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Sending test messages

Before sending a messaging campaign to your users, as a suggested best practice, we recommend testing to make sure it looks right and operates as intended. You can create and send test messages to select devices or team members using the tools in the Braze dashboard.

Step 1: Identify your test users

Before testing your messaging campaign, it’s important to identify your test users. These users can be either existing user IDs or email addresses, or new users that are used exclusively for testing messaging campaigns.

Optional: Create a Content Test Group

A convenient way to organize your test users is by creating a Content Test Group, which includes a group of users that will receive test messages from campaigns. You can add this test group to the Add Content Test Groups field under Test Recipients in your campaign, and launch your tests without creating or adding individual test users.

Step 2: Send channel-specific test messages

For steps to send test messages, refer to the following section for your respective channel.

Mobile push

  1. Draft your mobile push.
  2. Select the Settings tab and add your email address or user ID in the Add Individual Users field.
  3. Select Send Test to send your drafted message to your device.

Test push

Web push

  1. Create your web push.
  2. Select the Test tab.
  3. Select Send Test to Myself.
  4. Select Send Test to send your web push to your web browser.

Test web push

If you have already accepted push messages from the Braze dashboard, the push will come through in the corner of your screen. Otherwise, click Allow when prompted, and the message will appear.

If you have push notifications set up within your app and on your test device, you can send test in-app messages to your app to see what it looks like in real-time.

  1. Draft your in-app message.
  2. Select the Test tab and add your email address or user ID to the Add Individual Users field.
  3. Select Send Test to send your push message to your device.

A test push message will appear at the top of your device screen.

Test In App

Directly clicking and opening the push message will send you to your app, where you can view your in-app message test. Note this in-app message testing feature relies on the user clicking a test push notification to trigger the in-app message. As such, the user must be eligible to receive push notifications in the relevant app for the successful delivery of the test push notification.

Preview

You can preview your in-app message as you compose it in the Preview tab. This should help you visualize what your final message will look like from your user’s perspective. You can preview what your message will look like to a random user, a specific user, or a customized user. You can also preview messages for either mobile devices or tablets.

Compose tab when building an in-app message showing the preview of what the message will look like. A user is not selected, so the Liquid added in the body section displays as is.

Braze has three generations of in-app messages available. You can fine-tune to which devices your messages should be sent, based on which Generation they support.

Switching between generations when previewing an in-app message.

Test checklist

  • Do the images and media show up and act as expected?
  • Does the Liquid function as expected? Have you accounted for a default attribute value if the Liquid returns no information?
  • Is your copy clear, concise, and correct?
  • Do your buttons direct the user where they should go?

Accessibility scanner

To support accessibility best practices, Braze automatically scans the content of in-app messages created using the traditional HTML editor against accessibility standards. This scanner helps identify content that may not meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards. WCAG is a set of internationally recognized technical standards developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities.

Accessibility scan results

How it works

The scanner runs automatically on custom HTML messages and evaluates your entire HTML message against the full WCAG 2.1 AA rule set. For each flagged issue, it shows:

  • The specific HTML element involved
  • A description of the accessibility issue
  • A link to additional context or remediation guidance

Understanding automated accessibility testing

Automated accessibility testing helps catch common issues like missing alt text or low color contrast based on WCAG Level AA standards. It’s a powerful starting point for building more inclusive messages.

But automation can’t catch everything. Some issues need a human eye—like whether the focus order makes sense, if links and buttons are clearly labeled, or if your instructions are easy to follow. Think of these checks as a diagnostic tool, not a final verdict. We recommend reviewing flagged issues manually and using your best judgment when something is marked as “Needs review.”

For extra support, our Accessibility at Braze guide shares practical tips for making your content easier for everyone to use, including:

When you combine automated testing with thoughtful manual review, you’ll catch more issues—and create a better experience for all your users.

After creating your Content Card, you can send a test Content Card to your app to see what it will look like in real-time.

  1. Draft your Content Card.
  2. Select the Test tab and select at least one Content Test Group or individual user to receive this test message.
  3. Select Send Test to send your Content Card to your app.

Test Content Card

Preview

You can preview your card as you compose it in the Preview tab. This should help you visualize what your final message will look like from your user’s perspective.

Test checklist

  • Do the images and media show up and act as expected?
  • Does the Liquid function as expected? Have you accounted for a default attribute value if the Liquid returns no information?
  • Is your copy clear, concise, and correct?
  • Do your links direct the user to where they should go?

Debug

After your Content Cards are sent, you can break down or debug any issues from the Event User Log in the Developer Console.

