About SMS Marketing with Mailchimp

Mailchimp’s SMS Marketing is a powerful service that helps you create and manage a text messaging program. Grow your SMS audience, purchase SMS credits, send marketing text messages, and reach your subscribed SMS contacts with a new marketing channel.

In this article, you'll learn about SMS Marketing with Mailchimp.

Things to know

Here are some things to know before you begin this process.

• SMS Marketing is available as an add-on feature for customers with the Essentials plan or higher.
• You must be an account Owner, Admin, or Manager to work with SMS Marketing. Learn more about the different user levels in Mailchimp.
• Before you can send marketing text messages, you need to submit an application and be approved.
• You need credits to send SMS and MMS (US or Canada only) with Mailchimp. To learn more, check out About SMS Marketing Credits.
• SMS Marketing allows you to set up your program with a single Mailchimp audience.
• At this time, you can only send text messages to subscribed SMS contacts from the country that’s associated with your SMS Marketing program. For example, if your SMS Marketing program’s sending country is the UK, you can send text messages to subscribed UK SMS contacts.
• To manage your SMS Marketing program in a different language, change your Mailchimp account's language preferences.
• If you pause your pricing plan, you won’t be able to access your SMS Marketing program until you unpause.

Definitions

Here are some terms you’ll come across as you use SMS Marketing with Mailchimp.

• SMS application
  A required Mailchimp administrative process that you must successfully complete to set up your SMS Marketing program with Mailchimp. The steps of an SMS application vary based on sending country.

• SMS
  A marketing text message sent to a subscribed SMS contact.

• MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service)
  Multimedia content that is included in an SMS and sent to a subscribed SMS contact (e.g. images or GIF files). MMS is available for US and CA programs.

• Sender name
  Your sender name is visible in your text and compliance messages. For Australian and Spanish SMS programs, the sender name is required to be the name of your business. In SMS programs where this isn’t a requirement, it can be anything that clearly identifies you to your current and prospective SMS contacts.

• Sender ID
  Identifies who is sending the message. Sender IDs can be numeric, like a 10DLC number, or alphanumeric, like a Branded Sender ID. You must use your business name for this field.

• Brand name
  The title of your business that you want to associate with your SMS Marketing program. This is how your business represents itself to the public.

• Sending country
  The country where you plan to send your text messages from. This is the country you selected on the Sending Country step of your SMS Marketing application.

• SMS credit
  A unit of payment that determines the number of SMS or MMS (US or Canada only) you can send to your subscribed SMS contacts. SMS credits vary depending on your sending country, and they’re calculated according to your Mailchimp account’s payment method on the Billing information page.

• Rate limit
  The number of individual text messages you can send per minute or per day based on carrier requirements. This only applies to US programs.

• Throttling
  The act of controlling rate limits and the cadence of SMS sends. This only applies to US programs.

• Quiet hours
  The hours outside of a certain time range that limit marketing text messages from being delivered to your audience. Quiet hours vary based on sending country requirements.

• 10DLC
  10-digit long code. A mobile number that US businesses use to send text messages and make phone calls. They include an area code and a local number

• Vetting
  A process in which businesses register their brand and messaging program with carriers in order to send marketing text messages in the US. Automatic vetting is given to every customer. Standard vetting may increase the rate and speed of sent messages.

How it works

Short Message Service (SMS) is used to send text messages to mobile phones. With Mailchimp’s SMS Marketing, you can set up a text messaging program for your business, purchase SMS credits, collect SMS opt-ins from contacts, and send marketing text messages to your subscribed SMS contacts who are based in the same country as your sending country. For US or Canadian programs, SMS Marketing also includes MMS. Use MMS to add an image or GIF to your text messages.

Like email contacts, SMS contacts are stored in your Mailchimp audience. The SMS Marketing column on the contact table displays the subscribed or unsubscribed status of your SMS contacts. Subscribed SMS contacts can request help or opt out of SMS marketing at any time with keyword auto-responses.

To begin the setup process, submit an application.

