This article details how to obtain and configure the Form2SMS script to use on your website.

IMPORTANT: You must have a Text Marketer account before you start as the ID in the script is unique to each account.

Then, login to your account and go to SETTINGS | FORM2SMS SETTINGS – then configure the options on the screen and test your form script live as shown below. The Form2SMS script will automatically be configured as you change the options. Once you’re happy with the test you’ve received, you can copy and paste the Form2SMS script directly to your web page.

The script will look something like this. Please see below script for configuration options and explanations.

EXAMPLE SCRIPT – DO NOT USE

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.textmarketer.biz/adbox/js/adbox.js"></script>
<FORM id="TMadbox" name="TMadbox" method="POST" action="" onsubmit="return validateTMbox(this);">
<INPUT type="hidden" name="ID" value="[this-will-be-your-unique-ID]" />
<!-- Redirect URL after form submission 1=Stay on Same Page or enter URL like www.xyz.com/mypage.html -->
<INPUT type="hidden" name="Redirect" value="1" />
<!-- Add number to a group in your Text Marketer account 1=yes,0=no -->
<INPUT type="hidden" name="AddToGroup" value="1" />
<!-- The name of the Group in your system. A new group will be created if it doesn't exist -->
<INPUT type="hidden" name="GroupName" value="XYZ Product Out of Stock" />
<!-- Up to 11 alphanumerics (including spaces) or a 16 numerics only -->
<INPUT type="hidden" name="SenderID" value="XYZ Ltd" />
<!-- The content on the text message. Maximum of 612 characters including spaces. -->
<INPUT type="hidden" name="Message" value="This is where the text message goes." />
<!-- Number of accepted uses from a visitors IP address in 24h. Default 10, maximum 100. -->
<INPUT type="hidden" name="SubIP" value="10" />

UK Mobile Number:

<LABEL>
<INPUT type="text" maxLength="13" name="MobileNumber" />
</LABEL>
<LABEL>
<INPUT type="submit" name="Submit" value="Submit" />
</LABEL>
</FORM>

The variables shown in bold/red above are the elements you can configure – namely;

- ID – this will be automatically generated in your account when you get the script

- Redirect – this is where the visitor will go after submitting the form. It defaults to 1 which means they will stay on the same page. Otherwise enter a redirect URL in the format shown. This may be a thanks page for example.

- AddToGroup – if you want to capture the mobile numbers entered in your Text Marketer account, leave to 1 for yes, else 0 for no.

- GroupName – this is the name of the Group to add numbers to in your Text Marketer account. If the Group already exists it will add the numbers to that. If not, it will create the Group in your account when the first number is entered. A number will not be added to the group if it already exists but they will still receive the text.
If you were using Form2SMS across a whole site, you might configure this as the product group name on a page, e.g. Camping Enquiries, Tent Enquiries, Caravan Enquiries, etc.. That way, all the numbers captured will be in specific group names, meaning you could run more tailored follow up text campaigns. Numbers will not be captured if there is no group name.

SenderID – this is the name or number that will appear on the inbox on the phone. It can be up to 11 alphanumerics (including spaces) or 16 numerics (in other words a full international format number). If you want the ability for people to be able to reply to texts sent, you might want to consider a virtual mobile number. There must be something in this field if you want to return a message.

Message – this is the body of text message. It can be up to 612 characters in length, including spaces. If you do not want to send a confirmation message back then simply leave this blank. The number will still be added to your group (so long as that is enabled).

SubIP – this is a protection feature to help against ‘spamming’ from your form. If this is set to 10 for example a single visitor (from the same IP address) can only use your form 10 times in any 24 hour period. The minimum is 1 and the maximum is 100.

FAQ’s

What does it cost?
The script and the system to capture numbers is free. There is only a cost if you return a confirmation text. This is charged per message at our low bulk SMS prices. You simply add credits to your account on a pay as you go basis. Credits do not expire once added. But, if you’re using it simply to collect mobile numbers then it won’t cost you anything.

What if my account runs out of credits – will the confirmation messages stop?
Yes, the confirmation message won’t go out but the numbers will still be captured. There is a low credits warning system on accounts (which you can set to whatever you like) which will send you a warning email and a text message to ensure you don’t run out.

Will it work for non-UK numbers?
Yes, it will so long as you have requested your account to be an international account. You should also note that non-UK users will have to enter their mobile number in full international GSM format, i.e. including country code and dropping the leading zero.

Couldn’t somebody ‘flood’ the form with mobile numbers and if I was returning a message end up costing me all my credits?
It is highly unlikely. You can set the number of times any 1 IP address can use the form to send a message so you have control over that. As an absolutely worst case scenario, should you be targeted by NASA-level-hackers, your liability will only ever be the total number of credits in your account. Once they are depleted, the confirmation messages will stop.