A common use case is trying to debug why a user can’t see a particular Content Card. To do so, you can look in the Event User Logs for the Content Cards delivered to the SDK on session start, but prior to an impression, and trace those back to a specific campaign:

  1. Go to Settings > Event User Log.
  2. Locate and expand the SDK Request for your test user.
  3. Click Raw Data.

  4. Find the id for your session. The following shows an example excerpt:

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     [
   {
     "session_id": "D1B051E6-469B-47E2-B830-5A728D1D4AC5",
     "data": {
       "ids": [
         "NDg2MTY5MmUtNmZjZS00MjE1LWJkMDUtMzI1NGZiOWU5MDU3"
       ]
     },
     "name": "cci",
     "time": 1636106490.155
   }
 ]

  1. Use a decoding tool like Base64 Decode and Encode to decode the id from Base64 format and find the associated campaign_id. In our example, this results in the following:

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     4861692e-6fce-4215-bd05-3254fb9e9057_$_cc=c3b25740-f113-c047-4b1d-d296f280af4f&mv=6185005b9d9bee79387cce45&pi=cmp

    Where 4861692e-6fce-4215-bd05-3254fb9e9057 is the campaign_id.

  2. Go to the Campaigns page and search for the campaign_id.

Search for campaign_id on Campaigns page

From there, you can review your message settings and content to drill down and determine why a user can’t see a particular Content Card.

After creating your Banner message, you can preview your Banner or send a test message.

  1. Draft your Banner message.
  2. Select Preview to preview your Banner or send a test message.
  3. To send a test message, add either a content test group or one or more individual users as Test Recipients, then select Send Test.

You’ll be able to view your test message on the device for up to 5 minutes.

Preview tab of the Banner composer.

Test checklist

  • Is your Banner campaign assigned to a placement?
  • Do the images and media show up and act as expected on your targeted device types and screen sizes?
  • Do your links and buttons direct the user to where they should go?
  • Does the Liquid function as expected? Have you accounted for a default attribute value in the event that the Liquid returns no information?
  • Is your copy clear, concise, and correct?

After creating your SMS or MMS message, you can send a test message to your phone to see what it will look like in real-time.

  1. Draft your SMS or MMS message.
  2. Select the Test tab and select at least one Content Test Group or individual user to receive this test message.
  3. Select Send Test to send your test message.

Test Content Card

After creating your webhook, you can do a test send to check the webhook response. Select the Test tab and select Send Test to send a test send to the supplied webhook URL. You can also select an individual user to preview the response as a specific user.

Test Content Card

Testing personalized campaigns

If you are testing campaigns that populate user data or use custom event properties, you’ll need to take additional or different steps.

Testing campaigns personalized with user attributes

If you are using personalization in your message, you’ll need to take additional steps to properly preview your campaign and check that user data is properly populating the content.

When sending a test message, make sure to choose either the option to Select Existing User or preview as a Custom User.

Testing a personalized message

Selecting an existing user

If selecting an existing user, enter the specific user ID or email in the search field. Then, use the dashboard preview to see how your message would appear to that user, and send a test message to your device that reflects what that user would see.

Select a user

Selecting a custom user

If previewing as a custom user, enter text for various fields available for personalization, such as the user’s first name and any custom attributes. Once again, you can enter your own email address to send a test to your device.

Custom user

Customizing an existing user

You can edit individual fields from a random or existing user to help test dynamic content within your message. Select Edit to convert the selected user into a custom user you can modify.

The "Preview as a User" tab with an "Edit" button.

Testing campaigns personalized with custom event properties

Testing campaigns personalized with custom event properties differs slightly from testing other types of campaigns outlined.

Method 1: Triggering campaign manually

You can trigger the campaign yourself as a robust way to test campaigns personalized using custom event properties:

  1. Write up the copy involving the event property.

Composing Test Message with Properties

  1. Use action-based delivery to deliver the campaign when the event occurs.

Test Message Delivery

  1. Target the users as you would for testing by using a testing filter or targeting your own email address, and finish creating the campaign.

Test Message Targeting

  1. Go into your app and complete the custom event.

The campaign will trigger and show the message customized with the event property.

Test Message Example

Method 2: Sending yourself a test message

Alternatively, if you are saving custom user IDs, you can also test the campaign by sending a customized test message to yourself.

  1. Write the copy for your campaign.
  2. Select the Test tab and choose Customized User.
  3. Add the custom event property at the bottom of the page, and add your user ID or email address to the top box.
  4. Select Send Test to receive a message personalized with the property.

Testing Using Customized User

Method 3: Using Liquid

You can test custom event properties by manually inputting values with Liquid.

  1. In the message editor, input values for your custom event properties.
  2. Select the Preview as a User tab to check that the correct message displays.

Troubleshooting

In-app messages

If your in-app message campaign is not triggered by a push campaign, check the in-app campaign segmentation to confirm the user meets the target audience before receiving the push message.

For test sends on Android and iOS, the in-app messages that use the Request push permission on-click behavior may not display on some devices. As a workaround:

  • Android: Devices must be on Android 13 and our Android SDK version 21.0.0. Another reason may be that the device on which the in-app message is displayed already has a system-level prompt. You may have selected Do not ask again, so you may need to reinstall the app to reset the notification permissions before testing again.
  • iOS: We recommend your developer team review the implementation of push notifications for your app and manually remove any code that would request push permissions. For more information, see Push primer in-app messages.

For an action-based in-app message campaign to deliver, you must log custom events through the Braze SDK, not REST APIs, so users can receive eligible in-app messages directly to their device. Users receive the in-app message if they perform the event during the session.
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