With 98% of SMS messages read within five minutes of them being received, it’s a powerful way to get your messages to your contacts.

Before you start

Things you need to know:

SMS messages are made up of segments, which must be a maximum of 160 characters, or 70 characters if you're using a non-Latin alphabet/character set. If you use a greater number of characters, your message flows into a second SMS segment, as indicated by the counter at the bottom right of the message editing window. Adding elements like personalisation can vastly increase your character count.

Create an SMS campaign

Go to Campaigns and select the quick-create icon for SMS.
Enter a campaign name in the field at the top of the editor, then select the tick icon.
For Message type, select SMS.
Under Campaign details expand the Sender drop-down menu and select the From name or number you want to send the SMS from.
Select CAMPAIGN OPTIONS to:
- Choose your Send type from BROADCAST or TRIGGERED.
  - Broadcast campaigns are sent either immediately or at a scheduled time to one or more lists, segments or marketing preferences, and allow split testing.
  - Triggered campaigns are used for SMS auto-responders or sends through automated programs and don't allow split testing.
- If you choose to send a Broadcast SMS, then for Split test, you can toggle the switch to On or Off to choose whether you want to split test the campaign or not.
  If you choose to send a triggered SMS, this option is greyed out. Learn more about split testing in Create a split test SMS campaign.
- For Links, select Shorten or Do not shorten.
  Link shortening saves character counts and allows us to track SMS interaction. Learn more in Use link shortening and tracking in an SMS campaign.
When you’ve finished selecting your campaign options, select SAVE in the side panel.

In the Message field, enter your SMS message text.
To add personalisation to an SMS campaign, select the personalisation icon in the bottom left of the Message field.
In the Data fields picker side panel, select the data field you want to insert.
The value held against a contact for the data field you’ve chosen is inserted when your message is sent.
To insert a link to a survey, page or form into your SMS campaign, select the link icon in the bottom left of the Message field. In the side panel, select the survey, page, or form you want to link to.
When you’re happy with your campaign, select SAVE & CONTINUE or SAVE.

Winston is our AI pup. Learn how he can help you to optimise your SMS messages in WinstonAI: SMS grammar check and WinstonAI: Shorten SMS message.

To find out about all the tricks Winston can do, check out Get started with WinstonAI.