Spoke 101: Checklist to Ensure Deliverability
If you need help getting started, click here to read about how to build a campaign. Once you have created a draft campaign, check to make sure your campaign meets the following characteristics to make sure your messages are delivered and not filtered as spam.
What is spam filtering?
When your texts leave Spoke, they travel through a chain of other channels before arriving at someone's cell phone. At any stop along the way, your message can be deemed spam and thus not delivered.
How can you make sure to construct a message that will reach your audience?
- Use short-links. Commonly used short links (e.g., bit.ly, tinyurl.com, etc.) as well as commonly used link domains (e.g., ActBlue) are OFTEN blocked as spam. We recommend using a custom domain on Rebrandly. See our full article here for more info.
- Introduce yourself. Greet the textee and identify who you are and from what organization you're texting. This could look like "Hey {firstName}, {texterFirstName} here with Politics Rewired!"
- End your message with opt out language. 'Reply STOP to quit' is a safe bet. We also like (STOP to End). This is crucial for deliverability.
- Ensure grammar and punctuation are correct. Messages with incorrect grammar are likely to be filtered out.
MMS checklist:
- Is the image under 600kb? Images above 600kb in size will not deliver to many cell phones.
- Make sure the link is a link directly to the image and ends in .jpeg, .png, or .gif.
Put your image link in square brackets to send MMS. There should not be a space between the brackets and the initial text, so there is no odd space at the beginning of your message.
To review, an MMS initial message should look like the following:
