SMS marketing campaigns

A campaign text gets a couple of seconds on a lock screen, so lead with the reason you're texting and make sure people can tell who it's from. Give the one detail that matters, such as the date or the deadline, and finish with what to do next, whether that's booking, ringing you or showing the text at the till.

Timing matters as much as wording. Pick a sensible hour for the people on your list, because an offer at 10am reads very differently from the same offer at 10pm. Scheduling lets you write the campaign when you have time and send it when they do.

Watch the length too. A campaign that runs to two parts costs twice as much across the whole list, and one emoji can push a one-part text into two. Draft it on the Send SMS page, which counts characters, parts and credits as you type.

Campaigns go out through our licensed A2P route, under an approved sender name so the text shows as your business, or under our default sender if you leave it on Default. A name is recognisable at a glance but can't take replies, and that matters for opt-outs, because 'Reply STOP' only works if people can reply. If most of your marketing goes out under a name, change the opt-out wording in Settings to something people can act on, such as an email address. For anything you want answers to, text people one to one from Send SMS or the API, and their replies come back to your inbox.

Our staff check sender names before you can use them, including against the MEF SenderID Protection Registry, so request yours well before the campaign you need it for.

Campaigns can also be created through the API with a list, the text, an optional sender name and a send time, and you can follow their progress or cancel them before they go. That suits businesses that keep their marketing lists in their own systems: sync the list through the contacts and lists endpoints, then start the campaign.

Test keys can't launch campaigns, so try a new campaign on a short list of your own numbers first.

What a campaign uses in CaptiFi Connect:

Marketing texts fall under PECR. You need each person's specific consent before texting them marketing, unless the soft opt-in applies: you took their number during a sale or negotiations for a sale, you're only marketing your own similar products or services, and you gave them a simple, free way to refuse at the time and in every text since.

Every marketing text has to make clear who it's from and offer a simple way to opt out. Campaigns in CaptiFi Connect add 'Reply STOP to opt out' on its own line unless you turn it off, and the line isn't doubled up if your text already ends with it. Keep a record of who agreed to marketing and when. CaptiFi Connect handles the opt-outs, but the consent is yours to show.

Pubs and restaurants announcing events and new menus, venues selling tickets, salons filling quiet days, shops with a sale on. If you've got a list of customers who've said yes to hearing from you, a text is about as direct as marketing gets.