Dec. 23, 2024
With consumers and suppliers in the digital marketplace increasingly reliant on mobile devices for information and transactions, organizations in every sector of the economy need the ability to deliver fast, reliable, and engaging communications.
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Short message service or SMS text communication is readily accessible to anyone with a compatible device &#; and as the SMS format is available to users of both conventional phones and smartphones and does not require an internet connection, its reach is truly global.
A recent SMS marketing survey by Gitnux reveals that 62% of consumers have subscribed to at least one business to receive text messages in the past year. The most desirable SMS message types are confirmations, with delivery confirmations being the most preferred by SMS subscribers (64% of the survey respondents). SMS messages consumers enjoy from brands include discounts tailored to their past purchases (48%), offers related to their interests (43%), and messages about products/services they are interested in (39%).
Notably, SMS text recipients will open and respond to the vast majority of text messages within three minutes of delivery, and 98% of all text messages are opened. SMS text is therefore an ideal channel of communication between consumers and brands. In fact, the Gitnux survey indicates that over 42% of business owners and marketers used text messaging services to communicate with customers in the past year, and over half (57%) plan to increase their text marketing budget.
Organizations in all sectors can benefit from enabling SMS style communication via a number of platforms. Here, application programming interface (API) technology has a key role to play &#; specifically, in the form of the SMS API.
SMS API stands for short message service application programming interface, which is a set of protocols and tools that enables software applications to send and receive text messages programmatically. An SMS API allows developers to integrate SMS functionality into their own applications, websites, or systems, facilitating the automation of SMS communication.
Developing an SMS messaging platform from scratch is no easy task. It requires extensive development resources and in-house skills. Rather than attempting to reinvent the wheel, businesses and developers should instead consider partnering with reliable and established SMS API providers. However, making the right choice of SMS API provider can be critical to the success or otherwise of your SMS integration efforts.
There are a number of factors that you should take into consideration when choosing an SMS API provider. They include the following.
The ability to enable diverse systems to interact, share data, and communicate with each other is particularly important for any organization that uses a variety of platforms to coordinate and implement its business operations. If, for example, your enterprise relies on customer relationship management (CRM) software, sales and marketing platforms, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and/or a combination of business systems, using SMS API technology to facilitate SMS integration is a good way to go.
For large or diverse enterprises and organizations with a wide geographical spread, SMS API deployment can help in reducing operational complexity, and boosting efficiency by streamlining workflows and facilitating communications between stakeholders.
If your organization has a large customer or user base, SMS APIs can facilitate the transmission and reception of bulk SMS content through a diverse set of applications.
SMS API deployment can also assist the business if your work relies on delivering time-sensitive information to consumers. This might apply for example to financial institutions, hospitality venues, or healthcare providers. Here, an SMS API platform can provide the tools and functionality needed to schedule messages ensuring that clients receive their status updates, appointment reminders, or alerts at the appropriate times.
Finally, since SMS APIs enable message tracking with delivery recipients, organizations using them can monitor and log when each communication was delivered to the customer and maintain a thorough audit trail of their SMS communications. This can have positive implications for any business or institution that needs to satisfy industry-wide or specific regional compliance demands.
Spam distributors and other bad actors can hack into unsecured SMS APIs, so you should look for a service provider that can ensure high quality and secure network routing for your messages. Do some research to find out what protocols and measures the SMS API provider has in place to protect sensitive information.
Ideally, SMS traffic should be encrypted end-to-end, and the platform should provide an option to integrate with SMPP (a secure SMS communications protocol).
A high-quality network infrastructure is essential to avoiding lost or undelivered SMS messages. You should therefore look for an SMS API provider that can guarantee a high deliverability ratio &#; that is, the ratio of total messages delivered to the number meant to be delivered. A reliable SMS API provider should at least offer a method of letting you track delivery data in real-time (delivery report notifications).
A good SMS API provider should also use direct network or Tier 1 connections, rather than lower cost (to the provider) and low reliability &#;gray routes.&#; Under Tier 1 connections, messages are sent directly to the relevant mobile network. The SMS API provider should also have redundancy measures in place in case their Tier-1 provider connection is unavailable.
Most SMS API providers will have a Service-Level Agreement or SLA in place, with terms stipulating the amount of uptime they guarantee in a given period. The highest level of network availability is &#;5 nines&#;, which equates to 99.999% uptime or around 5.26 minutes of downtime each year.
SMS marketing must comply with relevant legal standards and regulatory compliance regimes. This is especially true in the case of bulk SMS messaging, where for example in regions like the US and Europe, explicit consent is required from consumers before they subscribe to an SMS text list, and clear and specific opt-out instructions must be provided to message recipients.
