About SMS Marketing with Mailchimp

Mailchimp’s SMS Marketing is a powerful service that helps you create and manage a text messaging program. You can grow your audience, purchase SMS credits, and send marketing text messages to reach your subscribed SMS contacts directly on their mobile devices.

In this article, you'll learn about SMS Marketing with Mailchimp, including supported countries, terminology, and compliance requirements.

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 is available in select countries. Supported countries are listed below.
• You can set up SMS on multiple audiences in your account, registration is required for each audience, sending number, and sending country that you enable, and additional costs may apply.
• If you want to send SMS messages to your subscribed SMS contact in multiple countries, you will need to register a Sending Number in each country. For example, if you set up a Sending Number in the UK, you can send text messages to subscribed UK SMS contacts.
• If you pause your pricing plan, you won’t be able to access your SMS Marketing program until you unpause.

Availability

Mailchimp supports SMS Marketing in the following regions. You can set up unique SMS Sending Numbers in multiple audiences in your account, provided you complete registration for each Sending Number and country. Depending on the country, Sending Numbers will be Long Codes or Branded Sender IDs.

Definitions

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

• SMS application
  A required process that you must successfully complete to set up your SMS Marketing program and each Sending number with Mailchimp. The application collects information required based on the sending country.

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

• MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service)
  An SMS message that includes multimedia content (e.g. images or GIF files). MMS is available for US and Canadian programs.

• Company name
  Your company name is visible in your text and compliance messages. In some countries, your Company Name is required to match your business name. Even where this isn’t a requirement, it should clearly identify your business to your current and prospective SMS contacts.

• Sender Number and Sender ID
  Identifies who is sending the message. Depending on the country, the Sender ID 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
  A country where you plan to send your text messages. The countries you select on the Sending Country step of your SMS Marketing application.

• SMS credit
  A unit of payment that determines the cost of SMS or MMS. The number of credits per message varies depending on the destination country and message type. You can manage your Credits subscription and payment methods from the Billing information page in your Mailchimp account.

• 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 implementation of rate limits and pacing 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.

• Long Code - 10-Digit Long Code (10DLC) or Virtual Long Number (VLN)
  A numeric Sending Number that businesses can use to send text messages and make phone calls. They include an area code and a local number. Unlike Branded Sender IDs, Long Codes are able to receive incoming messages.

• 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 US 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 ending Countries where you have registered a Sending Number. US or Canadian programs also support MMS. You can 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. Depending on the Sending Number type, subscribed SMS contacts can request help or opt out of SMS marketing at any time with keyword auto-responses or following a link provided in your messages.

Get started

1. Application: to begin the set up process, you submit an application detailing your business information and SMS use cases. Part of the application allows you to select a Sending Number for your SMS program. Some countries may require additional registration details. Follow the prompts during application.
2. Consent: 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.
3. Sending: Once approved, you can create SMS campaigns in Mailchimp, use sign-up forms and import SMS contacts to your audience.
4. Credits and Billing: Each billing cycle, your monthly SMS credit subscription renews at the same time as your Mailchimp marketing 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 consent

To send and receive SMS marketing text messages from Mailchimp, the customer or client must give their consent to receive them. SMS Marketing needs permission before it can send and receive messages. To send and receive SMS marketing messages from Mailchimp, the customer or client must give permission to receive them.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 from SMS consent. In order to send text messages with Mailchimp, you need to obtain 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, to help you maintain consent records. 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.

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 stock market 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 the SMS settings page. The sent percentage for your SMS message will be available also. It’ll display how many recipients have received your SMS, and it updates every 5 minutes.

At any point while the SMS is being sent, you can cancel it. We’ll stop it from sending any remaining queued messages.

Review the send duration

If your SMS program is subject to rate limits, you'll see a Send duration section in the SMS checklist. Each text message has a unique send duration. This is an estimate of the time it'll take for all recipients to receive your message.

If your SMS hits rate limits, you can customize the send duration and decide how long you want the message to send. There’ll be two options available—Send to all, or Customize the send duration.

Send to all will automatically send the maximum number of messages that your carrier allows daily. This'll go on for up to 30 days.

Use Customize the send duration when you want to have more control over how long it’ll take for a message to send. Select the date and time that you want the SMS to finish sending by and instead of waiting for the SMS to finish in up to 30 days, you can choose when it’s complete.

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.

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 Sending Number supports two-way messaging, such as a 10DLC, your subscribed SMS contacts can reply to any text message with certain words that will generate an automated response. Your subscribed SMS contacts can reply ‘help’ for more information. To unsubscribe from future SMS messages, 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 keywords since these are considered compliance text messages.

If your Sending Number 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 they click that link, 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.

Quiet hours

Quiet hours are time periods when marketing text messages are restricted from being delivered. 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.

To learn more about quiet hours, check out About SMS Quiet Hours.

Disallowed use cases and Content Guidelines

To set up your SMS Marketing program, you must agree to comply with Mailchimp’s policies and applicable laws, regulations, and carrier requirements. For SMS and MMS, sending content related to the following topics is prohibited:

• 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

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

Sweden URL Requirements

If you send to Sweden, carriers require additional controls for links and sender identity:

• URL Whitelisting: Every URL used in messages sent must be whitelisted.
• No URL Shorteners or redirects: Generic shorteners (e.g., bit.ly, tinyurl) cannot be used. You cannot use redirect links. Your URL must link to the last, visible Next steps. Now that you know more about Mailchimp's SMS Marketing, check out these resources to get started. Your URL must link directly to the final, visible destination page.
• Sending Number Match: Your Branded Sender ID must accurately match the business name or the domain you use in your links.
• Subdomain Setup: you are required to provide a dedicated subdomain (e.g., updates.yourdomain.com) when completing your Sweden Sending Number registration. After registration, this subdomain cannot be edited or changed. This subdomain will be added to the beginning of any links included in all of your text messages sent to that audience.
• Audience-Wide Effect: For a given audience, once a Sweden Sending Number is registered, your subdomain will be added to links included in all messages sent to that audience regardless of the destination country.

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.