Can I export all the data that I’m collecting?
Yes, as a CSV or Excel document. Go to GROUPS | UPLOAD NUMBERS TO A GROUP in your account and you’ll see an export option there. When you open a Text Marketer account, you get a full text marketing system, rich in features. You will receive instructions when you open an account. You may also wish to have a look through our online instructions to see how your account works.

It’s very easy to add contacts to your address book and it means that as the email responses come in from people, their name will be displayed in the conversation history as well as their mobile number.

Here’s how it works;

Step1. We send out a text campaign to 2 of the contacts in our address book to confirm if they will be coming to the meeting tomorrow.
(Note: You do not have to use the Send to Address Book screen for this feature to work but your contacts’ names and numbers must be in the Address Book for their names to appear on email replies. Otherwise, only their mobile number will be displayed.)

Step2. We can see that both Henry and Anne have replied. Their name is shown in the inbox as well as the conversation history in the email message itself.

Step3. Henry has said he can’t make it and asked for information on the next meeting. We can simply reply to the email and that will go back as a text message to his phone. If he replies again, the full conversation history will be shown on subsequent emails.

Related information:

• The txtUs Virtual Mobile Number system
• How to use the Address Book function in your system
• Reducing costs and increasing enquiries with txtUs

The Address Book feature in Text Marketer accounts – Video Instructions.

Uploading Contacts to your Address Book

Go to GROUPS | MANAGE ADDRESS BOOK

The Manage Address Book screen

You’ll see 2 ways of uploading contacts. You can add them 1 by 1 under the title ‘Add’ and then clicking the + button or you can ‘Add Many’ by copy and pasting in a CSV formatted file of your contacts.

Copy and paste the CSV information into the Add Many box and press the + button to upload

You will now see there are 3 contacts in your Address Book by clicking Show All

Formatting of the CSV

CSV (comma separated values) is the most industry standard of file types for data. We do not know of a piece of software that cannot export contacts as a CSV file.

Very simply, your CSV file must be formatted with the fields in the same order as they are shown on the Manage Address Book screen.

Here’s an example of a CSV file with 3 contact records in. You would copy and paste only the records (last 3 lines), not the column headers;

Mobile,First,Surname,Company,Email,Free Text
44777123456,Rich,Smith,XYZ Ltd,test@test.com,nothing here for now
44777123457,Jon,Smythe,XYZ Ltd,test@test.com,nothing here for now
44777123458,George,Jones,XYZ Ltd,test@test.com,nothing here for now

If you’re unsure about this, try copy and pasting the last 3 lines of the above into the Add Many box and press the + button. You’ll see 3 new contacts added (which you can delete at your leisure).

If you are unsure how to export contacts from your software as a CSV file then ask your IT department or developer of your software – it will be a 2 minute job for them.

Searching/Viewing/Editing Contacts

Go to GROUPS | MANAGE ADDRESS BOOK

Once you have some contacts in your Address Book, you may wish to view, edit or delete them. From the Manage Address Book screen you can click ‘Show All’ to list all your contacts or use the search field to find specific contacts. You will then be given options to edit or delete them.  Make sure to hit the submit button after any changes to save those changes.

Sending a message to contact/s in your Address Book

Go to SEND SMS | SEND TO ADDRESS BOOK

Simply select the contacts you wish to send to and complete the SMS Campaign information in the normal way

Although this screen has all the same functionality of the other send screens, the majority of space has been dedicated to selecting contacts from your address book.

Simply tick the box/es next to the contacts you wish to send to and then set up the campaign in the normal way.
There is a handy select all/deselect all link at the top of list. This is great if you want to send to almost everybody in your Address Book apart from a few. Simply click select all and then manually untick the few you do not want to send to.

We’ve built a system to get around this and it’s launched today.

You can now buy keywords on our shortocde or txtUs dedicated virtual mobile numbers and we can simply invoice you so you can pay by BACS in the normal way. Then, when a renewal is due, your system will automatically email you another invoice for the next period at which point you can either choose to cancel or pay that invoice to extend the term of the keyword or txtUs number.

IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCE?

The main difference is that you can only choose renewal terms of 3, 6, 9 or 12 months using this system (you can pay month by month using our automated card subscriptions system). As you can appreciate, this has to be done to cover the additional administration cost of handling non-automated payments.

SETTING UP A KEYWORD

• Log in to your Text Marketer account.
• Go to INCOMING SMS | ADD A SHORT CODE KEYWORD
• Enter the keyword you want to check it is available
• Click PLACE ORDER BY INVOICE and complete the details for the invoice
• We’ll send you the first invoice for payment and once paid, your keyword will be set up

We have built a simple way to ‘inject’ mobile numbers into a group (you need to have already set up a group in your Text Marketer account).