The SMS API provider you choose therefore needs to provide assurances that it can comply with all relevant regulatory and legislative requirements that apply to where text messages are being sent.
In a typical scenario, SMS API providers will unlock their documentation, leaving it up to you or your developer to integrate the SMS API into your existing systems. With an experienced developer in-house, this client-side integration may have the SMS system operational within an hour. However, this depends on whether the SMS API provider&#;s documentation is clear and complete. You should also look into the type of assistance they offer for client-side integrations.
The provider should offer an SMS API that you can call from any programming language capable of making HTTP requests. To make this easier, you should look for an SMS API provider that offers helper libraries for specific languages such as Python, Ruby, Java, Golang, and Node.
Before making your choice, be sure to get a clear picture of how the SMS API provider structures its pricing.
Some SMS API providers will bill on a credit-based system, where one credit typically equals a single text message of 160 characters or less. Other SMS API providers may bill on an exact usage basis at the end of each month. Many SMS API providers will also charge for all messages delivered via their API, whether they are actually delivered or not. Pricing structures may also vary depending on the primary countries where you&#;ll be sending most of your messages.
Being able to personalize messaging to suit the characteristics of the target market is critical to effective business SMS communication. As such, you should give careful consideration to the message customization options offered by your SMS API provider.
For example, you might want to determine whether the SMS API provider allows you to send promotional or transactional messages to your customers or one-time passwords (OTPs). You might also consider the number options available (short-code, long-code, toll-free, etc.), and whether the SMS API provider has the facility to offer two-way text conversations.
As your business grows or diversifies, your SMS needs may change. You&#;ll need to select an SMS API provider whose platform is capable of supplying the functionality and messaging options your organization requires to meet these changes.
Even with the clearest and most comprehensive SMS API documentation, you may require assistance with your SMS integration, and subsequent SMS marketing efforts.
During implementation, the SMS API provider should ideally assign a local account manager who can listen to your project requirements and limitations and suggest the appropriate solutions. This manager should also be able to supply all the relevant information regarding the evaluation, purchasing and post-purchase processes involved in your deployment.
In addition to personal account management, check whether the SMS API provider offers support channels in addition to , such as , web chat, and 24/7 accessibility. As many SMS API providers offer a tiered support plan with different price points, you may need to shop around to find an SMS API provider with a support level that&#;s both affordable and adequate for your needs.
IDT Express&#;s SMS APIs provide global SMS coverage through a user-friendly wizard-driven code generation process that is fast and effortless to utilize. IDT&#;s carrier-grade platform and an extensive network of 550+ direct carrier connections enable two-way communication with your customers via Tier 1 connections, and an SMS API that empowers you to create highly personalized SMS notifications that cater to any use case with unmatched flexibility.
Comprehensive documentation is available to facilitate quick deployment, together with 24/7 support for you and your team.
To learn more about the IDT Express SMS API, book a demo.
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A lot of brands struggle to reach their customers with relevant messages across channels. That&#;s why over 60% of brands are already using SMS marketing, citing strong customer engagement and improved ROI as the primary benefits.
As online shopping in the US continues to expand, brands are increasingly leveraging technology to send more sophisticated SMS messages to drive revenue, build loyalty, and retain customers. One of the ways we&#;re seeing this come to light is with generative AI. AI is breaking the mold with its never-before-possible ability to send a unique message to every individual subscriber based on their behavior and engagement patterns. Brands should absolutely take AI into consideration when choosing an SMS provider.
Whether you're looking to start fresh, or want to know if you're working with the right vendor, you'll want to focus on finding an experienced SMS partner that integrates with your marketing tech stack vs. a one-size-fits-all marketing solution that may have gaps regarding SMS expertise, functionality, deliverability, and compliance.
Choosing a partner that not only meets your needs today, but can continue to keep pace with you, your tech stack, emerging tools, and regulations is critical. Use this post as your guide before you sign on the dotted line:
An SMS marketing platform lets you communicate with subscribers via personalized text messages, whether you&#;re offering a new promotion or reminding someone to return to their abandoned cart (for more industry definitions, check out our SMS Glossary).
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What makes SMS marketing so great? SMS offers unparalleled immediacy, with messages typically read within minutes of receipt, ensuring timely and effective communication.
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The use case for AI in marketing is growing at unprecedented rates. Specifically, the ability to speak to each customer with a personalized message based on their shopping behaviors and history. This is something marketers have dreamt of doing for years now, and we&#;re finally seeing successful applications in martech. This level of customization may be one of the most important things to think about when choosing the right SMS provider, but that's not all you should be thinking about.
