Campaign Studio users can send text (SMS) and multimedia (MMS) messages to contacts through the available SMS provider plugins, such as Twilio.
Prerequisite
To use Twilio, configure the Twilio plugin.
Note
To receive SMS communications, contacts must have a telephone number entered in the Phone or Mobile field on their contact record.
After you set up your SMS provider, click Settings > Configuration > Text Message Settings and select the transport service.
Creating text and multimedia messages
After you configure the transport service, Campaign Studio displays the Text Messages option in the Channels section in the left menu.
Click Text Messages.
On the Text Messages page, click +New.
On the New Template Text Message tile, click Select.
Campaign Studio displays the New Template Text Message page.
Important
Currently, Campaign Studio does not support the functionality to send segment text messages.
In Internal Name, specify the name that you want to display in your text messages list and selection menus for any Send text message action.
Acquia recommends having a naming convention for different types of text messages that you may send. A naming convention helps you to keep your list organized and also helps team members to easily find text messages.
In Text Message, specify the content of the message.
You can use tokens such as
{contactfield=firstname}. To find the appropriate token, you can either use the email builder’s merge tags feature or go to Settings > Custom Fields and use the field alias with the token format:{contactfield=fieldalias}.Note
One text message is built with 160 characters. If the length of your message exceeds this limit, your SMS router might charge you for two or more messages.
In Category, specify the category for your text messages based on their goals, campaigns, and other categories.
For more information, see Global Categories.
In Language, select the language for the text message.
This helps you to select the appropriate message in a campaign.
In Published, set this toggle bar to Yes to publish the message.
To create a multimedia message:
In Is MMS, set this toggle bar to Yes.
The New Template Text Message page displays the Media section.
Do one of the following:
To add media content from your local machine, click Upload and upload the media file.
To add media content from a url, enter the URL in Type media url here.
Note
Twilio supports sending multimedia messages only to US and Canada phone numbers.
Supported media types include .gif, .png, .jpg, and .jpeg.
A maximum of 10 images can be included in one multimedia message.
The total size limit for the media file is 5 MB.
Campaign Studio does not validate external links.
Click Save & Close.
Text Messages page
The Text Messages page contains the following information:
Column | Description |
|---|---|
NAME | The name of the message. Messages containing multimedia content display an image icon next to the name. |
CATEGORY | The category assigned to the message. |
STATS | The statistics for the message. For example, Sent, Delivered, Opened, Read, and Bounced. |
ID | The ID of the message indicating the position at which the message is created in Campaign Studio. For example, an ID of 4 indicates that it is the fourth message that is created in Campaign Studio. |
For each message on this page, you can use Edit, Clone, Preview, and Delete options in the dropdown list next to the message.
Sending text messages though campaigns
Campaign Studio provides the following ways to send text messages through Campaign Actions.
Sending text messages
Log in to Campaign Studio.
In the left navigation pane, click Campaigns.
Create a new campaign or edit an existing campaign.
Click Launch Campaign Builder.
Campaign Studio displays the campaign builder.
Select Action > Send text message.
Provide the following details:
Name: Specify a name for the action. This helps you and other users easily identify the action when viewing the builder or reports. Acquia recommends a pattern, such as SMS: Name of message.
Execute this event…: Select the time period when Campaign Studio needs to perform the event. For more information, see scheduling actions.
Select Message: Select the SMS or MMS that you want to send using the action.
+New Text Message: If you have not yet created the message that you want to send, click this option to create a new text message.
Click +Add.
Tracking SMS replies
Campaigns include a decision called Sends a text message, which tracks replies to your messages and looks for specified patterns within a message if the account with your provider can receive messages. This is not dependent on you sending the contact a message.
For example, you can specify STOP in Pattern the reply should match. If your message contains language such as Reply STOP to opt out, Campaign Studio looks for incoming text messages with that pattern. In this example, you can add an action on the decision’s yes path for Add Do Not Contact and select the Text Message channel.
Note
You cannot track MMS image downloads. However, you can track the URL of the hosted image if it is used in the text message body.