What you’ll need:

• A group name for a group that’s already been created in your account. To create a group, in your Text Marketer account, go to  Groups and select Create a Group (note: if you want to add numbers to a group for a shortcode keyword, a group may already have been created for it. It would be named using the format Short_[keyword]). Or go to Groups and Upload Numbers to a Group to check what groups already exist in your account. Make a note of the group name for the group you want to be able to add numbers to using a web form.
• Your API username and password (which may be different from your login details). Go to Settings and API Settings to get these in your account.
• A web form to collect the mobile number from your customers.

For those using PHP, two solutions for integrating this into a web form are provided below. After this is done, the mobile number of everyone who completes your form will be added to the send group specified.

Case 1 : Using a form we provide

You can download our PHP mobile number submission form. Copy the contents to a new PHP file (the name you give it is irrelevant) and put it on your server. You need to edit a few lines at the top of the file with the group name, API username and API password you collected earlier. If you now enter the corresponding web address that points to your new file, in your web browser you’ll see a simple web form asking you for a mobile number. If you enter a mobile number and click the submit button, it will add the number to the group you specified in the file, in your Text Marketer account.

The PHP script provided above contains a very simple form. The HTML for the form can be found at the bottom of the file. You may wish to pass this script and the details above to your web designer and they will be able to customise it to your own style.

Case 2: Integrating into your existing website form

If you already have a form on your website and you’d like to add the functionality to it so that the mobile numbers collected on your form are added to the group in your Text Marketer account, you can use this PHP include file. Change the .txt extension to .php and put the file in your includes folder.

To use the file, let’s say your web form contains an input text box named ‘mobile’ and the form action points to a file called submit.php. In your file submit.php you will simply add these lines of code: 

include_once ('TMGroupAdd.inc.php');

// TODO change these!
$username = 'myAPIusername';
$password = 'myAPIpassword';
$groupName = 'myGroupName'; 

$groupAdder = new TMGroupAdd($groupName, $username, $password);
$success = $groupAdder->add($_REQUEST['mobile']);

Change the username, password and group name values with the details you gathered earlier. You can use the boolean variable $success to determine whether the add was successful or not.

For more advanced details about the data that is returned when you add a number to a group, see the REST API documentation.

We have therefore built in an ‘auto billing’ option in your account that simply generates an invoice and sends it to your finance department when the credits hit a certain level in your account – decided by you.

Here’s how it works

You set a credits level at which an invoice is generated and set how many text credits should be invoiced. You specify a name and email address to send the invoice to.
As soon as your account hits the credit level you’ve set, an invoice is generated and emailed. Once that invoice is paid the credits are automatically added and the reoccurring invoice trigger is reset.

Example:
If you send 5000 messages per month and know your accounts department take a month to pay invoices, then we would suggest setting your trigger limit at about 6000 which gives your accounts a month to pay the invoice and little extra to ensure you don’t run out!

How to set it up in your account

Go to Financial | Reoccurring invoices and you’ll see the screen below;

Credit Trigger = the level of credits in your account at which you want an invoice to be triggered
Credits Required = the amount of credits to invoice for (the minimum is 1,000)
Purchase Order No. = if applicable but optional
Select Billing Contact = if you have a contact in your account you can choose one from here otherwise simply complete the details below of the person to receive the invoices.

Press submit.

You’ll see the system is now set up and you can also edit the settings at any time.

Once one invoice has been triggered and sent the system will not send any further invoices until that one has been paid – payment of an invoice ‘resets the trigger’.

This setting does not affect your credits alert warning which can be set much lower as a fail safe back up in case the invoice hasn’t been paid.

Invoices generated in this way must be paid by BACS to the details on the invoice. There is no facility to pay triggered invoices by credit card. Should you wish to pay by card, please simply select pay by card in the payment options.

• Download the PDF instruction manual for the main functions of the system

Go to Groups | Group Maintenance on the menu and then you’ll see a box. Enter the number or numbers you want to remove there (if there are multiple numbers, please separate them with a new line – i.e. a single column of numbers) then either click ‘find’ if you just want to see if they exist in your groups or ‘delete’ to delete from all groups. The number/s will be deleted from all groups in your system (except your stop list).

DELETING NUMBERS FROM THE STOP LIST
Should you wish to also delete numbers from the stop list, simply tick the box next to the numbers box that says ‘also remove from stop list’.

We recommend you search for the number in its full international format, e.g. 447…… not just 07…… – this is because the number could potentially exist in that format if it has been collected using the incoming SMS features.

