10 years ago, text messages were just beginning to grow in popularity. Now? Your cell phone is a huge part of how you receive information, and SMS messaging is perhaps the most important method for transmitting that data. How often do you check your phone for texts compared to your email on a daily basis? Exactly.
Tips To Avoid Getting SMS Blacklisted
With the influx of SMS or short messaging service messaging in the lead generation industry, there has also been a rise in the number of phone carriers cracking down hard to try and eliminate spam. This can result in your ending up on SMS blacklists, meaning the messages are still technically "sent" (so you are charged for it), but the message does not get delivered to the recipient. This is what we in the industry call “a huge waste of money.”
After doing some research, here are the main reasons we have found for SMS numbers getting black listed:
Volume
There is not a hard number cut-off, but limiting to under 25 messages per day (per number) will keep your SMS messages under the radar.
Frequency
Again, there is not a hard number cut-off, but if you are sending more than 5 messages in a single 60 second span, that’s pretty much guaranteed to alert the carrier.
URL Links
Using "masking" URLs like tinyurl.com or other similar services to shorten your messages is an automatic flag. You’re going to have to work a little harder to keep those URL’s text-length.
Repeating Messages
Make sure you’re sending a diverse array of texts as well. If you’re sending the same text every time, even with slight variations, that will be easily tracked down by the carrier.
Message Content
Unfortunately for us, the ability to detect how “authentic” a text is has steadily improved over the last few years. This means that if your SMS message is too terse, formulaic, or otherwise inauthentic, it could be flagged as spam. Keep it short & simple to reduce the risk of getting blacklisted.
So what are some possible workarounds? If you are sending out SMS deliveries for leads to your clients/buyers with our marketing system, you can use the custom delivery wizard to adjust the content of the message. Or if you are sending out notifications/webhooks via SMS, the Webhooks/Notifications section you can alter that message that is sent. Changing this every day would be a way to get around the issues that come up with #4 and #5.