Launch an SMS Campaign

About SMS Campaign

With quick campaign processing time and minimal effort, the SMS campaign feature serves as an effective mode of communication to achieve your business goals. With its 'easy-to-use' interface, the SMS campaign feature facilitates sending bulk SMS as efficiently as the SMS APIs.

Prerequisites

The following are the prerequisites to launch your SMS campaign:

  • Complete the KYC process. For more information on the KYC process, see the Complete the KYC Procedure page.
  • Ensure that you have sufficient credits to launch your SMS campaign.

Launch an SMS Campaign

To Launch your SMS Campaign:

  1. Sign in to your Kaleyra.io account.
  2. Go to Campaigns and then click SMS.

  1. On the Campaigns page, click Launch Campaign. The Launch Campaigns page appears.

  1. In the Campaign Name field, enter the name of your Campaign.
  2. From the Sender ID dropdown list, select the sender ID from which the messages need to be sent. Ensure that you have at least one approved Sender ID, if not, refer to the Create a Sender ID page for more information.
  3. For IN region only, select the routes to send SMS. The options available are:
RouteDescription
MarketingMarketing SMS is text messages to communicate offers, updates, and reminders to customers mainly used for marketing purposes.
TransactionalA transactional SMS is a non-marketing automated text message that companies send to support their audience along the customer journey. Among the most common transactional SMS types are order confirmations, welcome text messages, and shipping updates.
Transactional DNDYou can deliver the Transactional DND messages to all recipients, irrespective of their Do-Not-Disturb (DND) status. Also, you can use these messages for sending order and booking alerts and informational messages to registered customers.
OTPOTP SMS is one of the Smart Pin families and is a system to send to your mobile phone a "one-time password" for your all approval/verification for transaction/login/payment purposes.
M2MMachine-to-machine communication (M2M) is two machines used for communicating or exchanging data without human interfacing or interaction. This includes serial connection, powerline connection (PLC), or wireless communications in the industrial Internet of Things (IoT).

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Note:

  • For EU and SG regions, Kaleyra Cloud will choose the best route for delivering your message.
  • Contact the Kaleyra Support team to have the required routes enabled for IN region.
  1. In the Send to the field, click Import more to import numbers to be used for the SMS campaign. You can import contacts by uploading a file, using the contacts in the Kaleyra Directory, or adding numbers manually. For more information, refer to the Import Contacts section.
  2. In the text field you can prepare the text of your SMS campaigns using one or more of the following actions:
    1. Enter text manually.
    2. Insert URL or Upload file. For more information, refer to the Insert Links or Upload a File section.
    3. Select text from a template. For more information, refer to the Add a Template section.
    4. Set Default Variable if your text has dynamic parts. For more information, refer to the Set a Default Variable section.

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Note:

  • The preview of the content added in this field is visible in the preview section.
  • You can view the length of the SMS by clicking on Info in the bottom of the text body section.

Schedule

  1. Once the draft is ready, click Send to you can send the message immediately or click to schedule it for later. For more information, refer to the Schedule the Campaign section. The confirmation screen is displayed.

  1. Click Confirm to send/schedule the campaign.

All the campaigns you have created are listed on the Campaigns screen.

Import Contacts

You can import contacts into the campaign either by uploading a file, using the directory, or by copy and pasting.

To import contacts on the Launch Campaign screen, click Import more. The Import Contacts page appears.

The Import Contacts page has the following options:

  • File
  • Directory
  • Copy and Paste Numbers

You may use more than one option to build the audience for your campaign. For example, selecting the first contacts from the Directory, uploading one or more files, and then manually adding other numbers.

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Note:

You can view in the top left corner the number of contacts imported through Import Contacts for File, Directory, and Copy & Paste Numbers.

Import Contacts using the File option

To use the File option:

  1. Click File and then click Upload File to upload a file. You can upload either .CSV or Excel files.

A message "File Uploaded Successfully" appears. All the columns in the uploaded file will be listed in the Relevant Column from the uploaded file list.

  1. From the Relevant Column from the uploaded file list, select Mobile Number. If the uploaded file does not contain country codes, select the Doesn’t Include Country Code checkbox and select the applicable Country Code from the list.