Although our accounts are designed to be able to run multiple campaigns, keywords, databases, etc. Sometimes, possibly for admin/accounts reasons, it is desirable to set up separate accounts for clients or departments.

CREATE A SUB ACCOUNT

Go to Financial | Create a Sub Account.

Complete the new account details and press submit.

Notes:
The ‘use this accounts pricing’ tickbox should be checked if you want to copy over the administrator account’s pricing structure otherwise it will be set up at default pricing.
The ‘Promo Code’ box can be left blank or if you have a promo code or want to use your SMS Partner code.

MANAGING SUB ACCOUNTS

Go to Financial | Display Sub Accounts.

Here you will see all the sub accounts associated with your administrator account, their account names, usernames and passwords and number of credits.

There are also quick links on the right to transfer credits from your administrator account, to login to a sub account (useful if you want to change a sub account’s settings or purchase from that account) and to delete a sub account.

It will cost them one text at their normal network rate. What exactly that is will depend on the individual’s network and tariff but is likely to be in the range of 8-12 pence. Sending a text to a short code is not included in a free text bundle tariff. So it will always cost 8 – 12 pence regardless of the network and tariff.

How much does it cost to send a text to a Txtus, virtual mobile number?

Texts sent to virtual mobile numbers cost one text at the sender’s standard rate. Texts are included in monthly free text allowance, so people on contracts will probably pay nothing at all. Pay as you go customers will be charged 8 – 12 pence depending on the network they’re using.

What’s the difference?

The main difference is cost. Non-UK networks charge ‘interconnect fees’ to deliver your message (as they are separate companies). This means that each message to a non-UK mobile number will cost double the amount of credits shown in the credit counter on your account.

Even though it is ‘double credits’, because of our incredibly low prices per credit, this means Text Marketer are still one of the cheapest international SMS gateways available.

Formatting international mobile numbers

If sending to non-UK mobile numbers (in an international-enabled Text Marketer account), you must ensure that you enter the number in full international GSM format, including the country code.

In most countries mobile numbers start with a zero and the easiest way to remember international formatting is “replace the zero with the country code” (you don’t need any + sign before the number).

Here are a few examples:

UK – 07657345987 becomes 447657345987
DENMARK – 024215712 becomes 4524215712
NEW ZELAND – 0211238815 becomes 64211238815
AUSTRALIA – 0211238815 becomes 61211238815

Does it affect sending to UK numbers?

No. Your account will work out which numbers are UK and which aren’t and charge you accordingly.

To enable your account for international mobile numbers, please contact us with the company name of your Text Marketer account to request the change.

There is a ‘transfer credits’ feature within your account which allows you to send credits from your head account to any other Text Marketer account.

Go to, “Financials” tab on the menu and then click, “Credits Transfer”:

- On the left enter how many credits you wish to transfer.
- On the right enter the account number (can be found in ‘Settings’ | ‘Account Settings’) and password of the account to send to and click Submit.

A log of all your transactions is shown as well and can be exported at any time.

Using txtUs dedicated virtual mobile numbers for your business

A txtUs number gives your business a dedicated virtual mobile number which people can text (but cannot call) enquiries to or to reply to messages you send out to them from your system.

You can add as many txtUs numbers to your account as you wish and they can each have bespoke settings which can be a great solution for a small office environment or call centre where each member of staff could have their own txtUs number for their clients.

A quick 2 min Video Demo of the 2 main uses | See more videos

The unique advantage of the txtUs system is that the full conversation between you and each mobile number is sent to you via email and you simply reply via email. In essence, to answer the ‘how does it work?” question …. exactly like your email does. The only difference being of course that your replies are being sent out the customer as text messages.

Step 1 – Adding a txtUs number to your account

Login to your account. If you don’t have an account, you can set one up here.
Go to “Incoming SMS” | “Add a txtUs reply number”. Simply choose the number you want and press Place Order. This will take you through the Google Checkout system to set up the subscription payment for your txtUs number.

NEW! You can also pay for your txtUs number by recurring invoice rather than with a card

Your subscription may be cancelled at any time in your Google account and you have complete control of all payments.

Step 2 – Applying the settings for your txtUs number

Go to “Incoming SMS” | “Change reply settings” then click “Configure” next to your txtUs number. You will be presented with the screen below.

- Auto reply by SMS settings – If you would like to automatically send a text message back when somebody texts your txtUs number, you can set it here. Simply change active to ‘Y’, enter your text message and press submit.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The text autoresponse is only sent once to any individual mobile number, the first time they text in. This is to avoid them receiving the same autoresponse message over and over if you get into a conversation with them.

