Best Practices for P2P Texting

In order to maximize deliverability rates, provide the best experience to your contacts, and avoid having your messages filtered by downstream carriers, we recommend following the guidelines listed below in your SMS scripts:

• Make it personal. Use merge fields like {{RecipientFirstName}}.
• Identify your organization. Especially in the initial text, clearly state your organization's name and purpose.
• Provide value in every text. Experiment with adding survey questions, direct calls to action, and more to create an engaging conversation.
• Give clear opt-out instructions. Make sure your messages have clear language around how the recipient can opt out of receiving texts (i.e. "Reply STOP to unsubscribe").
• Don't use any links in the initial message. Some carriers block first-time messages that contain a link.
• Don't use links created with public URL shorteners (i.e. Bitly) in ANY message. Because this sort of short link is often used by spammers and other bad actors, many carriers automatically block messages containing links shortened with shorteners such as Bitly and TinyUrl.