Part of the application allows you to select a phone number for your SMS Marketing program. This phone number isn’t associated with a specific carrier like a personal phone number, but the format will be consistent with your program’s sending country.

Once your application is approved, you can:

• Import existing contacts from your sending country who have already opted in to your SMS marketing.
• Create an email to promote your SMS Marketing program and gather SMS consent from current email subscribers.
• Use a signup form to acquire new SMS contacts.
• Use your SMS credits to send text messages to your subscribed SMS contacts. Send immediately outside of your program's quiet hours, or schedule your text message to send at a later time.

Each billing cycle, your monthly SMS credit subscription renews at the same time as your pricing plan. Any unused SMS credits will be forfeited when the new billing cycle begins. The number of SMS credits required depends on the message type, the recipient count, and your sending country. View or manage your SMS credits on the SMS overview page and the SMS settings page.

SMS Marketing requires consent from a contact before you can send text messages to them. You’re responsible for obtaining this consent in compliance with applicable laws.

Countries with an SMS marketing program

Mailchimp currently offers SMS marketing to people in the following countries:

SMS consent

SMS consent is expressed, verifiable permission by an individual to receive marketing text messages from you. SMS Marketing requires consent before you can send text messages to them. You’re responsible for obtaining consent in compliance with applicable laws.

Consent isn't only a common courtesy; it's required by Mailchimp's Standard Terms of Use. Also keep in mind that email consent is different than SMS consent. In order to send text messages with Mailchimp, you need to acquire SMS consent from your contacts.

If you don’t have SMS consent from your contacts, check out Create and Promote an SMS Signup Form. When you use Mailchimp's SMS signup form, they are displayed based on your customers’ browser language settings, we track and record the date and time of the consent request and approval once provided by the individual, so you have a verified consent record. Never assume you have permission, and when in doubt, get confirmation.

Carrier rate limits and throttling (US only)

For US programs, there are 2 factors that impact your sending capabilities with Mailchimp’s SMS Marketing: carrier rate limits and the Russell 3000 Index. These factors don’t apply to UK programs.

T-Mobile’s rate limits are on a per day basis, and AT&T’s rate limits are on a per minute basis. This means that you can send a certain number of SMS or MMS per day or per minute based on the carrier rate limits of your subscribed contacts. MMS are also subject to carrier rate limits and may be slower to deliver.

The Russell 3000 Index is a Dow Jones database that tracks the shares of the 3,000 largest publicly traded companies in the US. Your SMS sends are impacted by whether or not you're on the Index.

Here’s a breakdown of what this means for your US SMS Marketing program.

Public US businesses listed on the Russell 3000 Index can send:

• 2,400 SMS or MMS per minute to AT&T recipients
• 200,000 SMS or MMS per day to T-Mobile recipients

Public or private US businesses not listed on the Russell 3000 Index can send:

• Up to 4,500 SMS and 2,400 MMS per minute to AT&T recipients
• Up to 200,000 SMS or MMS per day to T-Mobile recipients

SMS sending for public or private US businesses not listed on the Russell 3000 Index is based on brand score.

If you exceed the limits, your text messages will enter a queue and send at the next available time. This means of managing carrier rate limits and the cadence of SMS and MMS sends is called throttling. We use throttling to keep your SMS Marketing program compliant.

You can view your program's SMS rate limits on your SMS settings page.

At this time, AT&T and T-Mobile are the only carriers that require throttling. Other carriers, like Verizon, have rate limits that exceed the throttling threshold which means they won’t impact your sending.

Character limits and message counts

The number of characters in an SMS determines the number of individual text messages required to complete a send. The type of content you send also impacts the message count. Text messages that exceed the character limit for a single message are split into separate, or multipart messages, and they require individual SMS credits.

You can send 2 types of SMS with Mailchimp’s SMS Marketing.

• Standard message (GSM)
• Unicode (non-GSM)

Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard character set that uses the letters A-Z and numbers 0-9 with some special characters. Unicode includes a larger range of characters. SMS sent with GSM can contain more characters than messages sent with Unicode.

