Important Note for i360 Text:
As of July 5, 2023, customers must register to ensure successful text delivery. Failure to register may result in decreased deliverability. Standard messaging rates still apply. Find out more here. Get registered here..
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Texting Best Practices
Regulations surrounding texting are constantly changing and the best practices for texting along with them. Below are a variety of best practices that when put in place can help your organization maximize your texting potential and avoid being shut off.
i360 has implemented certain best practices by default, including automatic opt-in language, flagged carrier spam words, and automatically removing phone numbers from texting actions. For any questions, please refer to this guide or contact support.
Adding Line Breaks to your Text Message
To add a line break to your message, you can press shift + enter or enter. Alternatively, you can draft your text in a note editor (please do not use Microsoft Word as your editor, as it carries over hidden HTML characters) with line breaks and copy and paste it into the text window and the line breaks should transfer over.
i360’s Shutdown Metrix
Your ability to send peer-to-peer text messages will remain enabled so long as your organization stays within metrics that have been provided to us by various carriers. If your organization goes over either of the thresholds below your organization will receive a warning email. If your organization reaches the shutdown threshold, your organization will then have texting disabled - and you will receive an email notifying you of the shutdown. You can find more information about those Metrix's below.
Metrix Name | Description | Warning Threshold | Shutdown Threshold |
Error rate | The number of bad phone numbers or carriers deferred/filtered over the number of texts sent | 8% over 7 days | 12% over 7 days |
Complaint rate | Number of opt-outs over the number of texts sent | 5% over 7 days | 9% over 7 days |
A 24-hour threshold check has been implemented to automatically shut down organizations that exceed a 20% error rate and a 15% complaint rate. A warning will not be sent out in these cases.
If you receive a notice that your texting has been shut off, please reach out to support@i-360.com to receive additional details on the process of having texting re-enabled.
Carriers' Seven Day Guideline
The seven-day guideline is on a rolling basis. For example, your organization may not message anything for 6 days and on the 7th day if you text and cross thresholds you will get shut down. The opposite is also possible. If you text on day one and get error and complaint rates above our threshold, you will still get shut down on that day.
Avoiding The i360 Threshold Check
The seven-day guideline is active only when you send 1,000 or more texts in a day. You can avoid the checks if you send less than 1,000 texts a day. The threshold will only run for those 7 days where you have exceeded 1,000 or more texts. (For example, organization John Smith for Congress, over a span of 10 days, sends 100,000 texts.)
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10 |
999 | 10000 | 15000 | 2999 | 999 | 15000 | 25000 | 25000 | 0 | 999 |
Your organization will be evaluated on the days marked in red (2, 3, 6, 7, 8) and if their error or complaint rate exceeds the threshold they will be immediately shut down.
Smart Targeting
Carriers are determining if they will deliver your text message or not based on how the recipients of your text messages react. If the first set of people you text in an hour period react very negatively carriers will begin to reject your messages, and the group of people you message after that first hour will be much less likely to receive your messages. Avoid sending texts to an audience that will make the most noise (e.g. Sending a conservative message to liberals and vice versa).
You don’t want to send every message to every single contact you have. Not only will you annoy your contacts, but this will also be a red flag for the spam filters. Make sure you select the right audience for your text. i360 offers a number of ways of building target audiences that will be more receptive to your message and will avoid the use of phone numbers that mobile carriers may find less reliable. Examples of Search criteria that you should use are:
Telephone Reliability: When building an audience for sending text messages, only include mobile numbers that have a Telephone Reliability score of 3 or 4 or 5.
Target People Most Receptive to Your Message: Use i360’s observations or your own support tags to target individuals who have already shown an interest in your cause or policies. Use i360’s Model scores to target only people who are 75 or higher so that you're targeting a group that are much more likely to agree with your policy agenda.
Thoughtful Use of Message Content
Content matters considerably in determining if carriers will filter your messages and if people will react negatively. Spam filters used by phone carriers are starting to look at the content of text messages sent. These carrier filters are starting to recognize certain phrases or words that are used in the messages that are considered red flags because they are often considered misleading (Example "BREAKING"). Here are a few suggestions on what to do and what not to do in your message content:
Do identify the organization you are sending from: Carriers are requiring senders to clearly identify the organization you are sending your text messages from. Failing to identify your organization will significantly increase the likelihood that your messages will not be delivered by the carrier. It is optional for the individual volunteer sending your message to include their name as well.
Do include language to opt-out or STOP receiving your messages (now added by default): Carriers are looking for content that makes clear to the message recipient that they can stop receiving your messages. If there is no clear direction, you are increasing the chance that carriers are not going to deliver your messages.
Do include language to continue receiving your messages (now added by default): i360 makes it easy for you to include this language in your message: “To learn more reply YES. To end texts, reply STOP.” By using the learn more language it avoids spam words and if someone replies “YES” they have opted into receiving more text messages from you.
Do NOT include link-shortened links (exception for registered text customers): The use of bit.ly links or other link shortening services will trigger a very high carrier deferral rate. Message recipients have often been redirected by these links to phishing sites that can cause identity theft or other issues on their devices so carriers are very quick to not deliver messages with these shortened links.
Avoid including links if possible (exception for registered text customers): Carriers will not automatically shut off your messages if you include a link but we do see higher rates of message deferral when links are included.
Do localize your message: If you are sending only to people in a specific city or general media market, reference that geographic area to allow recipients to feel as though they are hearing from someone more local.
Avoid use of carrier spam words: Carriers are primarily filtering out commercial messages that recipients are complaining about. Advocacy or political messages are being caught up in these new word filters. Below is a list of words that have been identified as carrier spam trap phrases and words.
List of Carrier Spam Words to Avoid
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