When you&#;re choosing an SMS provider, take a deep dive into their generative AI capabilities. While building out our own suite of robust AI tools, Attentive took the time to uncover what it meant to send a &#;good&#; text message. Using data from 40+ billion messages sent on the Attentive platform, we trained our AI assistant to write messages that are 90%-95% of the way there. This leaves 5-10% of wiggle room for marketers to tailor messages to their specific needs.
But it&#;s not just about writing a great message. Take things one step further with tools that perfect send times and customer segmentation. AI should be able to identify and target your most profitable subscribers, then deliver a message at a time your shoppers are likely to convert. It&#;s also important to look for a provider with the ability to tailor your flows to each individual customer. This capability allows you to optimize for conversions along the entire customer journey.
As you&#;re weighing the pros and cons of AI as part of your SMS platform, be sure to select a tool with an intuitive and easy-to-use interface. The bells and whistles aren&#;t any good if you don&#;t know where to find them or how to use them.
AI is still in its infancy, so ask for those case studies and customer testimonials. Marketers are still sorting out exactly how their brands will most benefit from AI. Being able to source these success stories helps you see how they may work for your business.
Finally, it&#;s important to find a vendor that develops products based on customer feedback. This goes beyond making solutions for current industry trends. This will come in handy considering how new AI technology is in SMS marketing. A platform that prioritizes the voice of the customer ensures that your pain points are always top of mind.
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It&#;s important to understand that each customer is unique, and there's no one-size-fits-all when it comes to SMS marketing. With that in mind, there are some key pillars you'll want to take note of as you&#;re researching different platforms.
Here's what we recommend looking for when choosing an SMS provider:
More often than not, the difference between a successful program and one that flops is a smooth rollout. The sooner you get started, the sooner you can send messages to shoppers and start driving more revenue.
Make sure nothing stands in the way of your ability to grow your subscriber list, send and schedule messages, create targeted segments, analyze the performance of your program, and more. Consider how much guidance you&#;ll receive from your SMS partner, and if they offer training and learning opportunities that'll help you boost your strategy (and revenue).
Learn how our team will help you quickly get started, including:
You should also prioritize an SMS marketing platform that focuses on reliable deliverability. Make sure your provider has close relationships with carriers, so they can quickly advise you when they're experiencing any deliverability issues or making any updates, and provide direction on how to resolve the issues.
Contact us to discuss your requirements of Sms Gateway. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.
The SMS industry is held to high compliance standards, so adhering to SMS regulations is crucial.
In the United States, you must be compliant with the Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), and the guidelines of the CTIA. If you don&#;t comply with the guidelines, it can lead to costly results, including consumer complaints, suspension of your short code, and even lawsuits.
It may sound intimidating to keep up with all the SMS-specific regulations, but don&#;t let it stop you from getting started with this marketing channel. The right vendor should be able to provide you with guidance and peace of mind. Make sure that they have the expertise to help you navigate the laws and remain compliant at every step (Check out our Marketing Privacy & Data Glossary to learn the most common terms and regulations you&#;ll come across when building your marketing program).
At a high level, SMS compliance requirements include the following:
Your SMS platform should also help you determine the right number for your business, whether that&#;s a dedicated 5- or 6-digit short code, a toll-free number, or an A2P 10-digit long code (10DLC). Avoid any platform that&#;s using standard P2P 10-digit numbers&#;known as long codes&#;as they&#;re no longer permitted for sending marketing messages, according to US cellular carriers.
For SMS opt-ins, we didn&#;t want to take any risks with compliance. Attentive was a big help in this regard. TCPA and CTIA compliance is built-in, and they went above and beyond to ensure that industry best practices were being followed.
&#; Alexander Sebelen, Senior Manager - E-Commerce & Digital, Frederic Fekkai
Choosing a reliable SMS marketing partner is essential for the success of your campaigns. A dependable partner ensures timely and accurate delivery of messages, which is crucial for time-sensitive promotions and updates. They also maintain high delivery rates, meaning your messages reliably reach your audience, enhancing engagement.
Leveraging half a decade of experience, our team is well adapted to anticipating bottlenecks, improving processes, and mitigating issues long before they occur. We conduct rigorous capacity, load, and disaster planning for months leading up to key moments like BFCM.
As a dedicated partner, we use multiple sending partners to ensure we can handle extremely high traffic volumes and have strong deliverability. It&#;s our mission to remain consistently reliable, trusted, and dependable when it matters the most.
