How to send an SMS Campaign
Follow these steps to start sending out SMS campaigns. Make sure you have recharged your account with enough credit here: https://dashboard.clicksend.com/#/account/billing-recharge/top-up-account
- Upload your contact list here: https://dashboard.clicksend.com/lists. Uploading your contacts can have as little as just a mobile number, or additional fields, ie First Name, Last Name, custom field.
- Once uploaded, you can start creating your SMS campaign here: https://dashboard.clicksend.com/#/sms/campaigns
- Add New Campaign
- Campaign Name - This is for your reference only
- To - Select the contact list you would like to send to
- From - This is the Sender ID that will appear on the handset. Check country specific and features here: https://help.clicksend.com/category/mfdctha7f0-country-specific-features-and-restrictions
We have 4 options for Sender ID:
- A Shared Number (Default) - we assign a number to the outgoing SMS so the user can reply. You can setup inbound rules for incoming SMS. Shared number is currently not available on US and in Canada. More info
- Your Mobile Number - A registration is required before using your own number. Once registration is approved, you can use your own number as the Sender ID of your outgoing text messages. Replies are directly sent to your own number and will not show on ClickSend SMS History.
- Alpha tags - Alpha tags are a way for you to give your SMS messages a unique 'sender name'. In ClickSend, we support 11 character Alpha Tag without spaces. Unfortunately, Alpha tag does not support 2 way messaging.
Examples of Alpha Tag sender IDs are “MyBusiness” (10 characters) “242WOW” (6 characters) - Dedicated number - you can purchase a ClickSend dedicated number. You can setup rules for incoming SMS and inbound SMS is always guaranteed.
To register a Sender ID, open your ClickSend dashboard and go to Sender IDs page and add. Once registration is approved, you can then use the Sender ID for your outbound SMS.
- Message - Write your message content here. You may use the placeholders to personalise the message. 1 standard SMS is 160 characters. You can keep note of your character count below the box. More information on character count can be seen here: https://help.clicksend.com/article/h474eseq3a-how-many-characters-can-i-send-in-an-sms
- Link - You can use our short URL link if you would like to track if your link was clicked. Note - you do not have to use this. More information this can be found here: https://help.clicksend.com/article/wluq0xv78o-can-we-shorten-a-url-automatically
- Are you sending marketing messages? - Make sure you include an opt-out. Depending on your Sender ID/from option you will need to ensure you select the right option. Note - you will need to allow for this in your message count.
- If sending from 'Shared Number' you can use both options
- If sending from 'Your mobile number' we can only handle opt-outs if using the 'unsubscribe link' otherwise you will need to handle this manually
- If sending from 'Alpha Tag' you can only use 'unsubscribe link'
- If sending from 'Your dedicated number' you can use both options
- Send now or schedule for later. If scheduling your message, more information on how to schedule can be seen here.
- Confirmation - Confirm how many recipients you are sending to and the total cost for the campaign.
- Press SEND!
Your campaign will now be sent!