A frequently overlooked step in creating a new Infusionsoft campaign or making changes to an existing campaign is performing adequate testing as if you were a real customer. This also applies to order forms, web forms, and shopping carts.

Use a fresh browser session

First, make sure you are using a fresh browser session. Infusionsoft uses cookies to help associate form submissions with existing contacts, so you need to make sure you don’t have any Infusionsoft cookies before testing your campaign. An easy way to do this is to use your browser’s private browsing feature. In Internet Explorer, this is InPrivate browsing (ctrl + shift + p). Chrome calls this Incognito (ctrl + shift + n), while Firefox just calls it a private window (ctrl + shift + p). This will give you a new browser window that doesn’t have any cookies associated with it yet.

Use a unique email address

Next, use a unique email address to ensure a new contact is created instead of associating your test with an existing contact. You can use a temporary email address, like one from the Fake Mail Generator. Many free email services also offer address aliases, like Gmail’s address alias feature, that allow you to receive your test emails in your normal inbox. If you use an email address associated with one of your Infusionsoft users (as opposed to a contact), then you may have your submission associated with the user instead of a contact. This can cause issues when trying to use the API or trying to view the signup information in Infusionsoft.

Test your campaign events

If you are testing a campaign, you can run events early by viewing the contact’s campaign tab. Running the events early will let you test the format of emails and make sure HTTP posts run correctly.

Delete or tag your test contact

When you are all done, you should either delete the contact or add a tag to indicate that it is a test contact. Keeping the contact will allow you to do additional testing as an existing user in the future. Tagging it as a test contact will allow you to exclude the contact from marketing efforts that may not need testing or may cost you more than you are willing to pay for a test (such as mailing physical gifts).

Testing your campaigns, order forms, and web forms before publishing will allow you to avoid costly and embarrassing mistakes. It only takes a few minutes to test but can save you hours in headaches.