SMS

SMS remains a very popular marketing communication channel as it reaches recipients even when they are offline.

SMS messages are often more effective than emails as they do not fall into spam and usually have a higher open rate.

SMS messages are also short by nature, which makes it easy to understand what they convey. Recipients do not have to read long paragraphs, which increases the chances of them reading the entire message and acting on it, e.g., clicking the link. And that means there are very close to converting

How to create and send SMS using ExpertSender?

Requirements

Before you start creating an SMS message:

• Create a SMSAPI account and configure it – select the gateway version, telephone numbers or names from which you will send your SMS. Currently, SMSAPI is the only provider integrated with our platform. If you have an account with another provider, the SMS service in our platform will not work.
• Configure this service in Settings > SMS > Gateways following the instructions in SMS gateway integration.

SMS – dashboard

Go to Campaigns > SMS in the side panel. Your SMS messages are grouped by status:

• All – Contains all SMS messages you have created.
• In progress – Contains SMS that are in the process of being delivered to recipients. You can pause the sending of a selected message.
• Draft – The messages you are currently working on. Here you can also see SMS that have been saved automatically in the content editor or saved as drafts using the Save and close button in the editor.
• Scheduled – Contains all SMS messages scheduled for sending.
• Sent – Contains all SMS that have been sent. You cannot edit or delete them, but you can preview their content and, if necessary, duplicate it.
• Paused – Displays all SMS messages whose sending you have paused. Here you can resume sending a selected message.
• Deleted – Every deleted SMS goes here. You can only preview them.

The SMS list contains the following columns:

• Status – The status of the SMS message.
• ID – The identification number of the message.
• Name – Title given to a message when creating it.
• Date sent – Date and time of sending the message.
• Recipients – Number of recipients of the selected SMS message.
• Sent – How many messages have been sent from the platform.
• Delivered – How many of the sent messages actually reached the recipients.
• Clicked – Total number of clicks on the link included in the message.
• Bounced – Messages that did not reach the recipient due to, e.g., an incorrect or non-existent telephone number.
• Unsubscribed – Number of unsubscriptions from a given SMS distribution list.

You can sort the data in ascending or descending order by clicking on the column names.

There is a quick search box above each SMS table. It makes it easier for you to search for messages in the categories mentioned above. Additionally, you can narrow down the search with additional filters, e.g., consent required, or segment used.

Below the table you will find pagination. Here you can also set the number of rows displayed in the table.

Let’s create your first SMS message.

Creating SMS messages in the editor

To design and send an SMS message, go to Campaigns > SMS and click the Create SMS button in the upper right corner.

At the top you will find a progress bar. The stage you are currently in is highlighted with a colored line. To move on to the next one, click on the heading of the selected stage – you don’t have to go through all of them in suggested order.

After you get to the Summary, a dot may be displayed next to the previous stages – this means that a given stage requires completion.

Basic settings

Here, you can enter the main information about your SMS message:

1. Give it a name that will be visible in the table in the dashboard.
2. Select the message sender from the drop-down list.
3. In the Tracking field, select the metrics you want to track for this message. In the Google Analytics and Custom parameters sections, you can add UTM tags in the form of dynamic content. You can also enable tracking of links included in your text message.

Content

Use our easy-to-use editor to design the content of your SMS message:

1. First, type your message. You can use emojis and dynamic content to personalize it.
   • Click Reuse to use a previously created message. After clicking it, a window with a table will appear – simply select a message you want to reuse.
   • Test message to check the SMS before sending it to your customers.
2. In the Preview section, you can check how your SMS looks on the recipient’s phone, depending on the operating system they use: iOS (Apple) and Android. If you want to see how the message will be displayed on a locked screen, enable the Locked screen option. The content displayed in the preview changes dynamically – if you make any changes to the text, they will immediately appear in the preview window.
3. In this section, you can also generate a message preview using customer data:
   • Choose customer – Click it to display a list of customers with their phone number. Click the + icon to select a specific customer’s data for viewing.
   • Select random – The customer’s number will be selected randomly.

Character count SMS message

A one-part message may contain:

• A maximum of 160 characters – if it does not contain special characters.
• A maximum of 70 characters – if it contains special characters.

A special character is a character that is not supported by the character encoding standard used in SMS (GSM 03.38).

Using Polish letters in an SMS message will shorten the message to 70 characters.

The following characters are counted as two characters in SMS: ^ { } [ ] ~ | € and „enter”

SMS message length and division into parts

The length of the message depends on the number and type of characters used. If the number of characters in the message exceeds 160 or 70, it will be divided into parts as explained in the below table:

Recipients

Here, you can enter settings for the recipients of your SMS messages:

1. In the Send to field, decide whether the message should be sent to all customers or a selected segment. Click the Select segments window to get to the list of previously created segments. You can also create a new segment.
2. In the Required consents field, add the consents required for this SMS message. Click the Select Consents window and make your selection.
3. In the After unsubscription field, decide what will happen to a customer who has unsubscribed from receiving your SMS messages.

Delivery

Here, you can select the time for sending your message:

• Schedule to send your SMS on a selected day and time – simply click the calendar and clock icon in the Schedule settings field.
• Send now if you want to send your SMS immediately.

In the Advanced settings section, you can access the Ignore local blocklist option. If you select it, we will send the message ignoring the list of recipients that have been blocked by anti-spam.

Summary

This is the final step of the SMS creating process. Here you can see a list of all stages and entered data, along with your message preview.

Check if all the information entered is correct and make sure you fix any mistakes or omissions, as indicated by the following statuses:

• We highlight in green elements which have been entered correctly.
• Elements in red require improvement. You can correct them by clicking the pencil icon.
• We add an orange marking to elements that may work better, but corrections are not necessary to send the SMS.

On the left-hand side of the checklist, there is a preview of the SMS you have just created. The iOS/Android and Locked screen sliders allow you to switch between views.

There are also two buttons at the access bar level:

• Save and close to save the message as a draft and go to the SMS list in the dashboard.
• Send to send your SMS straight away.