Message filtering refers to the blocking of your outgoing messages that are considered to be spam by the receiving carrier. We put together this article to detail the best practices to reduce the risk of your messages being filtered.
To give yourself the best chance of 100% message delivery, you’ll need to ensure the following:
You only contact numbers that have consented to be contacted
Before sending your first message to a client, they must have agreed to receive communications from you. You should keep a record of this consent, such as a scan of a physical document or a timestamp of when your client completed an online sign-up.
You allow your clients to “opt-out”
In your first message to a a client, you should include “opt-out” information, which informs the client of how they can opt-out of receiving messages from you. An example of this includes “Reply STOP to unsubscribe.” To learn more about how your contacts can opt-in and out of messages, please see this help article.
You identify yourself when first messaging your client
When first contacting a client, you should clearly state who you are. For example, “Hey there, this is Ty from OpenPhone.” You only need to identify yourself when first messaging a client.
The message contents are free of spam, unwanted, and/or illegal content
Your messages should not include anything that may be considered spam, unwanted or illegal content. This can include any of the following:
- Cannabis messaging
- Prescription medication
- Fraudulent or phishing messages
- Malware or viruses
- Hate speech, harassment, or abusive language
Other message content best practices
Other best practices for message content include the following:
- Avoid sending suspicious links, especially if you’re using a URL shortener like bit.ly, tin.url, etc.
- Avoid sending the same message content to a large number of contacts.
- Avoid overly long messages.
- Avoid marketing specific language, such as “SIGN UP NOW FREE” or “BUY NOW”.
- Avoid sending a high message volume to a client that you do not have a prior communication history with.
If you believe your messages are mistakenly being filtered by the carrier, you can read this help article and submit a request here with a brief message regarding how your clients opted to be contacted by you as well as a summary of your businesses use case.