SMS Overview

You can use Iterable to send marketing and transactional SMS messages. SMS messages generally have a high open rate, and you can use them to interact almost immediately with your audience.

This guide provides a high-level description of Iterable's SMS support.

# Table of contents

# Do I need a Twilio account?

Iterable uses Twilio to send SMS messages. You don't need your own account, but if you have one you can use it. To integrate Iterable with Twilio so that you can send SMS messages, talk to your customer success manager.

# Long codes vs short codes

Long codes are general use phone numbers, available for low-volume SMS and MMS sends. An individual long code can send one message per second, up to around 250 messages per day. Most Iterable customers use long codes, which are usually available for immediate purchase.

Short codes are five or six-digit numbers used for high-volume, rapid SMS and MMS sends and replies. Short codes have a default limit of 100 sends/second, but they can be upgraded (at an additional cost). They must be registered on a national registry and can take 8 to 12 weeks to set up. Short codes are more expensive than long codes.

# Contact phone numbers

After your customer success manager has integrated your Iterable project with Twilio, you can send SMS messages to contacts that have a phoneNumber field on their user profiles.

This field must be in the proper format and include a country code. For example, +16503926753.

A valid German phone number (which uses country code 49) might be +496503926753.

# Setting a phone number using Iterable's API

To use the POST /api/users/update API endpoint to set a phone number on a user profile, use a JSON request body such as:

{
   "email": "docs@iterable.com",
   "dataFields": {
      "phoneNumber": "+15551112222"
   }
}

For an international number, use JSON such as:

{
   "email": "docs@iterable.com",
   "dataFields": {
      "phoneNumber": "+4916503926753"
   }
}

Iterable does not provide full phone number validation. However, if a phoneNumber field doesn't show up on a user profile after you set it, check for superficial signs of an invalid number (bad area code, wrong format, etc.).

# Sending SMS campaigns

You can send SMS messages as part of a blast campaign, a triggered campaign or a workflow.

To learn how to build out the content for an SMS message, read Template Options for SMS. Then, to learn how to send a SMS campaign or workflow, see:

• Creating Blast Campaigns
• Creating Triggered Campaigns
• Introduction to Workflows

To allow your contacts to opt out of your SMS messages, you can include opt-out instructions in your SMS campaigns (this is also a deliverability best practice). For more information, see the next section.

# SMS link shortening and click tracking

Iterable makes it possible to shorten the links you include in an SMS campaign, and to track clicks on those links. For more information, see our support guide on SMS Link Shortening and Click Tracking.

# SMS opt-out instructions

When sending SMS informational or promotional SMS messages, it's important to include opt-out instructions, because:

• It's an industry best practice. Regularly including clear opt-out instructions in your messages tells your contacts how they can stop receiving unwanted content. For more information, take a look at the CTIA's Messaging Principles & Best Practices document (which include definitions for "informational" and "promotional," as well as a discussion about consumer opt-out mechanisms).
• In an effort to protect consumer privacy, AT&T has announced plans to more tightly filter SMS messages sent from 10-digit long codes that don't include opt-out instructions (and it's conceivable that other carriers might eventually follow suit). Because of this, SMS messages without these instructions—when sent to consumers on AT&T's network—may not get delivered.

# Including opt-out instructions

In Settings > Project Settings, you can specify when Iterable should automatically include opt-out instructions with your SMS campaigns:

The Include SMS opt-out instructions setting can have one of three values:

• With every SMS campaign - Your project will automatically include opt-out instructions in every campaign, to every contact. This is the default setting for new Iterable projects. Select this option to maximize your deliverability.

• Only with the first SMS campaign to each contact - Your project will automatically include opt-out instructions only in the first SMS campaign it sends to any given contact. This option can negatively impact your deliverability, since some carriers may filter messages that don't include opt-out instructions.

• Disabled - Your project will never automatically include opt-out instructions. This option can negatively impact your deliverability, since some carriers may filter messages that don't include opt-out instructions. Only your CSM can select this option for your project.

Iterable uses Msg&data rates may apply. Text 'STOP' to quit. as th default SMS opt-out instructions.

To customize these instructions, go to Settings > Project Settings and update the SMS Opt-Out Instructions Text field:

# Inbound SMS messages

Contacts can respond to your SMS messages. These responses are saved as smsReceived events on their user profiles, and each has an smsMessage field that contains the text of the message (in all lowercase).

To view an individual contact's SMS messages, go to Contacts > Audience Lookup and look them up. To see a list of recent incoming SMS messages across your project, go to Insights > Logs > Inbound SMS:

# Triggering workfows with inbound SMS messages

To trigger a workflow from an incoming SMS message, use a Received an SMS trigger node. If necessary, add a filter that to examine the contents of the incoming message (by examining its smsMessage field, which contains the message text in all lowercase). For example:

There are many things to consider when using a workflow to respond to incoming SMS messages. Among other things:

• All inbound SMS messages can trigger a workflow
• Typos made by the contact
• Keywords reused in multiple campaigns

Talk with your customer success manager to talk about these things before using a workflow to respond to incoming SMS messages.

# Frequently asked questions

# Does Iterable provide phone number validation?

Iterable does not fully validate phone numbers. However, Twilio provides a free tool.

# Can I send images along with my text messages?

Yes, Iterable accepts URLs to .png, .jpeg, and .gif files. Insert the URL of the image into the Image URL box in the SMS template editor.

# Can I send videos, or other file types in my messages?

Yes. You an include a link to a file of a supported type, that's less than 5mb, in the Image URL section of the SMS template editor.

Sample content URLs:

• Video: https://www.w3schools.com/html/mov_bbb.mp4
• vCard: https://www.w3.org/2002/12/cal/vcard-examples/john-doe.vcf

See Twilio's Accepted Content Types for Media document for a list of acceptable file types.

# What metrics can I use with SMS?

To learn about SMS metrics, read SMS Campaign Metrics.

# Why would an SMS message bounce?

SMS bounces can happen if a phone number doesn't exist or if part of your setup is incorrect. Iterable does not unsubscribe contacts when they bounce.

For an exhaustive list of error codes, read Twilio's error documentation.

# How do contacts unsubscribe and subscribe?

To unsubscribe and resusbscribe to your SMS messages, your contacts can just reply to them:

• To unsubscribe, they can reply with one of these keywords:

  • STOP
  • STOPALL
  • UNSUBSCRIBE
  • END
  • CANCEL
  • QUIT

  NOTE

  These keywords do not attribute an unsubscribe to an SMS campaign.

  After doing this, they'll stop receiving SMS messages in one of two ways (depending on how your project binds SMS senders to Iterable message types, and on how it maps SMS senders to Twilio message services):

  • From only the specific message type from which the message was sent
  • From your entire Iterable project

• To subscribe, they can reply with one of these keywords:

  • START
  • YES
  • UNSTOP

  Manually resubscribing a contact to one of your project's SMS channels doesn't automatically cause them to start receiving SMS messages from you again. When a contact unsubscribes, Twilio places them on a blocklist, and to get off of it they'll need to reply with one of the above keywords (which will also cause Iterable to resubscribe them).

# How do I get started with SMS?

To get started with SMS, talk to your Iterable customer success manager.