Messaging Best Practices

This article serves to help explain the current messaging ecosystem, how messaging in Sideline may be impacted, along with some messaging tips and best practices.

This article is meant for informational purposes to assist Sideline users with properly communicating with their customers via text messaging. Please keep in mind that we are not your legal counsel and the information presented here is our interpretation of best practices for SMS business texting. You should consult with your legal counsel to ensure that your text messaging process is compliant with all applicable laws and consistent with industry standards.

Background 

In the general service provider ecosystem, Carriers have dramatically increased their efforts to stop the delivery of spam messages and phone calls to end-users. After making improvements to decrease spam calls, spammers have now turned to messaging as the new avenue to spam people.

Because of this, you may have experienced messages not being delivered to your recipients. This is called "Content Filtering" and is the process of when the receiving Carrier blocks the delivery of a message because they deem the message to be potential Spam.

Issues you may be experiencing

Here are some known messaging issues we've seen our Sideline customers and/or their recipients' experience: 

• All/some messages are not being delivered to your recipient
• All/some Sideline messages are not being received

Messaging Tips & Best Practices

While Carriers (T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, etc.) are not publicly sharing the criteria they are applying to message filtering, we've been able to identify some specific things that will increase your likelihood of getting filtered. 

Due to the messaging issues we've seen some of our Sideline users experience, we have put together a list of tips and best practices when sending messages using Sideline. Again, these tips and best practices are merely suggestions, not legal advice.

Overall Best Practices

Adhere to CTIA's Messaging Guidelines

Adhering to CTIA's (Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association) messaging regulations is a good standard practice and can help minimize the risk of having your messages blocked or marked as spam.

Note: These guidelines have always been in place, but carriers are now strictly enforcing these messaging regulations.

Avoid sending repetitive messages 

Sending messages that contain the same/repeat message can easily be marked by Carriers as spam and therefore, run the risk of not being delivered.

We recommend personalizing all of your messages as much as possible to prevent them from being marked as spam or appearing scripted/repetitive. 

Avoid sending messages with the SAME link

If you like to include a URL link (e.g. a link to your business website) with your messages, this can increase the likelihood that those messages will be marked as spam and not be delivered. Shortened links have an even higher chance of being marked as spam (e.g. bit.ly)

Tip: Remove the link from the message. 

Avoid using words that have been labeled "spam/scams" 

As mentioned above, Carrier's are cracking down on spam texts, and with this effort, they tend to label certain words/phrases as "spam". 

Example words to try and avoid using in your message: 

• Financial words: Loan, money, using a specific dollar amount, etc. 
• Should we add healthcare or any other examples here?

Tips

Include a business logo or picture with your message. 

To help your message deliver successfully, you can include a logo or other picture with your text (SMS) message. When you include a photo, the message then turns into a multimedia (MMS) message. This helps to minimize Carrier "content filtering" of messages

Broadcast Opt-Out option

With increasing strictness in messaging guidelines, Carriers like to see the message contain words like "STOP" or "OPT-OUT" which allows the recipient of your message to choose if they want to continue to receive messages (or opt-out of unsolicited messages).

Having these common terms may increase the likelihood that your message will be delivered successfully. 

Avoid sending links with your messages

Avoid sending similar messages to multiple people in a small timeframe

Communications should be conversational

If you have further questions or need additional help with sending messages and adhering to best practices, please submit a request.