Standard (GSM)

• 160 characters per 1 SMS
• 153 characters for multipart sends (2+ SMS)

Unicode (non-GSM)

• 70 characters per 1 SMS
• 67 characters for multipart sends (2+ SMS)

If your SMS requires more than 1 text message to send, it'll automatically send as a multipart message with a different character limit. Modern smartphones reassemble multipart messages so that it appears to be 1 message for your recipients.

If you send multipart messages, you’ll need to account for additional SMS credits to complete your send. To learn how to calculate credits for your text messages, check out About SMS Marketing Credits.

If you have a US program, and you want to add multimedia content to your text message, use MMS. MMS have different character limits to consider. MMS is available for US and Canadian programs.

MMS (US and Canada only)

• 1,600 characters per 1 MMS

View character limits and message counts for your SMS and MMS (US and Canada only) in the SMS builder.

Spaces, emojis, and opt-out instructions count towards character limits.

Branded sender ID

The branded sender ID allows you to send one-way text messages to your subscribed SMS contacts using a custom string made up of letters and/or numbers. The business name that’ll show up when you send SMS messages. When setting up your SMS marketing application, you’ll add a business name that’ll become your default branded sender ID as long as it meets the sender ID requirements. If it doesn’t meet the requirements, you’ll be prompted to update the sender ID before you can continue with your application.

Compliance keywords

If your Sender ID supports two-way messaging, such as a 10DLC, your subscribed SMS contacts can reply to any text message with certain compliance words that will generate an automated response. Your subscribed SMS contacts can reply ‘help’ for more information. To unsubscribe from future SMS marketing, your subscribed SMS contacts can reply with ‘stop,’ ‘cancel,’ ‘end,’ ‘quit,' ‘unsubscribe,’ 'optout,' or 'revoke.' French-speaking contacts can also reply with ‘arret’ or ‘aide’ to unsubscribe or for more information. SMS credits aren’t required to send an automated response to a compliance keyword since these are considered compliance text messages.

If your Sender ID doesn't support two-way messaging, such as a Branded Sender ID, your subscribed contacts won't be able to reply with compliance keywords. Instead, to unsubscribe from future SMS marketing, your subscribed SMS contacts can access an unsubscribe link that’s included in each SMS message they receive. When that link is clicked, they’ll be redirected to an unsubscribe landing page where they can opt out and find more business information on the sender. When double opt-in is enabled, contacts will also be able to confirm their sign-up through a link.

• The hosted forms and the unsubscribe page will be displayed based on your customers browser language preferences.
• The business information that shows up on the unsubscribe landing page is pulled from the business details you share when filling out the SMS marketing application.

Quiet hours

The hours outside Mailchimp’s specified sending hours are called quiet hours. Set quiet hours to avoid sending text messages when your subscribed SMS contacts may not want to receive them. They can also help you send text messages in compliance with telemarketing laws and regulations.

Want to learn more about quiet hours? Take a look at our About SMS Quiet Hours article.

Disallowed use cases

In order to set up your SMS Marketing program, you must agree to comply with certain standards. SMS Marketing guidelines and regulations prohibit the sending of content related to the following topics.

• Sex, hate, alcohol, firearms, and tobacco (S.H.A.F.T.)
• Cannabis, vaping, CBD, or any federally illegal drug
• Loans
• Debt collection
• Gambling
• Political content

These guidelines are in place to prevent this type of content from reaching inappropriate audiences. Any text message that you send with Mailchimp should be free from these topics.

If your SMS Marketing program doesn’t comply with these guidelines, your account may be suspended or terminated.

Next steps

Now that you know more about Mailchimp’s SMS Marketing, check out these resources to get started.

• About SMS Marketing Credits
  Learn how SMS credits work and how to calculate the right amount for your marketing.

• Import SMS Marketing Contacts to Mailchimp
  If you have contacts who have already opted in to your SMS marketing, import them to your Mailchimp audience with a CSV or TXT file.

• Create and Send a Marketing SMS
  Learn how to create and send SMS marketing messages to your subscribed contacts.