Learn about the basics of SMS campaigns, from getting started to sending and reporting.
Overview
SMS (short message service) is one of the most effective marketing channels there is, enjoying high deliverability and engagement rates, and allows you to get your message directly to your contacts by targeting their phones.
You can send SMS messages from your account using either an automated program; ideal for sending personalised alerts, reminders and notifications, or by using SMS broadcasting, which is great for sending survey links or promotions to a list of numbers. This is great because your contacts don't need to be attached to an email address.
To learn more about automated programs and SMS broadcasting, check out the articles, Program messaging channel: SMS or Create, test, and send an SMS campaign.
Getting started
To start your marketing journey using SMS, you need to have SMS sending credits and an SMS from name.
To learn more about SMS sending credits and SMS from names, check out the Getting started with SMS article.
If you want contacts to reply and opt-in or out of your SMS messages, you also need either a short code and keyword or a long code.
To learn more about short codes and key words or long codes, check out our Purchase an SMS number article.
Send an SMS campaign using programs
To automate your SMS campaigns, you can create a contact data field that contains your contacts' phone numbers and then set up a triggered SMS profile to send SMS campaigns from a program.
To learn more about sending triggered SMS campaigns, check out the Program messaging channel: SMS article.
Send SMS messages in the SMS broadcasting tool
With the SMS broadcast tool, you can create SMS contacts in address books by adding numbers individually, or by bulk uploading them in a CSV or Excel file. You can also send your campaign immediately or schedule it, and choose the address books you want to send it to; you can also do single sends.
To learn more, check out the Create an SMS campaign area.
SMS send reports
It's all about the delivery and metrics, and we understand that. For the SMS broadcasting tool, there is a Reporting area and provides details on sends, deliveries, and failures for your SMS campaigns. Your single sends are also logged here, which includes any triggered SMS sends done through your programs.
To learn more about SMS reporting, check out our SMS reporting article.