Send a text message campaign

A text campaign sends one SMS to a group of your contacts from your own number: a flash sale, a class that has spaces, a reminder to rebook. You choose the people on Contacts and send from there. Marketing › SMS shows your number, what is booked to go, and everything already sent.

Before you start

• A phone number of your own under Settings › Channels. Bulk texts need a number of your own.
• To text US numbers, an approved US texting registration.
• Contacts with phone numbers who have agreed to hear from you by text.
• Enough in your wallet. Texts are paid per segment.

Steps

1. Go to Marketing › SMS. The top card shows Texting from and your number. If it says No phone number yet, click Open Channels and get one first.
2. Click Send a text from Contacts.
3. Filter your contacts to the people you want, tick them, and choose More bulk actions › Send SMS.
4. Type an Action name, for example "Saturday class spaces". It becomes the name of this send in the SMS history.
5. Write the Message. For example: "Hi {{first_name}}, two spaces left in Saturday's 9am bootcamp. Reply to grab one." {{first_name}}, {{name}} and {{business}} are filled in per person. The opt-out line is added for you.
6. Watch the counter under the box. A plain message of up to 160 characters is one segment. An emoji or a character outside the standard text alphabet shortens a segment to 70 characters, so the same message can cost two or three.
7. Under Send, choose All at once, At a time, or In batches (for example 50 contacts every 10 minutes).
8. Check Selected, Filtered out and Final, and the cost line: "texts × segments — about [amount] from your balance".
9. Tick the box confirming everyone on the list has agreed to hear from you by text, that you have contacted them within the last year, and that the list is not from a third party.
10. Click Send texts, or Schedule.

What happens next

• A send that goes now shows how many contacts were texted, and how many failed with the first reason.
• A scheduled or batched send appears in the Scheduled table on Marketing › SMS: Text, Message, How (for example "50 every 10 min"), Sent so far and Next.
• Finished sends are listed below with Sent, Failed and When. Point at a Failed number to see why those texts were refused.
• Every text is checked again as it goes: opt-outs, your daily limit and US registration. A text refused for the daily limit is tried again at the next gap; one refused because the person opted out is not.
• Replies arrive in Conversations.

For agencies

Each client texts from its own number. Open the client with Sub-accounts › Open to send for them. Your agency is emailed when a client's texting needs attention, is paused, or reaches its daily limit.

Troubleshooting

The SMS tab says "No phone number yet". Bulk texts need a number of your own. Click Open Channels and get one.

It says "US registration is still pending." Texts to US numbers are refused until the carriers approve your registration. Texts to other countries still go.

Some texts show as failed. Point at the Failed number in the history to see the reasons. The usual ones are people who opted out, a daily limit reached, or US registration not approved yet.

Texting has been paused. Bulk texting pauses for 24 hours when too many people ask to stop or too many texts do not arrive. You are emailed when this happens. Send smaller, more wanted messages to people who expect them.

It cost more than I expected. The message ran to more than one segment. Long messages, emojis and accented or special characters all add segments. Check the counter before you send.

The Send texts button stays greyed out. The consent box is not ticked, the message is empty, Final is 0, or your balance cannot cover the send.

Related

• Send an email, text or WhatsApp to selected contacts
• Send a text to a list
• Get a phone number
• Register for US texting (10DLC)
• Daily sending limits and texting pauses
• Every workflow step explained