Overview
New "10DLC" regulations by cell phone carriers like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile have made it more important than ever to craft your texting actions in accordance with anti-spam best practices. To adhere with 10DLC, your first step is to obtain 10DLC registration - learn more about that here.
After registration, it's your responsibility to ensure that your individual texting actions (whether Peer-to-Peer or Broadcast) are adhering to 10DLC best practices. Non-compliance dramatically increases your risk of carrier filtering, and may even risk suspension of your Impactive texting account.
10DLC Best Practices for Texting
The following required best practices apply to both Peer-to-Peer Texting and Broadcast Texting:
Identify the sender of the message - both the individual and the organization - in initial messages.
Every initial message you send should identify both an individual sender (usually the name of the volunteer/staffer sending the message - whether hardcoded as a specific name, or using an Impactive dynamic variable for the user's name) and the organization.
It's important that the organization identified is the registered brand name (or very similar) of the organization that originally completed 10DLC registration. To be clear, this means that you should never be naming a different, non-registered organization in your texting scripts. (It's okay to abbreviate or slightly change your organization name from your IRS registered name - for instance if your registered entity name is technically "Committee to Elect John Smith" but your texting scripts say something like "This is Mary from John Smith for Congress," that's okay.)
For example:
"Hey ##{{first_name}}, it's ##{{user.first_name}} with Impactive! Thanks for reading our article on 10DLC best practices. Stop2QUIT"
Include opt-out instructions in initial messages.
Every initial message you send should include opt-out instructions, usually at the end of the message; there are a wide variety of acceptable formats, but your options include phrases like "Reply STOP to Unsubscribe" or "Stop2Quit".
For example:
"Hey ##{{first_name}}, it's ##{{user.first_name}} with Impactive! Thanks for reading our article on 10DLC best practices. Stop2Quit"
Use caution when sending links in initial messages.
It is possible to send links in initial messages, but be aware that this is one factor that can sometimes cause higher carrier filtering. If you're experiencing high carrier filtering on an initial message with a link, you can try a couple of things:
Instead of using a shortened link (via Impactive's link shortener or Bitly/similar), try using a link that includes a regular domain - like the original Mobilize link, a link from your website, etc. Shortened links, with their unusual domains, sometimes appear more spammy.
Move your link into a follow-up message rather than the initial message.
We recommend only adding links when they're specifically needed for the goal of the texting campaign and you feel confident that potential lower deliverability will be made up for with increased engagement.
Use caution when adding images to messages.
It is possible to send images or GIFs in initial messages (i.e. an MMS message), but be aware that MMS messages generally have higher filtering and lower deliverability than SMS messages with no attachments - even when the text of the message is the same.
We recommend only adding images when they're specifically needed for the goal of the texting campaign and you feel confident that potential lower deliverability will be made up for with increased engagement.
Use more than one initial script, i.e. A/B testing.
You can create more than one initial script in your texting action; Impactive will automatically randomize the scripts sent out to contacts, i.e. A/B testing. Using more than one initial script reduces the number of identical messages coming from your campaign all at once, which can lessen carrier filtering.
These scripts can be extremely similar, with only minor differences - for instance, change one word here or there, change punctuation, etc.
Make sure landlines and any other invalid numbers are scrubbed from your contact list before uploading.
Impactive will try to remove any landlines and disconnected numbers from your contact list for you (it's one of our built-in 10DLC safeguards - see below), but you can help further minimize the chance of attempted messages to invalid numbers by doing your own scrub before uploading your list.
Impactive 10DLC Safeguards
Impactive offers a number of 10DLC safeguards to help our clients adhere to texting best practices, minimize user error, and ultimately save money (by not attempting to send messages that would be blocked by carriers). These safeguards include:
By default, Impactive does not allow multiple outbound texts to be sent to the same number within a six-hour period. This safeguard can optionally be turned off by administrators in Campaign Settings, for either Peer-to-Peer or Broadcast, but we recommend leaving it on.
Impactive uses the Twilio API to look up all uploaded phone numbers on a contact list and skip any landline phones or disconnected numbers. This means that Impactive won’t attempt to send messages to those numbers (saving you money), and your carrier filtering/error rates won’t be harmed by attempting sends to invalid numbers.
Impactive automatically tracks opt-out keywords like STOP, CANCEL, UNSUBSCRIBE, and others - when a contact sends one of those keywords, they are automatically opted-out from receiving future text messages. That means that you don’t have to rely on staffers/volunteers to mark every opt-out correctly.
