Quality assurance (QA) is a crucial component in digital messaging. Details matter more than ever, thanks to the complex scenarios that are a part of day-to-day communications for many organizations.

How does your QA checklist stack up? Here are six areas you should be focusing on for each and every message that goes out:

1. Audience.
The audience needs to be selected. These are often provided instead of created by developers; however, the developer is usually on the hook for vetting the audience to ensure its accuracy.

They are also responsible for ensuring that the content of an email relates to the recipient. Relevancy is the key to response and results, and this usually means adding personalization and dynamic content. In order to use these powerful tools, the data needs to support the content and how it has been configured.

2. Content.
Copy needs to be proofread to ensure there are no glaring mistakes. These can happen, especially if the QA-er is also the writer or if another stakeholder provides the copy.

I have built emails with provided copy that includes notes about the content, e.g. "Check out our newest report. (Get report link from Jeff)."

Obviously, this isn't correct. We're all guilty of the "cut and paste" when someone else provides content. And, I assure you; the developer will take the heat if this gets out the door!

3. Presentation.
Coding, a whole beast of its own, is often the differentiator between a good developer and a great developer. Thanks to how different email clients render content, you have to decide your "supported" clients, and whether you're going to use hacks and special coding to broaden your support.

Or, will you just build to a predetermined standard and accept that the content may not be ideal for all recipients? Even minor code errors can cause drastic rendering issues, sometimes only in unexpected clients.

4. Validation.
Make sure you complete render testing-there are some great tools out there to help you. How much you test really depends on your message, your audience, and the complexity of your creative.

Some organizations utilize render-testing services. Others set up test accounts in a variety of email platforms. Many do both. Understand that no matter what you do, if you send enough emails to enough people, there will still be strange quirks that prevent your message from coming through as intended. The ultimate goal, though, is to try and keep this to a minimum.

5. Testing.
Optional, but strongly encouraged. Test some aspect of your messaging. Subject line, send time, and sender information (from name, from email) are great for testing open rates.

Content variations, layout, and call to actions (CTA) are good for clickthrough/conversion testing. There is a bit of required analysis afterwards to glean useful information from these tests, but some of the insights you can gain could change how you approach campaigns.

6. Deployment.
Make sure that all of the previous components we talked about line up for the actual send. Population, content, and design are all in alignment with the correct send time, subject line, and sender information.

What does your QA checklist look like? Comment below or tweet @ExactTarget and let us know!