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Note:

If the uploaded file contains country codes, and you select the Doesn’t Include Country Code checkbox, then all the numbers will be considered as invalid numbers.

  1. Click Import.

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Note:

Click Exclude if you want to exclude the numbers in the file from being used in the campaign.

Using Values in the Uploaded File as Dynamic Variables

All the column names in the uploaded file can be used as dynamic variables in the SMS text.

  1. Enter @ in the Message body field. All the columns in the upload file will be listed.
  2. Select the required column name.

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Note:

  • The data in the Mobile Number column will not be passed in the SMS to the user. However you will be able to see the mobile number in the Message preview section.
  • The Message preview section will display the data based on the first row in the uploaded file.
  • The data in the uploaded file gets precedence over the valued defined for these fields using the {*} Set Default Variable option. For more information, refer to the Set a Default Variable section.
  • The values defined using the {*} Set Default Variable option will only be applicable for the corresponding blank fields in the uploaded file.

Import Contacts using the Directory option

To use the Directory option, click Directory, select the required numbers, and click Import Contacts. For more information regarding Kaleyra Directory, refer to https://developers.kaleyra.io/docs/directory-overview.

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Note:

You can use the Filter option to search for a specific number by Name, City, Country, and Tags.
Select the numbers in the Directory and click Exclude if you want to exclude the numbers from being used in the campaign.

Import Contacts using the Copy & Paste Numbers option

To use the Copy & Paste Numbers option, click Copy & Paste Numbers. Enter or paste the numbers in the text box and click Import.

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Note:

If you have not entered the country code, select the Doesn’t Include Country Code checkbox and select the applicable Country Code from the list.
Enter the numbers in the text box and click Exclude if you want to exclude the numbers from being used in the campaign.

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Note:

The phone number list is validated to identify duplicate as well as invalid numbers.

Insert Links or Upload a File

  1. On the Launch Campaign page, click Insert.

The Insert Link page appears.

  1. In the URL TITLE field, enter the URL title.
  2. In the URL or Upload a file field, either enter the URL or click and upload the required file.
  3. Complete the fields in the URL Shortening section as follows:
    1. In the Slug field, enter the slug to be displayed for the customer. It may contain letters, numbers, and dashes. A Slug is the unique identifying part of a web address, typically at the end of the URL. For example, in the URL https://developers.kaleyra.io/docs/campaigns-overview, campaigns-overview is the slug.
    2. In the Callback URL field, enter the callback URL where you want to receive update about click on the URL and related information including a timestamp.
    3. Select the Track User checkbox. This will let you know exactly which contact has clicked on the URL. If the track user is not selected, only the overall number of clicks on the URL and the overall number of unique clicks on the URL will be provided as analytics.
    4. Click Insert to insert the URL into the SMS.

Add a Template

  1. On the Launch Campaign page, click Templates to view the existing message templates.

The Insert Template page is displayed.

  1. Choose the desired template and click Import.

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Note:

For more information on how to create an SMS template, refer to https://developers.kaleyra.io/docs/create-template

Set a Default Variable

You can set default values for the variables in your SMS Campaigns. Default values will be used in the message when the contact does not have a value for the variable defined in its record.

You will see an option to {*} Set Default Variable in the text editor ONLY when the message body includes at least one dynamic variable. Variables identified using the @ or {} symbol will be eligible to set default values. To set default values,

  1. On the Launch Campaign page, click {*} Set Default Variable.

The Set Default Variable page is displayed with the dynamic variable (parameter) mentioned in the message body.

  1. Add the required default values to the Parameters listed.
  2. Click Save.

Schedule the Campaign

You can schedule the campaign to run at a designated time in the future. To schedule a campaign:

  1. On the Launch Campaign page, click Schedule.

The Schedule Campaign screen appears.

  1. From the Timezone list, select the required timezone.
  2. In the Date field, select the date using the calendar.
  3. In the Time file, select the time.
  4. If you have more than one thousand contacts and you want to split the campaign schedule, select the Split Campaign Schedule checkbox.
  5. In the Contacts per Batch field, enter the number of contacts.

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Note:

The minimum number of contacts per schedule is one thousand.

  1. From the Time Interval dropdown, select the required time interval for the split schedule.
  2. Click Schedule Send.