SMS campaigns let you craft and send personalized, automated SMS messages to your customers.
To create an SMS campaign, title the campaign, select SMS as the message type and select the phone number you’d like the message to be sent from.
Then add your message content and preview your message on the right.
In addition to text content, you're able to use emojis (📱 👑 🤩 ) and reference contact attributes in the SMS content.
SMS Personalization with Handlebars
You can even include variables in the message content to personalize your campaigns. For example, you can reference the Contact’s first name by adding the {{{firstName}}} variable to the message.
Any Contact attribute that you are sending to Regal can be referenced in the SMS campaign, including custom properties by prepending them with customProperties e.g., {{{customProperties.subscriptionStatus}}} , {{{customProperties.dog_breed}}} - or Regal properties by prepending them with rvProperties e.g., {{{rvProperties.friendly_timezone}}}.
To see the full list of attributes available for you to reference, go to the Audience page, click on a contact's name or phone number and you'll see a list of attributes you can use.
Handlebars can also be used to help format SMS content. Examples are below.
| Function | Description | Example Input | Example Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| capitalize | Capitalizes the referenced property. | {{capitalize firstName}} | rebecca --> Rebecca |
| default | Specifies a fallback default if a referenced property doesn't exist. | {{default firstName "hello"}}, nice to meet you | Rebecca, nice to meet you hello, nice to meet you |
| ordinalize | Ordinalizes a number. | {{ordinalize 28}} | 28th |
| moment (Date and Time) | Returns the current date and time in a readable format. | {{moment "dddd, DD MMMM YYYY HH:mm"}} | Thursday, 06 October 2022 16:06 |
| moment (Time) | Returns the current time in a readable, 24-hour format. | {{moment "HH:mm"}} | 16:06 |
| moment (Date and Time) | Returns a specified (epoch timestamp) date and time in a readable format. | {{moment 1664644416000 format ="dddd, DD MMMM YYYY HH:mm"}} | Saturday, 01 October 2022 17:13 |
Using shortened URLs
When sending SMS messages containing shortened URLs to users in the United States, use a dedicated, branded short domain that belongs to your business.
Sending messages containing unbranded URLs is a common technique used for fraud/malicious messages. Because of this, consumers are less likely to click on the link, because they are not confident of where the landing page will take them to. Additionally, the wireless carriers may filter/block such messages containing unbranded URLs.
According to T-Mobile’s Code of Conduct, and US carrier expectations in general, a short link should be both:
- proprietary – a dedicated custom domain that belongs to your business, not a free shared public link shortener
- properly branded – the domain aligns with the message sender identified in the text message itself
MMS Media URL
You can include an image in your campaign, by adding a publicly available link that ends in .gif, .png or .jpg, and preview how that will appear. The image must be less than 5 MB in file size. Recommended aspect ratios are 4:3, 15:9, 3:2.
You can always send a Test SMS to be absolutely sure how what the message will look.
Conversion Event
If your SMS campaign is driving toward a certain action you want the customer to take, add the name of that Conversion event here. In the future, this field may be used for reporting purposes.
Once your campaign is ready to be triggered, you can save it as Ready.
Test Your Campaign!
After saving your campaign, you can preview it and even send yourself a test by putting a phone number into the Message Preview input and clicking either Preview to display what the SMS would look like if sent to the phone number provided, or Send test to actually send a test SMS.
Note, you must save your campaign before you can preview it.