- Reply settings – This is where you set how your system handles the text conversations you have via email;

• Active – set to N if you do not wish to have incoming texts emailed to you
• E-mail – set the email address you wish incoming texts to go to.
• Thread Count – This is the amount of history you want included on each conversation email. For example, if you wanted to see the last 5 messages from a person and the last 5 replies you sent them you would set it to 10.
• Use as Sender default – enable this if you want your txtUs number to be the default reply number for text messages you send out from your system

- Advanced (API) settings – only used for programmers to deliver incoming message data to a script URL. Please leave this inactive unless you are sure of what you’re doing.

Step 3 – Testing your new txtUs number / Seeing a conversation in action

Send a text message to your new txtUs number then, if enabled, check your email inbox on the email address you have set (if it doesn’t come pretty instantly, check any spam filters or folders you may have enabled). You will see you have a new message from yourself.

Now reply to that email in the normal way (as you would an email). The only difference being you must end the message you send back with ##. This tells our system that it’s the end of the reply and so doesn’t send all the history contained in the email below.

You will then receive the reply on your phone. If you reply back again, check your email again you will now see the conversation thread developing.

Below is a conversation thread email for example from a company confirming a meeting:

You can also see the name of the person texting in if they are in your Address Book.

Step 4 – Promoting your new txtUs number

Congratulations! Now you are a text enabled business and you can promote your number as you would your telephone number, fax number or email address. See how we do on our enquiries page. As a customer, you are free to use the txtUs logo next to your number which adds impact and encourages use.

Other Common Questions

Getting replies from text campaigns
To enable people to reply to you, you simply have to set the Sender ID as your txtUs number. When you have a txtUs number your account will automatically do this as the default, which you can change if you wish.

You will see a new setting on your send screens, “Use Reply Number”. Simply tick this to use your txtUs number:

Charges
You are only charged for messages you send out, not for incoming messages. The cost of this is just 1 credit per 160 characters as per normal charges.

Cancellation
You can cancel your number at any time. There are no fixed contract lengths. To do this simply log in to your Google Checkout Account and cancel your subscription payments.

Logs
All of your conversations are stored in a log. Go to “Incoming SMS” | “Reply Data” to download your full log for your txtUs number.

You can cancel your keyword or TxtUs number from within your Text Marketer account.
To do this this go to Incoming SMS – Change Reply Settings.
Click Cancel next to the keyword or TxtUs number.
You’ll then be asked to confirm that you wish to cancel the subscription.
By confirming, you subscription will immediately be cancelled.

You can also cancel you subscription by logging in directly to your Google account.

To do this, simply login to your Google account and cancel your subscription with Google. Text Marketer does not hold your Google login or credit card details. See Google Help for more information.

As soon as your monthly payment has been cancelled your keyword will automatically be removed from your account.

Please note that if you need to download data from the short code log, do this before cancelling your keyword as the data cannot be retrieved once a keyword has been cancelled.

What you need to be able to do this:
1. A Text Marketer SMS account
2. A keyword on your account (you can get any keyword free for a week to trial this), configured to copy incoming SMS’s to your email address.

Once you have these, the process is very simple.
Let’s take the example of a hairdresser, Zaks. Their keyword is ZAKS on our shortcode 88802. So, any message starting with the keyword ZAKS sent to 88802 will go to their account and be sent by email to the address/es they set.

Zaks send out a campaign with their Sender ID set to 88802 so people can reply, such as, “50% off all cut & blow drys this Monday & Tuesday. Reply with name, day & time to book yours, starting your reply message with the word ZAKS.”

All replies will then be sent to the email address Zaks have set up.

When an email response is received they can simply hit the reply button as normal and type a return message to the client. The only difference from a normal email reply is that you must type ## at the end of the text reply you want to send (otherwise it will send all the text in the email).

So, their email reply might look something like, “Thanks Joyce. I can confirm your appointment for Monday at 10am. See you then. Zaks. If you want to reply to this message remember to start your message with the word ZAKS.##”. This will go straight back to the client.

In essence, so long as the person starts any message with the keyword ZAKS you can continue to have a text conversation with them using solely your email program.

For more advanced options on replies please see our email to sms instructions.

FAQ’s on replying to SMS’s using Email

Q. How many characters can I have in my reply.
A. Up to 612 characters including spaces.

Q. Does it cost anything to reply.
A. It simply uses the credits system of your account, so whatever you’re paying per credit at present.

Our email-to-SMS service provides a simple way for you to send text messages via email.

This is in addition to our simple HTTP SMS Gateway API, explained here, and we also provide a more complex ‘RESTful’ SMS API to send SMS messages and give you access to information about your SMS marketing account (don’t have one? You need to have an account).

