SMS Guidelines

Around 97% of SMS sent are opened and read within 5 seconds of being received, that’s why it’s one of the most powerful tools to target and reach your audience instantly.

Despite being such an old technology, SMS usage is still rising globally across a multitude of industries. To be successful with your SMS messaging, you need to be great at writing good content.

Tips for writing SMS

Here’s some guidelines to help you get started.

Be Concise

A single SMS message is 160 characters in length (see What’s an SMS Part?). For the most effective campaign, you should strive to have your message effectively communicated with this limit. Whilst you can send longer messages, you’re wasting the power of concise messaging and spending more money for the same thing.

Focus on getting to the point straight away, any benefit or reward to the recipient should be clear. DO NOT SHOUT AT YOUR RECIPIENTS, NOBODY LIKES RECEIVING ALL CAPS MESSAGES JUST AS MUCH AS YOU DO NOT ENJOY READING THIS. Stick to short, focused sentences.

Bad Content

Hello there Dave, this is AwesomeWorkspaces in London. We were wondering if you’d be interested in getting a 20% off voucher for your next visit with us? We’d really love to see you again soon.

193 characters, 2 messages.

Good Content

Hey Dave - AwesomeWorkspaces will give you 20% off your next visit. See you soon!

81 characters, 1 message.

You can even throw in an emoji if you’re really concise. This is because sending an emoji makes the message send a different way, so you get 70 characters instead of the usual 100.

Emoji 🍍

👋 Dave, AwesomeWorkspaces has 20% off your next visit. See you soon!

70 characters, 1 UCS-2 message.

If you have an important / urgent message to convey, you can of course use CAPS, but use them sparingly.

Bad Content

HELLO DAVE, WE HAVE HAD TO CANCEL YOUR SESSION TOMORROW PLEASE DO NOT TURN UP!!!

Good Content

IMPORTANT! Dave, we’ve had to cancel your session tomorrow. Please don’t turn up, and get in touch with us.

If you’re conveying information, it’s much easier to understand at a glance in list form rather than 1 huge sentence.

Bad Information

Hi Dave, you’ve been paid £350 this week which after tax is £290.52. This will clear in your bank account no later than Friday 15th.

Better Information

You’ve been paid!

Amount: £350 Net Pay: £290.52 Expect payment by Friday 15th

Proofread your messages

This one sounds simple, but unlike an email your window to proofread is somewhat limited. Make sure that you’re checking them over because once they’re sent - that’s it. You need to get it right first time.

dnt use txt spk

We know SMS is short form, but don’t do this. Really. 🦄 Emojis can be OK, but use them sparingly and be aware that it shortens your available characters per message.

Include a clear CTA (Call to Action)

Typically your messages should include a CTA, something that the user should do to proceed. Make sure that the reason and your CTA is clear. Clear, action oriented language drives results in SMS marketing.

Personalise your messages

Instead of just “Hi”, try “Hi Dave”. A little personalisation goes a long way to delighting your customers rather than making them feel like they’re just being spammed the same message as everyone else.

Things you can’t send

There are specific rules on the type of content you can send:

• All message content must be legitimate within your jurisdiction
• Message content may not be harrassing, offensive, defamatory, abusive or of an obscene nature which is not accurate, legal, honest or untrue
• You must have a lawful purpose to send the SMS that you are choosing to send
• If you are sending marketing SMS, there must be a method in place for the user to opt out which must be referenced in at least 1 message per promotion

Our Spam Policy

We operate a spam risk score policy prior to sending out any SMS message which may affect your ability to send SMS through the platform long term if your messages are flagged.

We will contact you if any of your messages have failed to deliver due to a particularly high risk score, and help you with the actions that may need to be taken for legitimate traffic. We understand that the majority of customers aren’t sending spam messages and will happily work with you.

If your account seems compromised, we will help you with the steps to take to resolve the issue. We would suggest rotating API Keys used by your platforms and reviewing the security associated with your keys.

What’s an SMS Part?

How SMS is sent

Each and every SMS is sent in “parts”, 1 SMS of a certain length could be 1 part or multiple parts. This is explained in more detail below.

There are 2 ways to send SMS related to the way that individual characters or letters are formatting. This is called Character Encoding, and it can be either GSM-7 (we’ll call this GSM) or UCS-2 (Unicode).

If your message contains just text content (English or most other latin languages), we’ll automatically send it for you as GSM so you get the best value for money.

SMS Parts do not mean that messages are sent separately, we will always deliver (within reason) your SMS as a single message regardless of length. The “SMS Part” is an implementation detail of how SMS works.

GSM messages

A single GSM message is limited to 160 characters. If the length of your message exceeds this, it will become 2 or more parts, with each part limited to 153 characters.

For example, if you send one message that contains 160 characters, it will send as 1 SMS Part. However if it was 161 characters long, it would split in to 2 parts with the first containing 153 characters and the second containing 8 characters.

UCS-2 Messages

If your message contains one or more Unicode characters (such as emojis 🥸) the character limit for your SMS is reduced to 70 characters. If the length of a UCS-2 message goes over 70 characters, each part is then limited to 67 characters.

Cost Saving

Sending messages with emojis or other unicode characters can become costly. If you’re not in control of message content directly, we have tools that can force GSM only and strip any UCS-2 characters.

For example, if you send a message with an emoji that is 70 characters long, it’s sent as 1 SMS Part. However if it was 71 characters long, it would split in to 2 parts with the first containing 67 characters and the second containing 4 characters.