Sales Campaigns

How to Improve SMS Campaign Deliverability with JustCall?

More than 50% of people check their text messages more than 11 times a day.

To add to that, in 2022, around 70% of consumers preferred to receive text messages from businesses.

So, in spite of such convenient circumstances, why’s the performance of your SMS campaign still not up to the mark? Here’s why.

Let’s say you spent months compiling a list of leads. Then, you spent days crafting the ideal campaign for those leads. Finally, when you execute your SMS campaign, you see that 15% of your messages are undelivered.

Not only do you have to pay for the undelivered messages, but also you now have to filter out those leads and send them messages individually. It’s a frustrating, messy, and time-taking affair.

Low SMS deliverability sucks. So, how do you circumvent an issue like this? Read on to learn how to improve your SMS deliverability rates.   

What is SMS Deliverability?

The purpose of SMS marketing is to reach customers and evoke a response or action. It involves sending text messages to convey a promotional deal, a reminder, or any other kind of announcement.

More eCommerce marketers are increasingly considering it a profitable communication channel. After all, a recent eMarketer study revealed that, on average, adults spend over 3 hours and 43 minutes per day browsing their mobile phones. 

While sending text messages to the right segment of your lead list is essential, a good SMS deliverability score can make a huge impact.

The success of your SMS campaign depends majorly on the number of texts received successfully. The higher the rate of deliverability, the greater will be the success of the SMS campaign.   

How Does SMS Deliverability Work? 

SMS deliverability is an important performance metric expressed as a percentage of the total messages sent. It indicates how many of your messages are reaching the intended customers.

For example, if your SMS deliverability rate is 90%, it signifies that 90% of your messages have reached the intended users.   

To get an accurate picture of the results, it’s essential to understand how to calculate the SMS delivery rate.

The SMS delivery rate percentage is calculated using the following formula:

(No. of SMS successfully delivered/Total no. of SMS sent) x 100

Using this calculation, you can generate a basic SMS delivery report for every campaign.  

As mentioned earlier, this is an essential metric as you pay to send text messages, regardless of whether or not they reach mobile phones.

Undelivered text messages can negatively impact each aspect of your SMS marketing performance. We recommend investigating low percentages as they’re indicators of network issues or other components of SMS delivery.            

Common Reasons Why SMS Delivery Fails

Even though text messages have a remarkably high delivery rate, there will be few texts that will fail to reach everyone in your lead list. This happens due to several reasons that block the message journey.

Wondering why your SMSs are sometimes not delivered? Here are some of the common reasons behind SMS delivery failure.

1. Network Issues

The mobile phone carrier can sometimes lead to technical network issues or glitches like weak signals, drops, etc., which in turn can cause text delivery failure.

Another scenario that can affect SMS deliverability is service suspension. When the phone is on a pay-as-you-go contract, it may be temporarily out of service due to insufficient credit.

Until the phone service is restored or the credit is replenished, text messages are not received.    

2. Spam Filters and Government Control

Many phone carriers use spam filters to restrict junk texts from their users. There’s a high possibility that the carrier network may identify a mass number of texts as spam and block it before it reaches the recipient’s inbox.

Breaking up text messages into smaller sets can help you mitigate this risk. Identical automated texts can also trigger alarms. Hence, we recommend tweaking messages to prevent rejection.

In addition to spam restrictions, governments in some countries control the type of information sent to their citizens.

Before starting an SMS campaign, research the specific restrictions and requirements in each targeted country to achieve higher SMS deliverability.

3. Inbox Limitations and Message limits

Just like email inboxes, text message inboxes also have a limited capacity to receive and store messages.

Once these inboxes reach their full capacity, they don’t accept new text messages. Plus, some countries have their length limits.

For example, the U.S. and a few other countries’ networks only support messages of up to 160 characters. If your text length is above a country’s limit, it’ll be rejected.   

4. Incorrect Mobile Number and Incorrect Sender ID

One of the most common and easy-to-fix causes of SMS delivery failure is using the wrong number for the recipient.

Maybe the number was entered or recorded incorrectly. There are also chances that the number belongs to the customer, but it’s a landline phone not able to receive messages.

Plus, different carriers and countries have different rules for the sender ID. An incorrect “from” field or sender ID could also be the reason your message isn’t delivering.  

5. Incorrect Encoding

Generally, messages are sent either using the global standard GSM 3.38, which permits 160 characters, or using Unicode, which permits 70 characters.

Different countries and carriers require different encoding. While some carriers don’t deliver messages sent in Unicode, others might deliver the text incorrectly.

It’s always best to send messages in plain text rather than Unicode when sending them to a new country. Country-specific guidelines must be checked to ensure that you aren’t forgetting any essential information.   

5 Tips to Boost Your SMS Campaign

Here are a few tips to help you avoid spam filters and increase engagement through your SMS campaign.

1. Avoid Random Capitalization and Lousy Grammar

Fraudulent or fake messages are on the rise, making it more difficult to pass spam filters.

Avoid sending messages with phrases in capital letters, as this can trigger spam filters. Bad grammar is also a typical sign of fake or fraudulent messages, as are spelling mistakes when it comes to customer or brand names.    

2. Avoid Repeating Messages

Think about how you can mix things up. Network carriers can blacklist you for sending repeated texts to a large number of people.

Plus, sending the same message to your customers isn’t likely to yield better results. Therefore, try to modify your content if customers didn’t engage with it the first time.