There are 3 main ways to use the email to sms gateway;

Option 1 – To send single emails/messages using domain authentication
Option 2 – To send single emails/messages using username/password authentication
Option 3 – To send messages to multiple recipients with a single email (and advanced features)

Option 1 – Send single emails/messages using domain authentication

This option is used when you cannot or do not want to transmit your username and password in the subject field of the email. You set your sending domain in your account, e.g. mycompanyname.com which is what we use for validation when the email comes in. Only emails sent from the domain you set will be accepted (no generic email accounts like hotmail or gmail are acceptable).

Step 1 – enable domain authentication in your Text Marketer account. Go to Settings | Account Settings as shown below.

Under “Email Gateway Settings” enter your domain name (e.g. if your email address was richard@greens.com then your domain name is greens.com) in the field and press submit (do not include the @ sign). The system will return an ‘updated’ message.

Then, click change next to your domain name and make sure it turns from disabled to Active (in red).

Step 2 – now you are ready to send a test message. Format the email address as [mobilenumber]@textmarketer.biz (for example, 447777111999@textmarketer.biz) and send it our gateway. Make sure you add ## to the end of the text in the body you want to send (this tells our system that this is the end of the text to send out and avoids sending things like signatures etc). You can change the message termination string by logging into your account and navigating to “settings” => “Account Settings”.
You don’t have to put anything in the subject line as it’s not used.

Here’s an example message (note the ## added at the end of the text to be sent):

Option 2 – To send single emails/messages using username/password authentication

This option is exactly the same as option 1 apart from you do not need to turn on domain authentication in your account and instead you use your API username and password in the subject field (formed like username%password) of the email for authentication. You can find your API username and password in your  account on the ‘Settings’ | ‘API Settings’ page.

So your email would look like this:

Option 3 – To send messages to multiple recipients with a single email (and advanced features)

1. Create an email to the address shown above
IMPORTANT: this must be the gateway[at]textmarketer.co.uk address, not a [number]@ style address or it will fail.
2. Put your API username and password in the subject field with a % symbol in between (no spaces). You can find your API username and password in your  account on the ‘Settings’ > ‘API Settings’ page but it is usually the same unless you’ve updated your login details.
3. Type the text message you want to send and at the end put two hash symbols “##”
4. Put 1 or many numbers in a single column underneath (it’s always best in international format but UK numbers starting 07…… are OK too).
5. Send the email!

Expanded Instructions / Additional Features

The Email-to-SMS (or email-to-text-message) service allows you to send SMS text messages via email. You must have an SMS marketing account (you can create a free account here) to send text messages via this service.

The actual email address of the email-to-SMS gateway is shown in the screenshot above (gateway@ and the domain is textmarketer.co.uk).

To send a text message to one or more mobile numbers, you will specify the message to send, and the numbers to send to, in an email. You then send the email to our email-to-sms gateway email address (using a specific format/structure).

Let’s say you want to send a text message containing ‘Call us for a quote’ to the UK mobile number 07777123456. To do this your email contents would look like this:

Call us for a quote##
07777123456

The ‘##’ characters simply tell us that this is the end of the message to be sent. And it’s followed by the mobile number. That’s it!

IDENTIFICATION

Your email will contain your account’s API username and password in the email subject. This allows us to verify your identity and deduct credits for the text messages sent from your account.

Your email subject should contain your API username, followed by ‘%’, followed by your API password (You can find your API username and password in your  account on the ‘Settings’ > ‘API Settings’ page.), e.g.

myAPIusername%myAPIpassword

Example

So the complete email (subject and body) would look like this:

Email Subject:

myAPIusername%myAPIpassword

Email Body/Contents:

Call us for a quote##
07777123456

MULTIPLE RECIPIENTS

You want to send a text message via email to more than one mobile number? No problem! Simply list the numbers on separate lines, like this:

Call us for a quote##
07777123456
07777123457

Or put them on the same line, with commas in between to separate the numbers, like this:

Call us for a quote##
07777123456,07777123457

MESSAGE WITH MULTIPLE LINES

A message sent using the email-to-SMS gateway can contain more than more line. Simply ensure the message still ends with ‘##’, e.g.:

Special offer this week on:
- black tights
- green shoes##
07777123456

FROM/SENDER ID

The sender ID is the number/name that your text message will appear as being sent from. When using the email-to-text API this defaults to the sender ID that is set in your account settings (see the ‘Send SMS’ > ‘Default Sender ID’ page). For example, you might want to set the sender ID as the name of your business, or perhaps to your own mobile number.

The sender ID can be any 16-digit number, or any text of up to 11 alpha-numeric characters.

