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By the end of this page you’ll have sent an SMS campaign and know where to follow its delivery.
Before you start, you need:
1

Create a campaign

Go to Campaigns and create a campaign. Give it a Campaign name, and under Channels, select SMS. See Create a campaign.
2

Choose the audience

Select Choose audience and pick Lists, Segments or individual Contacts. Use Don’t send to to leave people out.There’s no SMS test send. For your first campaign, choose only your own contact, so the first message you send goes to your phone.
3

Pick the sender ID

In the SMS block, choose a Sender ID. The list shows approved sender IDs only. Under the field, Brudcast shows where it can send, such as “Sends to Nigeria”.If it says “Not sendable yet”, the sender ID has no approved country yet, and the campaign won’t send until it has one.
4

Write the message

Type into Message. Insert merge tags with the picker, and watch the counter for the number of segments. “Reply STOP to opt out” is added to the end and counts toward them.See Writing SMS content.
5

Clear the send checklist

Before you send lists anything that would stop the campaign, including the sender and the Credits line, which shows the estimate next to your available credits. If you’re short, select Top up.To see how the SMS estimate was worked out, hover over its rate. See Send checklist.
6

Send

Select Send to send now, or schedule it. See Create and send a campaign.

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What happens next

  • Messages go out in batches. Recipients who opted out are skipped and not charged.
  • A message is charged when a carrier accepts it. Its delivery receipt usually arrives soon after. If none arrives within 24 hours, the message is marked expired.
  • The campaign’s results show messages sent, delivered and bounced, and the credits used. SMS has no opens or clicks.
See Campaign results.

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Delivery statuses

Some carriers accept a message and never send a receipt. Without a deadline the message would stay SUBMITTED forever and its campaign would never finish, so after 24 hours it’s marked EXPIRED. An expired message may still have reached the phone. The status only means Brudcast never heard back. A message is charged when a carrier accepts it, whatever happens next, expiry included. A message skipped because the recipient opted out isn’t charged, and isn’t counted as a failure either.

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Why a message failed

If a sender ID isn’t approved anywhere, the campaign doesn’t send any SMS at all. The send checklist warns you before that happens.

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Troubleshooting

Why: you have no approved sender ID.Fix: register one and wait for a carrier to approve it.
Why: the sender ID hasn’t been approved in any country yet.Fix: wait for approval, or choose another sender ID.
Why: with the footer added, the message needs more than 4 segments.Fix: shorten it, or remove characters that switch it to unicode. See Writing SMS content.
Why: only contacts with an SMS identity are reached, and numbers that opted out are skipped.Fix: add phone numbers to your contacts, in E.164 such as +2348000000001, and set each contact’s country. See Add and edit contacts.
Why: the sender ID isn’t approved in those countries.Fix: check its Coverage in Channels > SMS > Sender IDs.
Why: an emoji, curly quote or other character outside the GSM-7 set switched the message to unicode, the opt-out footer pushed it over a segment boundary, or merge tags expanded to longer values than you expected.Fix: watch the counter in the composer. See Writing SMS content.
Why: the wallet ran out, and the campaign stopped at the end of a batch.Fix: top up, then send the rest in a new campaign. Turn on auto top-up to avoid this next time. See Credits and wallet.

Writing SMS content

Segments, the 4-segment limit, and opt-out keywords.

Write content for each channel

Send SMS alongside email and push.

Campaign results

Follow delivery after you send.