SMS Best Practices

Similar to calling, your SMS messages need to adhere to strict best practices to ensure you don’t breach end-recipient trust and industry compliance requirements. It’s more likely for your audience to engage with high quality, well-formatted SMS content, which also reduces the risk you’ll be marked as a spam or scam. Use this list to help:

1. Obtain and Store Direct Consent

Always collect consent directly from your end-recipients yourself. Don’t use consent acquired from a third party. Someone’s consent can never be bought, sold, rented, transferred, or shared.

Additionally, your SMS recipients must explicitly opt in to receive messages from you. Your opt in process must clearly explain to your customers that they consent to receive SMS messages from you after opting in.

Last, mobile carriers may ask you to provide proof, so keep a record of text message consent for any contact you text.

2. Use One Recognizable Source Number

Using a primary number for both text and voice calls is recommended—avoid running all your business traffic on multiple numbers for the same messaging campaign. The use of multiple numbers isn’t prohibited, but it can make you look like a potential spam, scam, and non-compliant business.

3. Enabling Voice Components

If you’re only interested in messaging campaigns, enable voice recording for a better end-recipient experience. If you don’t, consumers could receive the “this number is not in service” message if they call the phone number you’re sending messages from. That could encourage them to flag the number as spam or scam. If you don’t want to enable voice service, consider a voicemail message that includes your business name and directs the consumer back to the messaging experience. 

4. Use One Recognizable Domain Name

Associate each program with your web domain. A full domain is preferred, but a short, branded URL can also be used to deliver custom links. This adds a level of continuity with your end-recipients to improve brand awareness and confidence in the links you send.

You should also avoid using public URL shorteners, like Bitly. Messages that contain these links are often immediately blocked by the carrier because so many spammers, scammers, and fraudsters employ this tactic.

5. Use Natural Language

Always use natural language in your messages. Always avoid weird, unnatural, and non-standard spelling like: “H3y th3re.”

6. Set Expectations On Frequency

Always set expectations for how often your end-recipients will receive messages from you. If you’re sending 2 SMS messages each month, disclose that you’ll do so on the first interaction with your audience.

7. Business Recognition

Include your businesses’ name within the SMS message so your end-recipients know who they’re interacting with. Otherwise, it looks like you’re attempting to hide your identity.

8. Length of Message

It’s recommended that you keep your messages to 160 characters or below for the best customer experience.

9. Ending with “Stop” and “Help”

Always give your end-recipients control to remove themselves from your text communications by including the opt-out keyword “Stop.” Alternatively, you can include “Help” at the end of your messages so they can receive help if needed.

You need to use a carrier compliant SMS solution, like PhoneBurner, for Help / Stop technology to work. This is a built-in feature with PhoneBurner, so you can keep your business safe and compliant. 

10. Transitioning Messaging Programs to a New Phone Number

You must disclose when a recurring message program will transition from one phone number to another. When you do so, a new opt-in must occur to ensure you have full consumer consent. Use these steps to help transition your messages:

1. On the old application address, send a final message to all consumers who have opted in to that program. This message must disclose:
1. The number for the new application address that will send recurring messages
2. The recurring message program’s name or product description
3. Opt-out information
4. Other important details, like customer support contact information, etc

1. You must send a second message within 24 hours on the new application address, which must include:
1. The recurring message program name or product description
2. Opt-out information
3. Customers support contact info
4. Disclosure of message frequency
2. If an end-recipient replies with “Stop” or other similar command words, you must:
1. Halt all messages to them
3. Immediately discontinue the recurring message program on the old phone number
4. Expiring a Messaging Program

You must expire all messaging campaigns that no longer function in the market.

Prohibited Messaging Practices

Always avoid disingenuous sending practices. All service providers will enforce restrictions if you don’t, which could lead to the termination of your service. Here’s a list of what you should avoid.

1. Sharing, Selling, or Renting Consent

Opt-in consent must be collected directly by the same party that’s sending the message. A consumer’s consent can never be bought, sold, rented, or shared. Doing so is strictly prohibited.