Example

Let’s say you want to send the message ‘Special 2-for-1 offer this week’ to the UK mobile number 07777123456, with a sender ID of ‘Fast Pizzas’. Your email body (contents) would look like this:

Special 2-for-1 offer this week##
Fast Pizzas#
07777123456

The sender ID is ‘terminated’, i.e. ends with, a single ‘#’ character. It can appear before or after the message, so this works too:

Fast Pizzas#
Special 2-for-1 offer this week##
07777123456

ERROR REPORTING

If your email-to-SMS request is successful, with no errors or problems, you will not get any response (unless you’re using the Sandbox service). However, if there are any problems with the format of your email, or problems sending to any of the numbers you specify in the email, you will get a verbose email response with details of the problem(s) encountered.

Note that you will not get any response if your API username or password (included in the email subject) were incorrect, or did not contain the ‘%’ character to separate them.

TESTING/SANDBOX

If you want to test the service without actually sending any text messages, there is a different email address to use for this purpose:

gateway-sandbox@ followed by the same domain: textmarketer.co.uk

It works in the same way as the normal service, except that no text messages will be sent and therefore no credit will be deducted from your account. Also, unlike the normal service, you will get a confirmation email telling you what message would have been sent, and to what numbers, if you had used the normal live service.

We have built a nifty little Excel worksheet which takes care of this. Download the file here.

INSTRUCTIONS:

When promoting your campaign, it is important to ask people to text in in a specific way which is:
[KEYWORD] space [FIRSTNAMEONLY] space [EMAILADDRESS]

Then, once all the autoresponses are in simply copy and paste them into the yellow part of column A of the Excel sheet. It will remove the keyword and split out the name and email address into separate columns for easier importing into other applications.

Paste your autoresponse data into the yellow section to strip out the name and email address. Handles up to 10,000 records at a time.

There are 2 critical differences when sending to landline numbers using your text marketer account:

1. The ‘originator’ or ‘sender ID‘ MUST be numeric only. You can use a mobile number, your office number or our shortcode number (88802) but there must be no alpha characters in the sender ID. For example, 88802, 01179992299, 0700099999 is fine.

2. The landline number you are sending to must be in international format which means it must start 44 instead of 0. For example, 01179992299 becomes 441179992299 in GSM international format. This is true whether you are uploading databases or using the quick send feature in your account.

It does not cost any more than usual to send to landlines.

This is a relatively advanced feature of the system and the process outlined below should be followed precisely to ensure a successful campaign.

Overview: The step by step process
1. What is a CSV file and how the data should be formatted
2. Creating a “merge group” in the system
3. Uploading your CSV file to the “merge group”
4. Creating the campaign and inserting “merge” fields into the message
5. Previewing the campaign, editing & submitting the campaign

Step 1: Understanding & creating your CSV File

A CSV file is a Comma Separated Values file. They are easily exported from Excel or almost any other software. If you are not familiar with CSV files, you should seek technical help within your company.

Above you’ll see an example CSV file, ready for merge upload. Each line is a “record” or “row” and each bit of data between each comma is a “field”. So in each line of the example above, we have the following data:
“mobile_number,name,username,password,code”
There are 5 records in our example CSV database.

Create or export your CSV file, following the rules shown below and save it on your computer ready to upload to your account. (Step 3.)

VERY IMPORTANT - Rules for CSV files for Text Marketer:
1. The mobile number MUST be saved as the first field in each row
2. You can have up to a maximum of 4 additional custom fields in addition to the mobile number
3. There is a maximum of 60 characters for each custom field
4. Commas are used to separate the fields, do not use them in your data
5. The maximum number of rows you can upload at one time is 50,000

Step 2: Creating a “merge group” in the system

Now we have the CSV file prepared, the next step is to create a special “merge group” in your system.
Log in and go to Groups -Create a Group. Give the group a name and tick the box “Is it a Merge Group?”. This tells the system to expect a merge group CSV file instead of the normal single column of numbers used in non-merge campaigns.
Then press Submit.

Step 3: Uploading your CSV file to the “merge group”

After creating the “merge group” you will be returned to the screen above with the group you have created already selected.
Next to Select File, click the  grey Browse button.
Navigate your way to the CSV file you created and saved in Step 1.
When you have found the CSV file, double click the file or highlight it and select open.
(You will see the path to the file now appears in the window next to Select File.)
Then click Submit.
If any errors are found in your file these will be reported. If this is the case, please go back to Step 1 and see the “Rules for CSV files”. If your file uploads successfully, you will see the “Numbers in Group” for your “merge group” change from zero to the numbers of records in your CSV file.

