Test your SMS campaign
You can access the test send function for SMS in two places:
The SMS campaign editing screen
On the SMS campaigns screen, in the Test send column.
To perform a test send:
Select Test send.
In the Test send side panel, select SELECT TEST NUMBER to choose contacts from your Test list (hold Ctrl to select multiple addresses), or select NEW TEST NUMBER to add a new contact to the Test list.
You cannot add suppressed mobile numbers to your Test list. If you see an Errors found message when trying to add a new number, this is likely to be the reason why.Select TEST SEND to confirm the send.
When you're finished with testing and ready to send, select SAVE & CONTINUE.
If you’re not ready to send, you can select SAVE then exit the SMS editor, and return to your campaign later.
Keep it short
If your SMS is longer than 160 standard GSM characters, it costs more to send. Don't get caught out by extra costs.
Learn about SMS message length and using Unicode in your messages.
Send your SMS campaign
You’ve created and tested your SMS campaign, now it's time to send it out.
1. Select contacts
Open your campaign in the SMS editor and select SAVE & CONTINUE or go to the SMS campaigns screen and select the Send icon for the campaign you want.
Under the heading Select the contacts to send this campaign to, use the tabs to select the lists, segments and marketing preferences you want to send the SMS to.
You can see the total number of contacts for each, as well as the number of contacts with a mobile number that the SMS can be sent to.
Exclude contacts from a send
In addition to choosing which lists, segments, or marketing preferences you want to include in your sends, you can also select which of these you want to exclude from the send.
Exclusions take precedence over inclusions, so, if a contact appears in both an included list, segment, or preference, and an excluded one, they are not sent the campaign.
For example, you might want to send out a campaign, but ensure that you don’t send it to any contact who has already been sent a campaign very recently. You could therefore create a segment to identify contacts sent a campaign in the last one day, and exclude this segment from your send.
To exclude a list, segment, or marketing preference:
Select the Exclude lists, segments or marketing preferences checkbox.
Select the relevant tab from Lists, Segments or Marketing preferences.
Select the checkbox for the sets of contacts you want to exclude from the send.
2. Select send time and speed
For Select send time, select Immediately or Scheduled.
If you select Scheduled, use the date picker to set the time and date of your send, then expand the time zone drop-down menu and select the time zone you are sending the SMS to.
This doesn’t affect the time zone set on your account. You can only select one time zone for SMS sends.
For Select send speed, you can use the default sending speed, meaning as soon as possible, or choose to spread the campaign send out over 1, 2, 3, 6, 12 or 24 hours.
For Undelivered SMS, select Expire after three days if you want the standard SMS expiry time of three days.
If you want your SMS to expire earlier, select Expire on, and then choose a date and time. You can set a minimum time of one hour and a maximum of three days (72 hours).
If a network can’t deliver an SMS at the first attempt, they make multiple further attempts to deliver up to the message expiry time. The custom expiry is useful if your SMS is time-sensitive, for example, a 24-hour sale or travel updates, so you don’t want the network to continue trying to re-send the SMS for the full three days.
Select CONTINUE.
3. Send your campaign
On the Send page, you see the details of the campaign you’re sending:
The Friendly from name you’re sending from.
Whether your message contains any Unicode characters.
Learn more in SMS message length and using Unicode.Whether or not you have enabled link shortening.
Under One final check before you send, you also see the lists, segments, or marketing preferences you’ve chosen to send to, as well as any that you have chosen to exclude.
The Total recipients figure shows the number of contacts with a valid mobile number out of the total contacts from the selected lists, segments, or marketing preferences.
The Excluded contacts figure displays the number of contacts who aren’t included in the send, either because they are in a list, segment or marketing preference you chose to exclude, or because you can’t send to them because they are a member of a list you don’t have permission to send to.
Learn more in List permissions: restrict who can send to specific contacts.
The Final recipient count is the number of contacts that are included in the send.
Send time shows either the scheduled date and time you chose for the send, or Immediately if you chose to send your campaign straight away.
The Expires field shows the expiry time you set for your message, and Estimated parts per message displays the estimated number of SMS segments the message contains.
This is an estimate only and doesn't account for longer messages due to personalisation. Learn more in Why personalisation might increase SMS cost.
Select SEND CAMPAIGN or CONFIRM SCHEDULED SEND.
The option you see here depends on whether you chose to send an immediate or scheduled campaign.
Triggered SMS
Learn more about sending triggered SMS messages: