Review, Test and Send Your Email - Legacy Composer

Use the email composer’s Review and Send options to validate your message, send test copies, and choose how and when to send your email.

Open your message

1. Go to Outbound > Draft.
2. In the list of messages, find your legacy email and click its name to open it in the Legacy Email Composer.
3. Use the Design tab to review your content and layout.

Validate your email

The Legacy composer uses the Review tab for validation. Act-On checks your message for required fields, opt-out links, address details, and other deliverability concerns.

1. Click the Review tab.
2. On the left, click Validate Message.
3. Review the validation results. Each requirement will show as:
   • Error – must be resolved before sending.
   • Warning – recommended to review but not required.
   • Passed – requirement is met.
4. Follow the guidance in each row to fix issues such as:
   • Missing or invalid From address
   • Missing subject line
   • No valid recipient list or segment
   • Missing footer address or opt-out link
   • Problems with clickthrough links or dynamic content

For detailed troubleshooting of each validation category, see How to Validate an Email for Sending.

Send a test email

Testing a email helps you see how it will appear across email clients and gives reviewers a chance to approve the content.

1. With your message open, click Test in the upper right.
2. Select the Version to Send: HTML or Text.
3. Update the Subject Line Prefix if needed, then click Save New Prefix.
   • The prefix appears before the subject line in your inbox to help identify test messages (default: TEST-).
4. Choose your Test Recipients:
   • Yourself (the signed-in user)
   • Select Test Message Recipients… to pick contacts from your Test List
   • Your entire Test List or one of its segments
5. Confirm the choices and send the test.

When the test arrives, review it in different email clients and devices (for example, Outlook, Gmail, mobile apps) to check fonts, images, and link behaviour.

For more tips and troubleshooting help, see Send a Test Email.

Choose how to send your email

The legacy composer uses the Send tab to control when and how the message is delivered.

1. Open the Send tab.
2. Choose your Recipients and any suppression lists.
3. Under Send Options, select one of the available methods:
   • Send now – send immediately to all selected recipients.
   • Send at the following time – schedule a one-time send at a specific date and time.
   • Send in recipient’s time zone – deliver at a local time for each contact.
   • Send over time – spread sending across a date range and daily window.
   • Use Adaptive Sending – send within a window at an optimal time based on engagement history.

For a comparison of these methods and example use cases, see Choosing an Email Send Method.

Send or schedule your email

Send now

1. Confirm the selected Recipients, Subject, From details, and Send Option.
2. Make sure validation shows no critical errors.
3. Click Submit Launch Request or the equivalent send button.
4. Review the confirmation dialog and approve the launch.

Act-On queues and sends the email to all eligible contacts in your selected list or segment.

Schedule for later

1. Choose a scheduled send option, such as Send at the following time, Send in recipient’s time zone, Send over time, or Adaptive Sending.
2. Set the date, time, time zone, or send window as required by the option.
3. Confirm your recipients and summary.
4. Click Submit Launch Request or Schedule, then confirm in the dialog.

Approvals and launch requests

If your account uses approval workflows, you may need to submit your legacy email for approval before it can send. The Submit Launch Request step routes the message to the appropriate reviewer. For more details, see Email Launch Requests and Approval.