Mobile Messages

Short Codes

To interact with your customers via SMS messages, you must register and use a short code to act as your primary contact point. MO users send SMS messages to your short code with defined keywords to obtain information or subscribe to lists, and you send SMS messages from your short code to your subscribers or clients.

MO Keywords

MO keywords are the tools you use to define your responses to the MO keywords that subscribers send to you. You can use AMPscript in message text, for example, to retrieve an SMS type content area and to set the next keyword to continue the SMS conversation.

NOTE: Any MO message can only contain one verb, and that verb must be the first word in the MO message. Any words after that verb are considered nouns and do not affect the action of the verb.

When you define an MO keyword, you provide the following information:

• One or more verbs that the subscriber sends to initiate the conversation. For example, if you list QUIT,STOP as the verbs, whenever a subscriber begins a conversation with a QUIT message or STOP message, the system will use the MO keyword definition to decide what to do next.
• The next keyword to look for to continue the conversation. For example, if you set up two MO keyword definitions, one for JOIN and one for Yes, you could select the Yes MO keyword as the next keyword for the JOIN keyword. When a subscriber sends an MO message with the JOIN verb, the system would execute the actions on the JOIN definition, and then wait for a Yes message to execute those actions. You can also set the next keyword in the body of the message using AMPscript.
• The action type to specify what kind of activity is being performed when a subscriber sends this keyword. For example, "unsubscribe from an SMS publication" is an action type. The action type you select determines the rest of the information you provide for the keyword definition. For example, for the unsubscribe action type, you provide the success message to send if the subscriber unsubscribed from all publications, the failure message to send if the subscriber requested to unsubscribe from a publication that doesn't exist, and the success message to send if the subscriber unsubscribed from just one publication.
• You can use AMPscript to retrieve verbs and nouns from messages using the MSG() and NOUN() variables.

Creating a response to an MO message with a shared short code includes the following steps:

• Requesting a keyword to identify messages intended for your account in the ExactTarget application.
• Contacting your ExactTarget representative to activate your keyword
• Creating the MO keyword action
• Assigning the action the name of the selected keyword
• Defining the verb as the name of the selected keyword

Creating a response to an MO message with private short code includes the following step:

• Creating the MO keyword action
• Naming the action with a descriptive label
• Defining the verb used in the MO message

NOTE: You must create a publication list prior to creating any double-opt-in SMS interactions.

MT Keywords

Sending an MT message (triggered SMS send) includes the following steps:

• Creating the SMS content
• Defining a triggered send interaction
• Selecting a publication list to categorize the send
• Selecting a data extension to contain the subscribers to send to
• Choosing the SMS content previously created
• Initiating the send with the API or including the SMS message in a program

Creating the SMS Message Content

You can create an SMS-type content area in the my contents folder. You then select the content area when you create the SMS message interaction or retrieve the content area using AMPscript. The content that you create in an SMS content area can contain personalization strings. You can also include AMPscript in the message content. You can only use GSM 3.38 and UCS2 characters in SMS message content.

Creating a Publication List

Create a publication list to categorize the content of the message. Like a data extension, a publication list contains subscribers; however, a data extension is not necessarily specific to a particular type of message content. The publication list, alternately, is a category for the message content. For example, you might create one publication list to categorize messages sent as WEATHERALERTS and a different publication list to categorize messages sent as COUPONS.

Subscribers can subscribe to or unsubscribe from a publication list for SMS messages using inbound messages. Subscribers who also exist in your account as email recipients can unsubscribe from SMS lists using the Subscription Center without unsubscribing from your email lists.

When you send an SMS message to a list, the system delivers the message to all of the subscribers on the data extension you selected as well as all of the subscribers that opted-in to the publication list. If a subscriber unsubscribed from the publication list or from all SMS messages, the system does not deliver the message to that subscriber, even if the subscriber appears on the data extension.

NOTE: You cannot include any spaces in the name of a publication list used as part of an SMS send. When creating your publication list, make sure you do not include any spaces in the name.

NOTE: You cannot see the subscribers on a publication list through the application interface. You can request a report that contains the subscribers on a publication list.

Creating a Data Extension

NOTE: This step is required to send MT messages to a list of subscribers.

Create a data extension to contain the subscribers to whom to send the message. The data extension must have the Used for Sending checkbox selected and contain a column for the subscriber key. If you have never sent an SMS message to the subscriber before, the subscriber's row in the data extension must also contain the phone number.

NOTE: The system recognizes different formats of phone numbers (such as 1-555-555-5555 and 15555555555) as the same number and will honor opt-outs for those entries. This applies even if two different subscribers register the same mobile number and only one of those subscribers opts out of receiving mobile messages. This applies to all subscribers within a single account and all applicable business units.

Creating an SMS Triggered Send Definition

The SMS message interaction contains the name, external key, and description of the message to identify and describe the message in the application and with the API. When you create the message interaction, you select the SMS message content. The interaction also contains the publication list and the send classification, which provides the sender profile and the delivery profile for the message.

When you create an SMS message interaction to send to a list, you identify the data extension to which to send the message.

Initiating the Send through the ExactTarget Application

If you have your own short code, you can send an SMS message to a data extension from the application interface. After the SMS message interaction is complete, you can select the interaction and click the Send button to send the message immediately.

Initiating the Send with the API

Using the API, you use the SMSTriggeredSend.Message field to define message content. You enter the content of the SMS message in the SMSTriggeredSend.Message field when you initiate the send with the API.

Including the SMS Message in a Program

If you have your own short code, you can send an SMS message to a data extension by including the message in a program. You can include the SMS Message in a program to send the message, put the message send in sequence with other messages and activities, and schedule the send to occur at a particular date and time.