Tip of the month: ‘plus addressing’ for testing

I’ve got a really simple trick that’s going to save you a bunch of time and headaches.

Marketing requires testing. Whether you’re trying out emails before you send them — like a new or altered automated email — or checking that a popup works, it’s helpful to have more than one email address at your disposal. 

There’s no need to create a bunch of new email accounts. You can use the one you’ve already got and go the way of email subaddressing, also known as plus addressing. 

Here’s what you do: 

1. Add a plus (+) between your address name and @ symbol
2. Add whatever wording you’d like after that + sign

Voila. You’ve got yourself a variation. 

I’ll give you examples of how this looks. Let's say your email address is name@gmail.com. You can do name+test@gmail.com, name+test2@gmail.com, etc. Or name+brands@gmail.com. You get the gist. Messages sent to any of these emails will land in your inbox. 

This works with Gmail accounts and most other email providers as well.   

Because I've been in email marketing for so long, I have signed up for hundreds of different email programs over the years. I often use my name+newsletter as a variation when doing so. Then I filter it so everything sent to that address goes to a specific folder in my email. That way, I don’t have hundreds of brands in my inbox all day, every day. 

I know this is a super-simple tip, but it really comes in handy quite a bit.