The Emarsys SMS product is found in the Channels menu, SMS Campaigns.
The SMS Dashboard
The Dashboard tab presents you with your usage statistics, as well as your current credit balance in the upper right corner.
You can select a date range for your report and see the total number of messages sent, their total cost, the Revenue impact of your SMS messages, as well as a Breakdown by Country or Region, which contains columns with information on the country or region, the total number of messages sent, the total number of SMS parts sent, the price per part and the total cost for the given country or region.
The Revenue impact widget is only visible if the SMS channel is enabled in the Revenue Attribution settings.
The SMS campaigns list
The Campaigns tab lists all your existing campaigns that are currently in work, or have been launched.
Search and filter campaigns
You can search SMS campaigns by name and filter the search by their Status:
- In Design
- Launched
- Scheduled
- Ready to Launch
You can further filter the search by Recipient source:
- Segment
- Contact list
- Automation Center
- On the SMS Campaign Settings page, the recipient source is defined as Using an Automation Center program. Only campaigns that are saved with this recipient source and the status of which is Ready to Launch are available for selection in the Automation Center and Interactions Send SMS node.
and Type:
- SMS
- MMS
The campaigns list
SMS campaigns are listed with their:
- Name
- Type
- Recipient source
- Status
- Sent
- Delivered
- Created
- Changed
You can sort the list by clicking the respective column title.
You can perform the following actions with the campaigns:
- Preview
- Edit
- Copy
- Reporting
- Delete
Depending on the campaign's Status, you can make different actions with the campaign:
- Active Automation Center campaigns remain in the Campaigns tab with 'Automation Center' as the recipient source.
- Launched campaigns remain in the Campaigns tab with a 'Launched' status and you can see their campaign reports from here, by clicking the 'Reporting' icon. For more information, see End-user guides:: SMS Reporting.
Creating an SMS campaign
On the Campaigns tab, click Create New SMS to open the SMS creation wizard. This wizard has three steps, Campaign Settings, Content Creation and Scheduling.
As a quick reminder, here is the onboarding video about Creating SMS Campaigns:
Campaign settings
Here you add the General Settings and the Source Settings.
You must fill in the following mandatory fields:
- Name - This will be the name of your campaign.
- Recipient source - Select the type of recipients. These are the following:
- Using a segment - use a predefined segment.
Segment results are cached for 10 minutes. So, if you run the same segment again within 10 minutes, you will get the previous (cached) results.
- Using a contact list - use a predefined contact list.
- Using an Automation Center program - use the participants of an AC program.
In case you need an inbound number for reply SMS messages, please contact Emarsys Support.
- Segment/Contact List: This changes dynamically based on your selection.
Note that if you select Using an Automation Center program, the Scheduling step of the wizard is disabled as this step is handled within the program.
SMS Ignore opt-in
When you select Automation Center programs as a recipient source, the Ignore Opt-in setting becomes available. When this is checked, your SMS will be sent without taking into consideration the opt-in status of your contacts.
If the Ignore Opt-in checkbox is not visible for you by SMS campaigns with Automation Center program recipients, contact Emarsys Support so they can enable the feature for you.
Content creation
In this step, you can set the following:
- Preview pane
- SMS Basics tab
- Personalization tab
Preview
In the Preview pane you will add the From name of the sender and you add the message content here as well.
The From name can be:
- If you are sending over a long or short code, use that inbound number in the From name.
- If you do not have your own account with an SMS vendor:
- A word, such as your company or brand. This is supported by GSM 7 only and must be between 3 and 7 alphanumeric characters long; no special characters or spaces are allowed (as these are not supported by all operators).
- If you have your own SMS vendor that you configured in Emarsys :
- We do not apply any restrictions on the sender ID/FROM. Please make sure with your vendor that the sender ID/From you are using is valid and can be use for your campaigns.
- A valid mobile number, if you wish to be able to receive replies. This can be up to 15 digits long.
In some cases, it is required to send the SMS from a Short Code, which has to be the From Name. For dedicated short codes, Emarsys does this automatically, according to the Provider's requirements.
In this case, you can still enter an alphanumeric text as a From Name, and this will be used for any other SMSes that are not required to be sent from the respective Short Code.
For shared Short Codes, you are required to copy the Short Code to the From / Sender ID field in your campaign Content Creation page, in the Preview. This will be used for all sent messages.
If you did not specifically request a dedicated Short Code but you still have one provided to you, then it's a Shared Short Code.
Also, to some destinations, it is mandatory to have a Sender ID, otherwise, the whole SMS campaign may be soft bounced. It is best practice to always set the Sender ID/From Name for your campaigns.
When changing the From Name, you could trigger spam filters. Therefore, always ensure to test your SMS campaigns thoroughly, after changing your From Name.