3. Keep URLs Short but Not Too Short

Short links look neat, but from a customer’s perspective, they can look fraudulent as they don’t show where the link is taking them.

Also, if you’re sending the same link to a large audience, the carrier might flag it as spam. To prevent this, consider sending messages in groups to bring down the volume.

4. Keep the Content Concise

Unnecessary text, too much information, and too many CTAs all hamper engagement levels. Plus, sending lengthy texts to a huge audience might be flagged as spam.

So, ensure your text messages are concise and clear with a simple objective. After all, the beauty of text messages is that they’re concise by nature.

5. Schedule Your Messages

Receiving messages in quick succession is probably going to irritate your customers. They might report you for spam or block your number.

Think about how you wish to engage them with your SMS campaign and when it’s realistic or sensible. Preparing a schedule also gives you an organized view of what’s going out and when.  

How Does JustCall Improve SMS Deliverability? 

Using a reliable SMS delivery service like JustCall is one of the smartest ways to avoid spam labels, rejected messages, or other causes of SMS delivery failure.

JustCall can help you by taking care of the compliance, regulatory, and technical aspects on the backend. Take a closer look at how JustCall can enhance your SMS deliverability:

1. Mobile Number Lookup

Invalid numbers are one of the most common reasons for SMS delivery failure.

As leads are sourced from several platforms, often, the numbers are invalid. JustCall makes API calls to their upstream provider to run primary checks on the validity of mobile numbers.

However, at times ensuring the validity of a number is not enough for successful SMS delivery.

For instance, a number may be valid, but it may be a landline number. To prevent such situations, on custom requests, JustCall offers information on the type of numbers, i.e., Landline, Mobile, VoIP, etc.

This saves you from wasting money and time on sending SMS to landline numbers.    

2. Register for 10DLC

10 Digit Long Code (10DLC) is the new standard for Application-to-Person (A2P) text messaging utilizing a traditional 10-digit mobile number.

There are several benefits of registering for 10DLC; however, the greatest benefit is improved deliverability.

The simple reason is that now that your number and campaign are officially registered by the carrier, it drastically reduces the chances of marking you as spam.

See how do I register to use A2P 10DLC messaging? for details on the JustCall registration process.

3. Opt-out Template in Bulk SMS

Not providing an option to opt-out of your bulk SMS campaigns seems trivial, but it can have serious consequences.

If you send multiple messages without providing an opt-out, then the network provider might see your messages as spam. Once you’re caught in the spam filter of the network provider, then your deliverability is sure to take a hit.

JustCall helps reduce this risk by providing an opt-out template baked within the compose section of bulk SMS. This not only reminds you to add an opt-out but also makes it super easy to include.

4. Smart Queue

If you’re leveraging a CRM/third-party app for running SMS campaigns and use one of your numbers extensively, chances are your bulk messages will get stuck on the network provider’s queue and cross the permissible limits.

However, this won’t happen if you use JustCall, as it builds a smart queue on their end to streamline the bulk messages before sending them to the network provider.

This will ensure that the queue on the network provider’s end is always within limits, which in turn, will result in higher delivery rates.

5. Webhooks with Delivery Status for Automation

For tech-savvy customers, JustCall provides webhooks with delivery status and failure reasons. This opens doors to several automation scenarios.

A customer can listen to the webhook, and once they identify a particular failure code such as ‘30007’, which indicates an invalid number, they can then automatically mark that number for review in their system.

This makes cleaning and resending messages a seamless process.

6. Database of Deactivated Numbers

Identifying which numbers are active and which are not isn’t an easy task for end-users. Hence, JustCall collects deactivated phone numbers from their upstream provider monthly.

This enables them to have an up-to-date database of deactivated numbers, helping you validate your contact list and weed out any deactivated numbers.

7. SMS Analytics

JustCall allows you to track bulk SMS campaigns, number analytics, and SMS activity in a centralized location.

You can get a detailed overview of the SMS sent through your account from the SMD analytics section. The team analytics section consists of segregated data that reveals the activities of all your team members in the last 24 hours.

Plus, you can easily track the busiest hours receiving huge SMS volumes to schedule your day accordingly.  

Conclusion

As you’ve seen so far, there are plenty of things that can be done to improve SMS deliverability.

JustCall will build a solid base by providing its tools and expertise. You can top that with your layer of best practices. Together, this will result in effective SMS campaigns with outstanding SMS deliverability scores.

FAQs

What is SMS marketing?

SMS or text marketing involves sending marketing messages via text message. It’s a type of opt-in marketing that requires recipients to subscribe to brands/services.

How to create an SMS campaign?

Here’s how you can create an SMS campaign:

  • The first step in building a text marketing campaign is to set your goals.
  • Next, conduct market research to find the best route to achieve your goals.
  • Create your text marketing content and include a call to action.
  • Nurture targeted audiences through personalization and segmentation.
  • Time your text messages well.
  • Finally, track the success of your text marketing campaign and analyze what can be improved.
What are the 3 advantages of SMS?
  • SMSs need not be downloaded or updated as they’re not an application.
  • SMSs are short and have an excellent read rate. In fact, according to a recent survey, 1 in every 3 consumers checks their SMS notifications within a minute of receiving a message.
  • SMSs can be easily integrated into your website or application using an API.

Sid heads the global Sales Team at JustCall. He has been instrumental in establishing the foundation for the GTM functions at JustCall, driving the organisation into a growth phase. He is passionate about enabling organisations to build great customer experiences using technology. He is always looking to help startups beyond work, advising early stage companies on all things Sales & GTM.

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