SMS Messaging Compliance: Principles & Best Practices

Texting has become a go-to way for businesses to connect with customers. But as SMS volumes grow, so do regulations. If you use SMS for business, following legal requirements and industry best practices helps ensure your messages are delivered—and builds trust with your customers.

Let's dive into the details, starting with important terminology.

Terms to know

Best practice checklist

Our goal is to set you up for success! Be sure to read through our handy SMS and MMS Best Practice checklist below.

• The recipients have provided consent (opted-in) ✅

• The message clearly identifies the sender ✅

• A clear call to action describing the purpose and impact of the action ✅

• The message content has been verified and does not contain restricted use-cases ✅

• Your Dialpad Admin registered the messaging campaign ✅

Opt-in

When you "Opt-In", you're giving permission for someone, or a company to send you text messages. 

To maintain consumer confidence in messaging services, non-consumer (A2P) message senders should:

• Obtain a consumer’s consent to receive messages.

• Obtain a consumer’s express written consent to receive marketing messages.

• Ensure consumers can revoke their consent.

Consent varies depending on the type of message.

The following table demonstrates the different types of messaging content and the associated consent required.

Individual service providers may adopt additional consumer protection measures for non-consumer (A2P) message senders, which may include, for example, campaign pre-approval, service provider vetting, in-market audits, or unwanted message filtering practices that are tailored to facilitate the exchange of wanted messaging traffic.

Note

A consumer opt-in to receive messages should not be transferable or assignable.

A consumer opt-in should apply only to the campaign(s) and specific message sender for which it was intended or obtained.

Opt-in confirmation for recurring messages

It's important to note that the opt-in parameters for recurring messages are different than that of one-time messages. If you find yourself sending recurring messaging campaigns, you, as the sender, should provide consumers with a confirmation message to clearly inform the consumer they are enrolled in a recurring message campaign. You will also need to provide a clear and conspicuous description of how to opt-out.

After the message sender has confirmed that a consumer has opted-in, the message sender should send the consumer an opt-in confirmation message before any additional messaging is sent. The confirmation message should include:

1. The program name or product description

2. Customer care contact information (e.g., a toll-free number, 10-digit phone number, or help command instructions)

3. How to opt-out

4. A disclosure that the messages are recurring and the frequency of the messaging; and

5. Clear and conspicuous language about any associated fees or charges and how those charges will be billed

Note

To learn more about the opting in and out process from the recipient's point of view, have a read through this Help Center article.

Identifying yourself as the sender

Each time you send a message, you must identify yourself (the party that obtained the opt-in from the recipient) as the sender, except in follow-up messages of an ongoing conversation.

Clear calls-to-action

A “call-to-action” is an invitation to a consumer to opt-in to a messaging campaign. It ensures the consumer consents to receive the message, and understands the intent.

A call-to-action can be short and to the point. It should also inform the consumer of these items:

1. The program or product description

2. The phone number(s) or short code(s) from which messaging will originate

3. The specific identity of the organization, or individual, represented in the initial message

4. Clear and conspicuous language about the opt-in and any associated fees or charges

5. Any other applicable terms and conditions (e.g., how to opt-out, customer care contact information and any applicable privacy policy)

Calls-to-action and subsequent messaging should not contain deceptive language, and opt-in details should not be obscured in terms and conditions (especially related to other services).

Consumer opt-out

Opt-out mechanisms allow the customer to terminate messaging communications.

Tip

Dialpad offers Opt-out features by default for all users.

Message senders should acknowledge and respect the consumers’ opt-out requests consistent with the following guidelines:

• Ensure consumers can opt-out of receiving messages at any time.

  • Provide clear details opt-out instructions.

• Support multiple opt-out mechanisms, including phone calls, emails or texts.

• Acknowledge and honor all consumer opt-out requests by sending one final opt-out confirmation. 

  • No further messages should be sent following the opt-out confirmation message.

Note

Standardized “STOP” wording should be used for opt-out instructions. However, opt-out requests with normal language should also be actioned, except where a specific word can result in an unintentional opt-out. The validity of a consumer opt-out should not be impacted by any variations in the consumer opt-out response, such as capitalization, punctuation, or any letter-case sensitivities.

High opt-out rate

Message senders who receive high volumes of opt-outs could be flagged, indicative of poor sending practices. If the daily opt-out rate is 5% or higher, other carriers may monitor the campaign and may contact the sender for campaign and opt-in details. Either Dialpad or a carrier partner may suspend services of high opt-out rate flagged campaigns at its discretion.

Messaging content rules

Dialpad’s Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) restricts the following types of content in sent messages:

Dialpad also enforces the following restricted messaging use-cases:

Examples of prohibited messaging campaigns

Special characters in SMS/MMS messages

When creating a large SMS/MMS message, it may be split into segments if the message exceeds the standard message character length. The capacity of each segment is based on the characters used in the whole message. Using any special characters may affect your SMS message.

Note

Segment limits may be varied by carriers in different regions. Reach out to Customer Care if you experience issues with SMS messaging.

If your message doesn’t use any special characters, the message uses the least amount of segments and allows for 160 characters to be used in each message segment.

If you’re using special characters, the number of characters that can be used in each segment is reduced to 70 characters. This may cause your message to be split into too many segments for carriers to handle, resulting in your message being unable to be sent to your recipients.

Note

SMS messages that only contain standard characters and no special characters use GSM-7 encoding with a 160-character limit.

SMS messages that use any special characters change the encoding to UCS-2 with a 70-character limit.

To avoid this, keep your SMS messages as short as possible to reduce the number of segments sent. Also, avoid using these characters when creating a large SMS message:

Note

It’s recommended that you limit your SMS messages to 10 segments and not use special characters when possible. This helps prevent messages from not being delivered properly.

What are "Smart” punctuation marks?

Smart punctuation marks can include:

Tools are available online for checking the number of segments based on the type of characters (encoding) used, such as this site.