Why not test a campaign and the various components of it before sending blindly to your house list? In addition to the usual testing of creative, subject lines, testing out new email concepts is a great way to get real user feedback and response data before devoting additional resources to new ideas. Also, it is the best way to get your boss's buy in if you have test results rather than a hunch.

Reid Carr, President, of Red Door Interactive, offers some additional ideas for email marketing testing in 2006:

When marketers are putting together their email plans for 2006, testing will likely play a critical part. One thing to bear in mind, however, is that email recipients are more protective than ever of their inboxes. Therefore, marketers need to be very careful how and what they choose to test to avoid inadvertently aggravating -- and thereby losing -- subscribers.

It is important to lay out test plans early in the process to identify specifically the top few things to learn from tests in order to keep campaigns tight and focused. Marketers should work to prevent overuse of their lists, pay close attention to the details such as CAN-SPAM and maintain the perception of continuity in creative and tone.

Improving the conversion in email campaigns should be the primary goal this year, not spending time wading in data from haphazard testing.