Attentive is one of the only SMS marketing platforms with a seat on the CTIA board, helping shape deliverability rules and regulations across the industry.
While SMS is a top performance marketing channel on its own, it can become even more powerful when integrated with your existing tech stack. The data you collect from e-commerce platforms, ESPs, CDPs, mobile apps, CRMs, and other technologies lets you centralize and access valuable customer details&#;so you can send more relevant text messages and increase revenue.
&#;Integrations also help amplify your SMS marketing efforts and provide consistency with your other marketing channels&#;so you can deliver more personalized subscriber experiences. The benefit here lies in the ability to unify your data and then orchestrate deeply personalized experiences across your connected channels. Another benefit is &#;speed to launch. If a platform already has the integration you need, it's a lot easier and faster to get set up.
We believe in personalized customer experiences&#;both in our SHEFIT products and in our marketing, so it&#;s incredibly important for us to be able to utilize data between our martech systems. That personalization enables us to drive more revenue per message we send.
&#; Ezra Chasser, Senior Director of Digital, SHEFIT
Think about your brand&#;s other important marketing channels&#;such as or your website&#;and how you might be able to use customer data to improve your text messaging results. Then, make sure your SMS vendor lets you easily integrate with those channels. Also, consider choosing a reputable provider that can successfully orchestrate across and SMS, in addition to other marketing technologies.
Using Attentive alongside SMS can enhance your marketing strategy by ensuring consistent messaging across different platforms, increasing the reach and frequency of customer engagement. Essentially, when you use Attentive with SMS what you get is stronger performance across the board. In fact, we&#;ve seen a 10% increase in revenue when customers add Attentive . This integration allows for a more cohesive customer experience and leverages the strengths of each channel to amplify your marketing efforts.
Finally, you should be able to connect your SMS channel with your customer service help desk. This will let your team quickly answer customer questions using text messaging.
A healthy subscriber base is key to the success of your text messaging program. From converting website traffic into subscriber growth, to optimizing how people join your SMS subscriber list (whether online or offline), your text message marketing partner should offer a robust suite of list growth tools and take the manual work out of opting in subscribers. Without this, you risk significantly limiting your SMS list growth rate.
At a minimum, make sure your SMS marketing platform offers the following list growth strategies. Bonus points if they also allow you to grow your list across social media, dedicated landing pages, and more.
You should also make sure you have the flexibility to control what your sign-up units look like and where/when to show them.
Attentive offers 24 different types of sign-up units used by thousands of brands&#;designed with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and TCPA compliance in mind.
It was a very easy process&#;we provided Attentive with a few different options of visual content, and they produced an incredible pop-up to start capturing new text messaging subscribers immediately.
- Chad Ross, Founder and CEO, Dorsal Bracelets
Text messaging is another opportunity to engage, educate, and offer value to your shoppers. SMS doesn&#;t just increase incremental revenue&#;it&#;s a powerful channel for building brand loyalty, too.
Your SMS marketing platform should allow you to send revenue-generating one-time campaigns that showcase your product, promotions, and more. You should also be able to segment your campaign messages, so you can easily target any marketing initiative&#;whether it&#;s retention, awareness, or acquisition.
Level up your messaging with tools like AI Pro . Easily create high-performing, on-brand copy and maximize your budget by reaching the highest-intent subscribers at the perfect moment. With tools like Send Time AI, campaign messages aren&#;t sent in a batch to all of your subscribers at the same time. Instead, message send times are individualized for each of your subscribers and messages are delivered throughout the day on your behalf.
We also recommend checking for testing and optimization capabilities within your SMS campaigns. That includes being able to A/B test individual messages to find the copy, images, and timing that resonate most with your audience, plus see performance in real time and use historical A/B test results to improve future messages.
A/B testing is not just for immediate optimization. It&#;s also for informing future marketing decisions based on precise audience preferences and behaviors.
&#; Ricky Hagen, Retention Marketing Manager, JAXXON
Consumers expect a polished and engaging experience&#;complete with eye-catching images and personalized information. Our recent survey found that 51.1% of consumers would be more likely to make a purchase if they received a text that included a GIF, image, or video. Only 15.9% indicated they prefer plain text messages with no media.
Make sure your SMS partner allows you to send a variety of messages. While all platforms should have plain SMS capabilities, you&#;ll also want to verify you can send text messages that include images, GIFs, or videos
Your SMS gateway provider should also have A/B testing capabilities that let you understand how your subscribers are engaging with different types of messages&#;and whether they prefer SMS or MMS&#;to ensure you&#;re sending them the content they want. Your provider&#;s platform should allow you to easily understand which message variation was the most effective, and why.
