SMS Marketing today is an important strategy for most businesses as it helps in making the customers aware of new offers, discounts, and products or services. However, this medium is often misused which hurts the subscriber’s sentiments.
In order to protect the interest of mobile subscribers, so that they receive better content, carriers adopt the policy of SMS Filtering, which is a way to block the delivery of some messages. They also follow the approval process which means only the approved SMS Content will be delivered. These messages can be SPAM or carry abusive, fraudulent, and questionable content.
As an SMS service provider, it is very important for you to comply with the carrier’s policies or country-specific regulations. This issue can be addressed with SMS Content Whitelisting, SMS Content Translation, and Content Filtering.
Let us discuss these in detail.
What is SMS Content Whitelisting?
SMS Content Whitelisting is the process of approval of an SMS Content from the service provider’s end before it reaches the end customers through the carrier’s network. This process can be done at the service provider’s end with the help of an SMS Gateway. However, the platform needs to have this feature of SMS Whitelisting.
An SMS Gateway not only helps in whitelisting the content but also changing the objectionable text in any SMS Content with relevant text that is acceptable and does not clash with the carrier guidelines. This process is known as SMS Translation.
Why SMS Content Whitelisting is Important for Service Providers?
SMS Content whitelisting becomes important for service providers owing to the following reasons:
Preventing the Risk of Being Blocked: Misusing SMS such as sending Spam links can be prevented which results in the blockage of their services.
Reduces the Chance of SMS Failure: With SMS Content Whitelisting, SMS failure and blockage can be reduced to a great extent. The SMS Translation feature will help in translating the text and replacing the same with relevant content.
Many carriers often do not inform if a message is blocked or usually report the message as ‘undelivered’ as they do not want to openly disclose their filtering algorithm, which can be manipulated by service providers. If you want to know more about SMS Content Whitelisting, please watch this Webinar – How to Choose The Right SMS Gateway
Best Practices to Avoid SMS Carrier Filtering
- Offer valuable and relevant content to customers instead of spam offers
- Stop or prevent the sending of spam links through filtering
- Don’t send SMS to a huge list at once if it is any kind of promotional offer instead send in batches.
- Keep updating your SMS list and the content sent. Do not send the same message to too many customers
- Use an SMS Gateway with a content whitelisting/ translation feature that can stop objectionable content from getting released.
When you have decided to go for an SMS Gateway, you should consider the Content Whitelisting and Translation feature. In the case of OTP Messages, many times format of SMS gets distorted, so with the SMS translation feature, you can define your own SMS structure to ensure its delivery in the right format to subscribers. REVE SMS platform comes with Content Whitelisting and SMS Translation features, which become ideal for service providers and aggregators.