2. Grey Route

Make sure you’re using an A2P compliant service that registers you, your business, and campaigns to ensure the highest deliverability, success, and protection for your business.

3. Snowshoe Sending

Snowshoe sending is a technique used to spread your messages across multiple source phone numbers to dilute reputation metrics and evade filters. If you do this, your service provider reserves the right to disable the messaging campaign as well as all future messaging campaigns.

4. Dynamic Routing 

Every number must have a single route in the delivery path to the destination phone number. If you perform dynamic routing to get around spam blocking, your service provider reserves the right to disable the messaging campaign as well as future campaigns. 

Dynamic routing to maintain service in the event of a major network outage on the service provider’s side is not prohibited. 

5. URL Redirects and Forwarding

This is when you include a URL in the message which redirects to another URL, and then another, and another, and so on. Often, this practice goes multiple layers deep which results in the end-recipients not knowing what website they’re being taken to. This can result in the immediate suspension of services.

Prohibited Campaign Content

Here’s a quick list of reminders for things you cannot send in your messaging campaigns.

1. Unlawful, Unapproved, or Illicit Content

You cannot promote unlawful, unapproved, or illicit content in your campaigns. This includes, but isn’t limited to:

• Spam
• Fraudulent or misleading messages
• Depictions or endorsements of violence
• Inappropriate content
• Profanity or hate speech
• Endorsement of illegal drugs

Your messaging must abide by all applicable federal and state laws and regulations. Additionally, your messages must be legal in all 50 states. All content must be appropriate for the intended audience. 

Additional legal and ethical obligations apply when marketing to children under age 13, and such programs might be subject to additional review by your service provider. Aggregators and Message Senders are expected to enforce restrictions on their networks to prevent onboarding these types of content. If you don’t do this, you could face:

• Suspension of sending rights for provisioned application address or campaign
• Restriction of onboarding new message campaigns
• Suspension of provisioning rights for new application address
• Suspension of all network services on the T-Mobile network

2. Disallowed Content

The following content categories are considered deceitful and nuisance campaigns, which often result in a high volume of spam complaints. If your messages hit these categories, there’s a strong chance you will run into major issues. 

High-Risk Financial Services

• Payday Loans
• Non-Direct Lenders
• Debt Collection

Debt Forgiveness

• Debt Consolidation
• Debt Reduction
• Credit Repair Programs

Illegal Substances

• Cannabis or other drugs
• Illegal Prescriptions

Work & Investment Opportunities

• Work from Home Programs
• Job Alerts from 3rd Party Recruiting Firms
• Risk Investment Opportunities

Other

• Gambling
• Any other illegal content
• The sharing or selling of collected information with third parties
• Campaign types are not in compliance with the recommendations of or prohibited by the CTIA Short Code Monitoring Handbook, Version 1.7, or later
• Campaign types not in compliance with the recommendations of or prohibited by the CTIA Messaging Principles and Best Practices – 2019 version

3. Phishing

This is the practice of sending messages that look and feel like they come from reputable companies. However, they trick consumers into revealing personal information like passwords or credit card numbers.

4. Fraud or Scam

Fraud or scam is defined as any message that involves wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain. Often, they involved money or business transactions.

5. Deceptive Marketing

Your marketing messages must always be truthful and not misleading. When appropriate, they should also be supported by scientific evidence to meet standards held by the Federal Trade Commission's  (FTC) Truth in Advertising rules. Unfair or deceptive advertising is prohibited in any medium, including text messages.

Disclaimer: PhoneBurner’s code of conduct has been adapted from T-Mobile’s “industry standard” code of conduct for A2P SMS. Please view their full code of conduct here.

PhoneBurner’s Acceptable Use Policy for SMS Messaging

Similar to calling, your SMS messages need to adhere to strict guidelines to ensure you aren’t in breach of trust and industry compliance requirements. It can be difficult to know what all the rules and regulations are, so our team has put together this acceptable use policy to help guide you. 

