Best Practices for Your Texting Script


First impressions are very important, so you want to make your initial message as effective and efficient as possible. In addition to Organization IDs and Opt Out Language fields that need to be added to each initial message, there are additional best practices for engaging your contacts. Learn more about our tips below!

Remember, you pay for the messages you send, not just the ones that are delivered. It is in your business' best interest to optimize the delivery rate.


TABLE OF CONTENTS


SMS and MMS Tips

Including a link in your initial message increases the risk that a carrier marks your text as spam and fails to deliver it to your contact. A text message with a link is much more likely to deliver in a conversation if the recipient has already responded. For example, your initial message could invite a volunteer to an event. If they respond that they are interested, you can include a link to an RSVP form in the following message.


If you have to include a link in your messages, we recommend using a Trackable Link. Trackable links are custom, branded links that contain "https://". These links are much less likely to be deemed spam by carriers than unsecured http:// or links without any prefix. They also allow you to track clicks to understand who clicked a link and how many times.


Do not use a link-shortening service like bit.ly. Bit.ly, and similar link shorteners, carry a very high risk of being marked as spam because bad actors use them maliciously. The best link is a shortened, secure URL for your domain name.

Our texting partners recommended avoiding the following link shorteners entirely:

  • goo.gl
  • rb.gy
  • bit.ly
  • shorturl
  • tinyurl.com
  • tiny.cc
  • lc.chat
  • is.gd
  • soo.gd
  • s2r.co
  • clicky.me
  • budurl.com
  • Bc.vc


Relevant tips are shown during initial message creation. If links are added to an initial message, a warning will be shown, for example.


Tip 2: Keep it short

Your initial message should be short and to the point as a best engagement practice. SMS messages can be a maximum of 9 segments. but we recommend crafting shorter texts. If your message is too long, it can cause some carriers/devices to break your single message into multiple ones (see message segments). It can also impact your deliverability by reducing your message throughput and may lead to message size delivery errors.


If you plan to send a longer message, you may want to send it as an MMS. MMS messages have a higher rate than a per SMS segment rate, but are typically more cost effective than sending SMS messages past a certain segment count. MMS messages always count as 1 segment, which can help with message throughput. MMS messages have a maximum of 1,600 characters, but best practice is less than 1k characters. If the text is very long, the image may be covered by the text portion of an MMS when it's received by your contacts.


Tip 3: Invite contacts to engage in a real conversation

ThruText enables real, two-way conversations, so try ending your initial message with an engaging question inviting your contact's response.

Tip 4: Avoid prohibited words and SHAFT violations

Carrier-prohibited terms can trigger carrier-level filtering, leading to your messages getting blocked, and potentially the deprovisioning of a sending phone number. Forbidden terminology include gambling-related texts, which can include references to lotteries. For example, a message about entering a lottery may be interpreted as gambling and blocked under carrier restrictions, even when sent by nonprofits. Other highly filtered terminology is that related to "gift" or monetary texts (i.e. dollar or $).


Certain prohibited words can trigger a CTIA SHAFT violation, which also leads to keyword filtration. This includes terms related to sex, hate, alcohol, firearms, tobacco, and vaping/e-cigarettes. In addition, cannabis (or marijuana) related terms are also carrier-prohibited content and may encounter filtering regardless of federal or state legality. This also includes CBD, Kratom, or drug paraphernalia. Text messages with content connected to any of these terms have a high probability of being blocked as SPAM.


List of highly filtered and prohibited terms to avoid:

  • Gambling or lottery
  • "Gift" references
  • Monetary texts (dollar, $)
  • CTIA SHAFT (sex, hate, alcohol, firearms, tobacco, and vaping/e-cigarettes) 
  • Cannabis (or marijuana)
  • Drug substances (i.e. CBD, Kratom, or drug paraphernalia)


NOTE - If your organization plans to send text messaging related to cannabis/marijuana, please reach out to our support team at support@getthru.io for tips on crafting messages connected to the topic.


Tip 5: Send a test message to yourself

The best way to ensure that your message appears as intended is to create a test campaign. Create a group that includes yourself and some family, friends, or colleagues and send them a test SMS or MMS message. For MMS, this helps to preview how the image or video will appear on your device and can surface image or audio quality issues. If your message doesn't deliver, you can also preemptively catch deliverability issues in your test campaign by assessing the message errors in your message export.


Tip 6: Be careful of letter substitution

Carriers have recently announced that they are filtering for messages that use letter substitution (e.g., "fr33" rather than "free" or "s@ve" rather than "save.") SMS messages that use this letter replacement pattern may be subject to higher spam filtering. To monitor your delivery rate, please monitor your Message Errors.


Tip 7: Be careful with emojis

Including an emoji will change a message's encoding and limit your SMS message segments to 70 characters rather than the standard 160 characters. If you include emojis in your messaging, be aware that any message over 70 characters will be broken into multiple segments. In addition, excessive emoji use can negatively impact deliverability for both SMS and MMS outreach.


SMS Only Tips

Tip 1: Don't copy/paste into the message editor

Copying your initial message from a Word document or other external source and pasting it into the message editor can cause unintended changes to the message that your recipients see. Copy and pasting can also change the message's encoding. If your organization pays per SMS segment, it can inflate your texting costs. Whenever possible, type your initial message directly into the message editor.

MMS Only Tips

Tip 1: Pay attention to file size during media upload

For optimal deliverability, non-video media types (images, GIFs, and PDFs) have a maximum size of 750kb. If your file is larger than 750kb, please follow this guide for recommendations on resizing your media.

Videos up to 10MB can be uploaded into the media library. Our system automatically transcodes, or converts and compresses, videos to an acceptable format for MMS messaging. The compressed version of the file must be under 750kb in order to be sent as an MMS. If your file is larger than 10MB prior to uploading, this guide on resizing your video can help to reduce your file size.


NOTE - Check to ensure that you have submitted your sample image to your use case! Registering a sample image is only a requirement for U.S. accounts. Until that is completed, U.S. accounts are unable to add gifs, images, or videos to campaigns.