For more best practices, check out our MMS image cheat sheet.
Triggered messages let you automatically drive revenue based on real-time behavioral data from your subscribers, like signing up for your SMS program, abandoning their online shopping cart, or making a purchase.
You&#;ll want to make sure your SMS partner has built out multiple types of triggered messaging flows, including the examples below. It&#;s important to select an SMS partner who can offer a comprehensive and customizable set of behaviorial events. This helps you effectively retarget and retain customers during key moments.
In addition, a partner incorporating AI into their personalization tools will help you stand apart from your competition. Attentive&#;s AI Journeys automatically optimizes and personalizes the content, send frequency, and timing using each subscriber's complete history&#;so no two messages are the same.
Plus, once these messages are set up, they&#;ll send on their own.
Transactional updates: We know the worst part of online shopping is the waiting time between clicking &#;Buy&#; and receiving your order. Make sure you can give your customers peace of mind by sending transactional text messages, including order confirmations and shipment notifications.
&#;Reaching your subscribers through two-way conversations increases engagement and deepens brand loyalty while providing your brand with valuable data. Make sure the SMS vendor you&#;re evaluating gives you the ability to send a variety of two-way text messages that invite subscriber replies. Think applications like programmatic replies or two-way journeys, AI-assisted agents similar to Attentive Concierge&#;, and conversational AI. Many messages are only one-way, hindering your ability to really connect with your customers.
Sending conversational messages is an effective way to ask questions and gather more information about your subscribers. You can use their responses to build a robust profile of their preferences and behaviors&#;like the product categories they&#;re interested in or their unique style preferences&#;so you can send them more relevant messages that drive conversions.
For example, Attentive customers use Two-Way Journeys&#; to encourage product discovery with fun quizzes or keyword-driven scavenger hunts, share personalized recommendations and offers, and more.
You should also be able to provide your subscribers with real-time support directly via text message, so you can get ahead of any roadblocks in the path to purchase and help shoppers get over the finish line. Attentive Concierge&#; enables our customers to engage subscribers in back-and-forth interactions with real people, who answer their questions, offer advice, and ultimately, help drive conversions.
Personalizing your text messages is critical to delivering impactful content that resonates with your subscribers. AI is furthering these capabilities with the ability to create content effortlessly, enhance your messaging performance, and help you max out on personalization.
Leading SMS solutions incorporating AI should provide predictive targeting to boost performance and improve ROI. It&#;s also important they integrate seamlessly with your existing marketing technology.
This will let you create a more advanced segmentation strategy and target audiences based on anything and everything you know about your shoppers. At a minimum, your SMS platform should make it easy to set up the following segments based on:
Continually analyzing and optimizing SMS marketing performance ensures you&#;ll drive the best results and improve your program in the long term. By understanding what&#;s working with your SMS program (and why), you can implement learnings to refine your strategy.
When evaluating SMS vendors, make sure you&#;re able to set up custom reports, pull ad-hoc reports, and format reports to meet your business needs. You want a provider that can help you visualize key data with dashboards that make the information easy to digest and act upon. Understanding how your SMS channel is performing shouldn&#;t feel like embarking on a research project.
Key reports for your SMS channel should include:
Attentive offers many different types of pre-built reports that analyze your data and provide the transparency you need to understand how your campaigns are performing. You can generate an instantaneous report or schedule a recurring one. This is also helpful when sharing insights about your SMS program with key marketing stakeholders.
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Selecting the right marketing platform can be challenging. We've made it easier:
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You&#;ve chosen your SMS marketing platform. Now, you&#;re ready to get your program up and running. Here&#;s what you need to do in the early stages to set your brand up for success.
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Remember: Prioritize a &#;more than software&#; platform. And if you really want to get ahead of the curve, choose a partner who's already infusing AI into every aspect of their tools. New developments in AI technology are giving marketers the ability to do something that was never possible before&#; deliver unique messages for every individual subscriber, all based on their top-performing messages. Organizations hesitant to embrace this new wave of technology could fall behind. Now is the best time to jump in, test, and learn as much as you can, because everyone around you is in the same position.
Ready to give AI a shot? Get started today.
Look for a true partner that'll keep your business goals front and center&#;one that listens to your feedback and focuses on building smarter and more efficient tools for you.
&#;Attentive drives an average 18.5% of total online revenue for e-commerce brands. Learn more about why thousands of brands choose Attentive as their #1 SMS marketing solution, and see what we can do for you. Try us for free.
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