there is a link that says “Edit Payment Profile.” From there, follow the steps to change your subscription payment information.

If you signed up before we changed our pricing and your account gets canceled due to a failed re-occurring membership charge, you will be subject to the new pricing structure.

We currently accept American Express, Discover, MasterCard, and Visa.  Upfront payments by check are accepted for special instances only.

We are very sorry, at this time we only accept major credit cards.

Some fonts are not standard from one operating system to the next.

For example, Helvetica isn’t a standard font in Windows but it is on a Mac, therefore we report it in our analysis filters for Windows desktop email clients only. In those intances, it is best to use a font stack, for example: Helvetica, Arial, Verdana.

Please note, if you forward your results to a friend for review, they will not see the code validation nor the code analysis reporting.

Our code analysis was primarily designed as a developer tool which allows users to see exactly which lines of code where altered by each email client.  This code based simulation helps our users learn the in’s and out’s of what is supported by each client without having to guess.  If you review a screenshot, it is not always obvious what to do to resolve issues.

Conflicts that are reported in our code analysis may or may not alter the final layout and in many instances, a programmer may use certain CSS properties or HTML attributes that work for a majority of email clients but not for others. There might also be other circumstances where they are forced to use code that is not supported in all clients just so that their design will render correctly in all of them.  When certain properties or elements are not “supported” the email client in question simply ignores that code.

When you submit each acid test, we run it through a code validation tool in order to guarantee the accuracy of our test results.  This scans your code to ensure that there are no critical errors that might impact our simulation.  It also helps you identify precisely which lines of code you should alter before running your test again.

If you are running a free test or if you are using a credit, we do not charge you for this code validation and reporting feature.  If you wish to bypass the error warnings you have the option to proceed with your acid test.

Here is error message in question:

We have detected that one or more of your TABLES have width attributes that do not match the cumulative width of each table cell.

As you know, when using web based email clients (such as Hotmail, AOL, G-Mail, or Yahoo) recipients can receive your email using any of the popular web browsers (IE, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, or Safari). Also, when your email is opened in various desktop email clients, each are using a specific rendering engine, for example, Outlook 03 is using Internet Explorer whereas Mozilla Thunderbird is using a Firefox engine.

Each of these browsers handle TD width attributes differently, especially if they do not add up to the total width attribute of their parent TABLES.  For that reason, and to guarantee accuracy, we notify you when we see something that doesn’t add up.  You, of course have the option to forgo this error message an proceed with your acid test.

Including a DOCTYPE is not required for any specific email client, however, we check for it in order to run our HTML validation tool.

The DOCTYPE tells our validator which version of HTML to use in checking the syntax of your email.  Each DOCTYPE (strict, loose, etc) have different requirements. 

You may bypass our validation errors but it is difficult for us to guarantee the accuracy of our test results, especially if you have critical errors.  For example, if you have a stray </div> you could interfere with a web based user interface like Gmail.  Technically, our system can accommodate standard HTML and CSS markup for purposes of simulating a result, however it is nearly impossible to accurately emulate the infinite number of potential errors one might have in their code.

It is important to note, if you forward your results to a friend, they will not see these initial warnings.

The bottom line is that if you send email campaigns, you will most always run into spam filter issues. On average, you can expect 10-20% of your emails to get blocked,  mostly due to overzealous spam filters and user settings. The unfortunate fact is that innocent email marketers who send permission-based emails get spam filtered all the time.

Unfortunately, there is no quick fix. The only way to avoid spam filters is to understand how they work…

Spam filters look at a long list of criteria. In particular, they scan for spammy phrases like “CLICK HERE!” or “FREE! BUY NOW!”. They assign points each time they see one of those phrases. Certain criteria get more points than others.

Here are some sample criteria from Spam Assassin:

• Talks about lots of money (.193 points)
• Talks about opting out (lowercase version)
• Gives a lame excuse about why spam was sent
• Claims you can be removed from the list
• Contains urgent matter (.288 points)
• Money back guarantee (2.051 points)
• Why Pay More? (1.249 points)

Click here for a complete list of specific criteria from Spam Assassin.

If your campaign’s total “spam score” exceeds a certain threshold, your email is flagged as SPAM. The threshold is different for every server. It’s determined by the person who installed the spam filter software.  If the person is really sick of spam, they’ll set the threshold extremely low and about everything will get filtered.

The list of “spammy” criteria is constantly growing and adapting, because spam filters “learn” what junk looks like, every time someone clicks the “This is spam” button in their email program. Spam filters even sync-up with each other online, to share what they’ve learned.

We recommend that you avoid these common mistakes:

• Using phrases, like “Click here!,” “Once in a lifetime opportunity!” or “Free”
• Multiple exclamation points!!!!!!
• USING ALL CAPS (especially in the subject)
• Coloring with bright fonts like red, or green
• Creating an HTML email that’s nothing but one big image, with little or no text (since spam filters can’t read images, they assume you’re a spammer that’s trying to trick ‘em).
• Using the word “Test” in the subject line
• Sending a test to multiple recipients within the same company (that company’s email firewall can only assume it’s a spam attack)
• Designing HTML email in Microsoft Word, and exporting the code to HTML (that code is sloppy, and spam filters can easily detect it)

The reason that most SPAM blocking companies are so vague is because they do not want people learning how to get through their filters.  Unfortunately this is the industry standard.

Our system does not support MIME image attachments mainly because we want to avoid malicious attacks and security risks.

In general, adding MIME attachments is not recommended because they will dramatically increase the size of your email. 

With that said, we suggest using external links to your images when testing on our platform.

For Outlook 2007 and 2010, we send your email through the physical application and parse together a screen capture of the final result with and without your images blocked.  This, takes time to process and upload.  When you run a full featured test in our system, most of the time is spent on generating a result in these two clients.  If you include all of our clients minus Outlook 2007 and 2010, your results will generally come up within 30 seconds.

The other factor is if or if not you are running a SPAM analysis with your test.  In order to generate that result, your email is being sent through each of those 3rd party filters.  This too, can affect the resulting load time for your acid test.

Even if you run a free test we scan your email through all of our filters in order to give you an idea of how many discrepancies were found in other clients.

Even if your test stalls, we have already added it to your archive so there is no need to attempt to start a new test over and over.

You might have had a lapse in your connection to the internet so we recommend that you try clearing your browser cache and then re-run your test from your archive.  If you are running a SPAM analysis it could take a little longer to complete.

If your results are still taking longer than 2 minutes to process, please don’t hesitate to contact us!  To do that, simply fill out our contact us form and include your operating system, web browser and the email in question.  It also helps if you let us know if you are trying to run a SPAM analysis with your test. 

We will get back to you within 24 hours, guaranteed!