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Quick Guide: Messaging Best Practices
Quick Guide: Messaging Best Practices

Discover how crafting quality SMS content can elevate open rates while sidestepping spam flags from both recipients and carriers.

Updated over a week ago

Learn about the factors that impact messaging throughput and implement strategies to establish a positive reputation for your Bonzo number. Following the best practices listed below will not only increase deliverability and open rates, but ultimately facilitate relationship-building and business growth.

Messaging Throughput

Once you're account is fully verified you have the following quotas assigned to your number:

  • AT&T: 240 Transactions Per Minute(TPM), 150 MMS TPM

  • T-Mobile: 2000 messages/day

Messaging throughput is helpful to understand as it can cause dropped messages and delays in messaging delivery. The quotas above do not mean you cannot message recipients who use other carriers; these are just limits that these carriers have published. If the throughput above isn’t enough for your business’s needs, you can apply for Additional Vetting (CSP) for 20K tokens. A third-party provider, will do a deeper vetting of the information you have already provided and give your company a score that will determine the throughput and volume apportioned to you.

Warm Up Your SMS Reputation

Your account must be on the Tokens system to take advantage of this feature. In addition, please note that Additional Vetting (CSP) doesn’t guarantee that your carrier throughput or daily volume will increase. Bonzo can (and will) personally appeal any low scores on your behalf—leveraging our position with TCR.

Warm Up Your SMS Reputation

When you lease a new number for your SMS marketing, or move from another provider, you need to warm up your sending number reputation to avoid carrier violations. Warming up your sending reputation is the process of re-introducing the new number to your recipients and establishing a positive reputation with the carriers.

Recommendation: Warm up your sending numbers slowly. Remember, new numbers are unknown to recipients

Sending from a new number that recipients don’t recognize can cause opt-outs. And too many opt-outs will cause your message to get flagged as a carrier violation.

When carriers see your text messages for the first time, it’s best to keep your messages simple and concise. Most importantly, don’t use links or any sales language.

SMS Content Best Practices

These best practices for message content make messages more valuable to consumers and less likely to trigger real-time content analysis from messages flagged incorrectly as spam (see Mortgage Spam Words graphic).

In general, message CONTENT should INCLUDE 3 things:

  1. Your name and your organization’s name

  2. A reference to the reason the message is being sent

  3. A STOP or opt-out message

A “STOP” message should be on all messages sent prior to receiving a response from a prospect. The prospect must, regardless, opt in prior to being contacted.

In addition:

  • Use natural language; standard spellings, grammar, and punctuation

  • Set expectations for message frequency. If you plan to send five texts a month, disclosing “5 messages a month” on the first interaction leads to a better user experience.

Example: Good content

  • Hi, {Name}, and thank you for requesting more information from {CompanyName}. The content you requested is available at https://realurl.com/?id=12345. Reply STOP to opt out

  • DeliveryFoodsInc — your food order has been completed and is on its way. Look for it in 15 minutes. Track your order via our app: https://realurl.com/?id=12345. Reply STOP to opt out of future notifications.

Message CONTENT should AVOID:

  • The words “Free,” “Offer,” “Winner,” or other promotional language requests for action without specifying context.

  • Generic, or public URL shortener links (i.e. https://bit.ly/application). If your messages contain links, use a URL in a domain that your business owns and that aligns with the brand or campaign from which you send the message, and use full URLs when possible.

  • Further, URLs included in your messages should avoid multiple redirects. Message recipients might flag a message with multiple redirects as a phishing attempt, which might result in the suspension of your campaign.

In addition:

  • Marketing messages must be truthful, not misleading and, when appropriate, backed by scientific evidence in order to meet the standards set by the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Truth In Advertising rules.

Example: Bad content

Following these guidelines will ensure that your SMS content meets the standards for great messaging, enhancing its effectiveness and deliverability.

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