Message - This is the standard SMS text content. The character count shown below the text box is an approximation, as the final total depends on the encryption standard used to send the SMS.
- GSM 7 allows for a maximum of 160 characters.
- Other encodings (e.g. for Chinese characters) allow for a maximum of 70 characters.
- Adding an emoji to an SMS turns on the UTF-16 encoding which only allows 70 characters per message part.
Additionally, the emoji counts as two characters, so that leaves 68 characters.
Please note the following:
-
Character count:
- If you exceed the maximum, the SMS will be sent in multiple parts and you will be charged accordingly
- Enabling or disabling link tracking will affect the character count, because this feature shortens the link inserted in the SMS text content.
-
Emojis:
- Please check with your vendor as emojis are not supported by all vendors.
- The ability to display emojis will depend on the mobile device and messaging app used to view the message, as emojis are not yet standardized across all the different mobile phones and apps.
Highlight editable content - Use the button to highlight all editable message content.
Sending test messages - To send a test message, enter the destination number in the field provided.
This must be a full international number but without the leading 00 or +. To send test messages to more than one number, separate the numbers using a semi-colon (;). Please note the following if you send a test SMS:
- This does not reference the Emarsys database, therefore personalization will not work.
- Unsubscribe links will open the landing page that you have defined, but will not function as an unsubscribe.
- Test messages are billed at the normal rate and are also included in the Dashboard's Usage reports screen.
SMS Basics
Here you can add an unsubscribe link to your message.
Click Edit Unsubscribe Page to add the relevant settings.
Emarsys uses a short URL to add the unsubscribe link, and reduces the character count by 23. In addition to adding the unsubscribe link to the SMS, here you can define the following:
- Unsubscribe title - The title displayed at the top of the unsubscribe page.
- Unsubscribe text - The message displayed below the unsubscribe title.
- Unsubscribe button text - The text displayed on the unsubscribe button.
- Unsubscribe confirmation text - The text that will be displayed after clicking the unsubscribe button.
Click Save when you are done.
Short code drag and drop
In order to simplify SMS creation and to avoid errors, you can drag and drop short codes as objects from the SMS Basics tab to the message body and From name.
Left to the number, you can see the country or region, to which the short code is set up for.
Personalization
Select this tab to personalize your message.
The tab lists your previously created tokens, in the following categories:
- General
- Personal
- Company
- Other
Select the type of token and add it to your message with the drag-and-drop method.
To further edit the token, you can click on it and make the necessary changes.
For more information, see Omnichannel personalization - Overview.
These variables are estimated as three characters when they are added but the use of personalization tokens can result in a higher character count than estimated in this step. This can affect the final number of SMS parts, so if you are concerned that using variables will generate too many multi-part messages, we recommend sending a test message and checking the number of parts based on the received messages.
Scheduling
Campaign summary
This section is one of the biggest advantages of Emarsys SMS. Not only can you calculate the exact cost of your campaign before you launch, but you can also get an instant overview of the launch list.
Important note: If the total campaign cost exceeds your current balance, Emarsys will not launch the campaign, giving you the time to top up the balance and ensuring that no messages are sent that cannot be delivered.
Generating the launch list
On the Scheduling page of the SMS Campaign, a launch list is generated for the pre-selected audience or segment. You will receive a notification titled the Prelaunch Generation Completed, which means the launch list generation is finished. In the launch list you can see more details in terms of how many contacts are actually eligible to receive text messages.
Launching an SMS campaign
Once your SMS campaign is ready to launch, you can choose from the following options:
- Launch Now - The campaign will be launched now. When you click this button, you will be taken to the Campaigns tab, where you can check your campaign's status as well.
- Schedule - The campaign is scheduled for launch and its status on the Campaigns tab changes from Draft batch to Sent batch.
Please note that the limit is sending 100.000 SMS messages per batch.
Sending SMS using an Automation program
Triggering SMS messages from Automation Center or Interactions lets you benefit from the combination of multiple features, including cross-channel notifications and other, more complex marketing activities.
You can trigger time-critical SMS messages by selecting the External event entry point in Interactions and linking the external event to the API call that triggers the message.
To add an SMS campaign to an Interactions program, select the Using an Automation Center program option in the Recipient source drop-down menu.
In your Automation program, add the SMS node wherever you want it.
After adding the SMS, double-click it to select the message content from the drop-down.
Once the program is active, all contacts who are eligible to receive SMS campaigns will receive the selected message when they reach this node.
From the SMS Campaign Settings you can directly navigate to all connected programs by clicking the respective program's link:
You cannot delete any connected Automation programs. Also, you can only edit connected Automation campaigns before they are launched, once they are triggered they are NOT editable.