Sending test messages

Before sending out a messaging campaign to your users, you may want to test it to make sure it looks right and operates in the intended manner. You can use the dashboard to create and send test messages with push notifications, in-app messages (IAM), or email.

Sending a test message with Push, IAM, or Email

Step 1: Create a designated test segment

After you set up a test segment, you can use it to test any of our messaging channels. If configured properly, the process will only need to be done once.

To set up a test segment, navigate to the Segments page in the dashboard and create a new segment. Click Add Filter to choose one of the testing filters found toward the bottom of the dropdown menu.

Two such testing filters allow you to select users with specific email addresses or external user IDs.

The email address and external user ID filters both have three options:

You can select multiple specific emails by using the “matches” option and separating the email addresses with a | character. For example: “matches” “[email protected] | [email protected]”. You can also combine multiple operators together. For example, the test segment could include an email address filter that “matches” “@braze.com” and another filter that “does not equal” “[email protected]”.

After adding the testing filters to your test segment, you can verify that you’ve selected only the users you intended by clicking Preview at the top of the segment editor or by exporting that segment’s user data to CSV by clicking on the gear icon in the right-hand corner of the editor and selecting CSV Export All User Data from the dropdown menu.

Exporting the segment’s User Data to CSV will give you the most accurate picture of who falls under that segment. The Preview tab is only a sample of the users in the segment and therefore may appear to have not selected all intended members.

Step 2: Send the message

You can send a message using the Braze dashboard or the command line.

Using the dashboard

• push or in-app message
• email message

Using the command line

Alternatively, if you’d like to test push notifications via the command line you can follow the following examples for each platform.

• android
• swift
• kindle

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curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Authorization: Bearer {YOUR_API_KEY}" -d '{
  "external_user_ids":["YOUR_EXTERNAL_USER_ID"],
  "messages": {
    "android_push": {
      "title":"Test push title",
      "alert":"Test push",
      "extra":{
        "YOUR_KEY1":"YOUR_VALUE1"
      }
    }
  }
}' https://rest.iad-01.braze.com/messages/send

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curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Authorization: Bearer {YOUR_API_KEY}" -d '{
  "external_user_ids":["YOUR_EXTERNAL_USER_ID"],
  "messages": {
    "apple_push": {
      "alert": "Test push",
      "extra": { 
        "YOUR_KEY1" :"YOUR_VALUE1"
      }
    }
  }
}' https://rest.iad-01.braze.com/messages/send

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curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Authorization: Bearer {YOUR_API_KEY}" -d '{
  "external_user_ids":["YOUR_EXTERNAL_USER_ID"],
  "messages": {
    "kindle_push": {
      "title":"Test push title",
      "alert":"Test push",
      "extra":{
        "YOUR_KEY1":"YOUR_VALUE1"
      }
    }
  }
}' https://rest.iad-01.braze.com/messages/send

Test limitations

There are a few situations where test messages don’t have complete feature parity with launching a campaign or Canvas to a real set of users. In these instances, to validate this behavior, you should launch the campaign or Canvas to a limited set of test users.

• Viewing the Braze preference center from Test Messages will cause the submit button to be grayed out.
• The list-unsubscribe header is not included in emails sent by the test message functionality.
• For in-app messages and Content Cards, the target user must have a push token for the target device.