Below, we’ll show you what message types and campaigns you should avoid, what behaviors are prohibited with PhoneBurner, and what content we do not allow you to send. 

Sending Unsolicited SMS Messages

Your SMS recipients must explicitly opt in to receive messages from you. Further, your opt in process must clearly explain to your customers that they consent to receive SMS messages from you after opting in. 

At any point in time, PhoneBurner reserves the right to request proof from you that your recipients have opted in to receive SMS messages. 

The following do not qualify as valid opt ins:

• Obtaining a recipient’s phone number from a different purpose other than SMS message consent, such as validating payments, verifying personal data, etc.
• Purchasing, borrowing, renting, or obtaining a recipient’s phone number from a third party
• Taking recipients who opt in for transactional messages, like delivery notifications, and subscribing them to recurring SMS messages

Sending Messages That Contain Inappropriate Content

The following types of content are explicitly prohibited in SMS messages sent through PhoneBurner:

• Sexual or pornographic
• Abuse and harassment
• Firearms
• Alcohol, tobacco, or illegal drugs, including cannabis
• Loans, loan forgiveness, credit repair, debt collection, or taxes
• Gambling
• Investment opportunities
• Unsolicited real estate inquiries
• Multi-level marketing
• Persistent receiving or sending of one time pass-codes from, or on behalf of, other service providers

Ignoring Unsubscribe Requests

If a recipient opts out or unsubscribes from you by sending stop words like “STOP” or “UNSUBSCRIBE,” you must honor their choice. From the point of receipt, you have 24 hours to remove the recipient from your SMS message lists. 

Sending a High Frequency of Messages to a Recipient

You are prohibited from sending more than 10 messages to any single recipient in a 24 hour time period, unless the following is met:

• Recipients have engaged in two-way communication via SMS
• Recipients have explicitly opted in to receive frequent messages 

Misrepresenting Your Identity— AKA Spoofing

You must always represent or identify yourself as your legitimate self or business at all times. You may not use SMS messages or a recipient’s phone number in a way that would mislead them into believing you are not yourself or a representative of your business.

Engaging in Fraud or Phishing For Information

You can never send messages with fraudulent information or phishing attempts in order to harvest confidential information from a recipient.

Additional Regulations

In addition to the restrictions above, PhoneBurner customers must also adhere to the following laws, regulations, and recommendations:

CAN-SPAM (United States)

The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM) is a federal law regulating the transmission of commercial email messages and Internet-to-phone SMS commercial messages to addresses that reference Internet domains.

Read the full law here.

CASL (Canada)

Canada’s CASL was enacted to promote the efficiency and adaptability of the Canadian economy by regulating certain activities that discourage reliance on electronic means of carrying out commercial activities, and to amend the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act, the Competition Act, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act and the Telecommunications Act (“CASL”), is a Canadian federal law regulating the sending of “commercial electronic messages” or “CEMs”.  

A CEM includes any email message, text/SMS message or other electronic message that is sent to an electronic address and that has as even one of its purposes to encourage participation in a commercial activity.  CASL applies to any CEM sent to or from a computer system located in Canada.  CASL requires prior consent to send a CEM and requires that all CEMs meet prescribed form and content requirements.  

CASL is generally regarded as one of the most stringent anti-spam regimes in the world.  Its specific and prescriptive requirements should be carefully considered and must be complied with when sending CEMs to or from computer systems in Canada.

Read the full regulation here.

CTIA Messaging Principles

CTIA’s Messaging Principles and Best Practices offers a set of recommendations developed with wireless messaging ecosystem stakeholders to support a robust and dynamic wireless messaging community.

If you violate these guidelines or otherwise breach PhoneBurner’s Terms of Service (ToS), our team reserves the right to suspend or close your account. 

The guidelines listed in this post neither replace nor cover all prohibited activities as stated in the PhoneBurner Terms of Service (ToS).