Impactive prevents message attempts to T-Mobile users after a campaign's daily T-Mobile message limit has been reached (to prevent you from spending money on messages that won't be delivered). If your campaign consistently hits the T-Mobile daily limit, reach out to [email protected]; it's possible to file an additional vetting review to increase the limit.
Impactive will automatically alert account administrators if unusually high error rates or carrier filtering rates are flagged on a particular Peer-to-Peer Texting or Broadcast Texting action. You’ll receive an email letting you know that a certain action is encountering issues; if you receive that email, you should head into your action to pause the action, edit scripts, or make other changes to minimize ongoing errors. (If you need help diagnosing the issue with a particular action, reach out to [email protected].)
These safeguards may seem inconvenient, but trust that they are designed to protect your long-term texting reputation (and save you money by minimizing message sends that will be unsuccessful). If your reputation is harmed by high error and opt-out rates, carriers may target your brand for suspension, which could take weeks to remedy. Via these safeguards, we're doing our best to ensure that your texts go through - and keep going through!
Monitoring for Carrier Filtering
We recommend keeping a close eye on your texting actions as they get underway. To view the results of a Peer-to-Peer Texting action in real time, navigate to Peer-to-Peer Texting > the action in question > View Results. For Broadcast Texting, head to Broadcast Texting > the blast in question > View Results.
Keep a close eye on your Carrier Filtering, Twilio Errors, and Impactive Safeguards metrics. For more context on those error types:
Impactive Safeguards: This is the number of messages that Impactive prevented from being sent thanks to our built-in 10DLC safeguards. If you want to explore more specifically what these errors were, you can export them via the Export Messages button at the bottom of the View Results screen; our glossary of errors is here.
Twilio Errors: This is the number of messages that encountered an error when passed to Twilio, our underlying messaging provider. If you want to explore more specifically what these errors were, you can export them via the Export Messages button at the bottom of the View Results screen; many of these are described in our glossary of errors here, and Twilio offers their own glossary of errors here.
Carrier Filtering: This is the number of messages that made it past Impactive safeguards, made it past Twilio, but were ultimately filtered by the carriers (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc.) and did not make it to the contact. Unfortunately, we can't get detailed information from the carriers as to why these messages were filtered; filtering is usually the result of lack of adherence to best practices or other unknowns that can strike randomly from the carriers on any given day.
These metrics are your best predictors of whether your texting action is at risk of deliverability issues. If you're seeing higher-than-normal error rates, you can pause your texting action, adjust your script, then resume texting.
If you need help diagnosing the issue with a particular action, reach out to us at [email protected]. We'll do our best to help, but keep in mind that carrier filtering can't always be easily explained; if you're already adhering to the best practices in this article, we'll likely recommend waiting a day or two and then resuming your texting activity.
What to Do When Texts are Being Filtered
Impactive will automatically alert account administrators if unusually high error rates or carrier filtering rates are flagged on a particular Peer-to-Peer Texting or Broadcast Texting action. All administrators on your Impactive account will receive an email letting them know that a certain action is encountering issues. If you receive that email, here's what to do:
Visit your action right away and take a look at the errors. Use the process described above to monitor whether your action is facing difficulties with Impactive safeguards, Twilio errors, or carrier errors, and export the error codes for further information if helpful.
Edit your script(s) (for Peer-to-Peer Texting). If your scripts don't adhere to 10DLC best practices in any way, edit them live and re-publish the action. If you didn't add more than one initial message scripts at first, add another script - it can be very similar to the original one, with minor changes to wording or punctuation. You can also change or remove any links in your script(s).
Consider closing this action and publishing a new one. You can make a copy of the previous action, but remember to edit your scripts (see above). Don't worry - Impactive's outbound messaging protection will ensure that you don't double-text contacts who already received a message in the first action, as long as you begin the new action within six hours of the first one. If you're beginning a new action more than six hours later, use contact filters to create a subset of the original contact list that hasn't received the initial message yet.
Consider engaging volunteers in another action. It's a good idea to create a backup plan for how to engage your text bank volunteers if your texting action encounters filtering issues. For instance, you could be prepared to invite volunteers to sync their contacts and participate instead in a friend-to-friend action.
Reach out to us. If you need help diagnosing the issue with a particular action, reach out to us at [email protected]. We'll do our best to help, but keep in mind that carrier filtering can't always be easily explained; if you're already adhering to the best practices in this article, we'll likely recommend waiting a day or two and then resuming your texting activity.