Creating an SMS message

Use the SMS messages included in your plan.
To send more messages, add an SMS extra to your plan. Each SMS sent sent will be deducted from it.
For once-in-a-while sends, you can buy pay-as-you-go messages. Each SMS sent will be deducted from your account balance.
For large occasional sends, consider an SMS pack. Each SMS sent will be deducted from your pack.

For GoSend plans

Top up your account with enough funds to cover your SMS messages. Each SMS sent will be deducted from your account balance.

SMS messages unsent due to invalid or non-existent numbers will have their cost refunded back to your account.

Before sending

Sender

A sender lets your contacts know who texted them.

It can be:

A mobile number: You can choose any number you want. E-goi will text a code to that number. Once you enter code in E-goi, the number will be ready to use as a sender.
The name of your company or brand: You will need to provide us with a digital document proving you own that name.

Important! Some countries restrict senders and may replace your sender for a fixed local number.

SMS encoding

Encoding sets which characters the SMS can display.

GSM: Standard character set, supporting all English language chars.

! " # $ % ' ( ) * + , - . / : ; < = > ? @ _ ¡ £ ¥ ¿ & 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Ä Å Æ É Ñ Ø ø Ü ß Ö à ä å æ è é ì ñ ò ö ù ü

GSM Extended: All the characters of GSM plus the euro sign and the chars and symbols below:
```
Ç|^€{}[~]\¤
```
Unicode: All characters from any language, including emojis, but the SMS is reduced in length.

Important! For countries with sending restrictions, some characters may not be displayed even if you use Unicode. Be sure to always test your SMS for all networks you intend to send it to.

SMS parts

If your text is too long for the SMS, use the Fit into how many SMS? option to split it into parts.

If you set your message as a two-part SMS, you can type in twice as much copy. This means you'll actually be concatenating two SMS as one (your contacts will see your message as a single extra-long SMS).

You can extend your message along a maximum of seven parts. Each part will be charged separately (ie, a seven-part message will cost you seven SMS).

Unsubscription link

Although not mandatory, you should include an opt-out link in your SMS so contacts can unsubscribe if needed.

Inserting the !remove code in the text of your SMS will generate a 35-character link at that point. Contacts tapping it will be unsubscribed and won't receive any more messages from you via E-goi.

Sending the campaign

Creating the SMS campaign

1) Hit the Engage menu, hover the mouse pointer over SMS, and click Create.

2) Select the contact list to send the SMS to, choose whether to send it once or make it recurrent and hit Next.

3) You can create the SMS From scratch, from E-goi templates or from templates you've saved. Name the campaign (it won't be seen by your contacts) and proceed.

4) The SMS editor will appear. Choose the message sender (if you don't have one yet, hit the "+" button to add it).

5) Type int the text of your SMS message. To test it, click Test delivery.

6) When you're done, click Next and follow the steps shown to send the campaign.

Viewing the campaign report

1) Click the Engage menu, go to SMS, and click View all.

2 Click on the campaign's Report button.

Creating an SMS template

Follow the same steps as any other campaign template.

Creating an SMS with conditional content

If you've segmented your contact list in E-goi, your SMS can display different content depending on who receives it.

Example: A vet clinic will text a message to cat owners and another for pup owners. Using segment-based variations, the same SMS can show different content to cat and dog owners.

1) If you haven't done so already, create the segments in your contact list in E-goi for which different content will be displayed.

2) Edit the SMS and click the Variation button next to the message content.

3) Name the variation and choose the segment of contacts it'll show different content to. Click Save.

4) Type in the SMS content for the variation you've just created. The message preview will display it for that variation.

5) When the SMS campaign is sent out, any contacts in the segment you selected for the variation will see the alternate content you created for it. Contacts outside that segment will see your default SMS content.

You can also create variations for the SMS sender. Just hit Variation right next to the message sender and choose the sender that will be shown for your intended segment.

Best practices for sending SMS messages

SMS messages are great for building good relationships with your customers while sending important information and promoting your products.

They're known for having a high open rate as they arrive instantly on people's mobile device.

Therefore, it is important that you implement good practices to get the best possible results:

Personalise your sender: It may seem like a small detail, but sending messages that have your brand or company name on them will make all the difference in the recognition and trust you convey to your contacts.
Make yourself clear at the time of collecting: With E-goi you can get the phone number of people who subscribe through pop-up or WhatsApp forms, or those embedded into your website or landing page. Regardless of which channel you use to get this data, make it clear what people should expect when they sign up and keep your promises. This way people are more likely to put in their number. Also, the cleaner your contact base is, the greater the chance of your messages being delivered.
Send your message at the right time: Does it make sense to send your message during business hours or at any given time? Are you communicating an important update, sending a reminder, or presenting a special offer? Study your target audience and segment your contact list based on their characteristics and the purpose of your message. If you want to target special dates and occasions, use our marketing calendar to communicate all year round.
Personalise your message: How about beginning your message with a "Hi Stacy (...)" or using other specific and relevant information?
All you need to do is have the data in fields from your contact list and use our merge codes in your message. In these cases, you just need to pay attention to the size of your message so that it does'nt reach its recipients with bits missing.
Optimise your sendings to the max: If you have an international contact base, it is important that you optimise your sendings in line with any recommendations or restrictions in the destination country.
Encourage action: Owing to the high opening rate of SMS messages, this channel gives the opportunity to get excellent results, especially when it comes to very specific actions. For this reason, try to send direct, relevant, and time-limited messages. Do you want to encourage people to buy? Birthdays and special dates like Valentine's Day are usually good bets. If you are doing it through a landing page, choose to send a SmartSMS and encourage interaction with the link.
Create a multichannel experience: Diversifying your communication outlets is important to build relationships with your contacts without overwhelming them. Use the Planner to group your communications and create automatic mailing sequences to save time.

Transactional SMS

To have your online store auto-send transactional SMS messages (purchase confirmation, delivery notification, etc.), see our transactional offering.

FAQ

My campaign report shows some SMS pending at the operator

E-goi will always process your SMS messages so they reach the contact's handset. If your campaign report shows messages "delivered to operator" for several hours:

The SMS reached the contact's handset, but the network operator didn't send us a delivery confirmation.
The SMS got blocked at the network operator.

Important! Operators from countries with sending restrictions (especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America) aren't required to confirm delivery and may even block messages without warning.

I'm using merge codes. Will this make my SMS exceed the char limit?

E-goi's merge codes automatically plug contact data into your message. If their data, which is unique for each contact, extend the SMS text past the character limit, it'll become truncated for those contacts.

Example: Suppose your text is 4 chars left and you've introed it with "Hi !fname". E-goi will auto-replace !fname with your contacts' first name. Bo will get an SMS with "Hi Bo" - his text won't be over the limit. Veronica will see "Hi Veronica" - here text will push past the char limit and get truncated at the end.

To prevent this, leave some wiggle room in your SMS copy to ensure any data inserted by merge codes will always fit. If you can't reduce it, use the Fit into how many SMS? option to increase the number of SMS parts in your message.

Which encoding should I choose for non-English SMS?

If your text doesn't require acccentuated characters, you should be good to go with GSM or GSM Extended.

Alternatively, Unicode displays all characters plus emojis (at the cost of about half the SMS length), but network operators in some countries may not fully support Unicode messages.

Be sure to always test your SMS across the operators you'll be sending your campaign to.

The countries I'll be running my SMS campaign on have too many character restrictions. Any alternatives?

Consider:

A SmartSMS message with an intro text linking to a landing page with the rest of your content (plus images and videos).
A push message, as it accepts any and all characters.