In our example CSV file we had 5 records which we uploaded to the group “MergeData1″ so it is now displaying 5 records in that group as per below.

Step 4: Creating the campaign and using “merge” fields in the message

To create a merge SMS campaign go to Send SMS – Send to Merge Group
Then select the merge group you are sending to (MergeData1 in our example).
Give the campaign a name for your records (this can be anything useful to you but is not set as the sender name for your campaign).
Select the date and time to send your campaign and then we’ll create the message.

How To Create A Merge Message
The code you need to insert into a message to pull through a custom field is {1}, {2}, {3} or {4} where the number corresponds to the position of the custom data field in each record in your CSV file. The custom fields exclude the number column so {1} is the first data field.
If you only have one custom field then you will only ever need {1}. If you remember, in our example CSV file (from Step 1) the order of each record was “mobile_number (which is ignored for data merging),name,username,password,code” so in the message above we have created:

“Hi {1}, your username is: {2}, password {3} & your voucher code is {4}. Thanks.”
You can now create your message following this example and insert the {1}, {2}, {3} or {4} (if you are using all 4 custom fields) in your message as appropriate.
Then click Next >> Don’t worry, there is a preview screen next to check your message before it is submitted!

Step 5: Previewing the campaign, editing & submitting the campaign

Once you have clicked Next >> you will be given a preview of up to the first 20 merged messages.
This allows you to check the messages look OK.
The message box also re-appears so you can make amendments to your message if it doesn’t look right. If you do make amendments in the message box, click Preview >> afterwards to preview the first 20 messages again with the amended message text.

IMPORTANT – Information on credits usage with merged campaigns
Merging data can and will produce different message lengths depending on your data  (if someone has a long name for example).
This can have the effect of using more credits for a particular message. Therefore this screen also shows you the total credits required for the campaign and the total volume (or, number of mobile numbers you are sending to).
Should these numbers differ it means that some of your data fields are pushing the total character count in those messages over the limit.
You can either choose to accept this and submit the campaign or you may wish to trim the message (remember to hit Preview >> to reload the new message) until you are happy with the credits required number.

In our example everything looks fine with 5 credits needed to send our 5 text messages so we can now Submit the campaign.

You will then see your normal campaign log screen with the campaign details. If you are happy with this then simply leave the campaign to process. If you are not happy, hit the Abort? link next to the campaign to abort.

• Download the PDF instruction manual for the main functions of the system

How does the sms opt out service work?

The opt out service works, using a keycode and a five digit short code. Customers who wish to unsubscribe from your list, simply text a unique keycode to a 5 digit short code, (88802). Their mobile number is then captured by your account and added to your unsubscribe list.
Your account will then check your unsubscribe list before sending out an sms campagn. This means that you cannot send an sms to an unsubscribed customer by mistake.

How do I set up the unsubscribe service on my bulk sms account?

Setting up the unsubscribe service is free and is available to you as soon as you set up your free account. Immediately after setting up your free account, you will receive a welcome email containing confirmation of your username and password. This email also contains your unsubscribe keycode. This will be a 4 letter code, (eg WJBC) To unsubsbribe, your contacts simply text this code to 88802.

….for existing customers

…. go to “Incoming SMS” / “Reply Data” in your account to see what your STOP code is.

How can I see the list of people that have unsubscribed from my list.

To view your unsubscribers, go to Incoming SMS -Reply Data. Here you will see your unsubscribe keycode (with ‘about unsubscribe keywords’ next to it), along with the toal number of users that have unsubscribed. To downoad an excel spreadsheet or .csv file, cick on either the ‘download to CSV’ or ‘download to Excel’ link on the right hand side.

The mobile number is in column C. You will need to format the column so that you can view the numbers. Click on the column header to hightlight it – right click – format cells – select ‘number’ and click down to 0 decimals places. You will then see the numbers in international format.

How can I add people to my stop list manually?

Simply go to GROUPS | UPLOAD NUMBERS TO A GROUP and then choose your stop list group. It will be named like “Short_[your stop code]“. Then copy and paste the number/s you wish to add in the numbers box and press submit. (Similarly, you can remove numbers from the stop list by going to GROUPS | GROUP MAINTENANCE and entering the numbers there, ticking ‘also remove from stop list’ and clicking delete).

What’s best way of wording  the unsubscription option in the outbound text?

There are 2 options here.
Option 1 – Set the sender ID as 88802. (Go to Send SMS - Default Sender ID – Change to 88802 and click Submit.) 88802 is the short code that you use for unsubscribing.
Then at the end of your texts add ‘Reply [code] to cancel ' (use your key code.)

Option 2 - If you wish to keep your sender name as it is, you need to give fuller instruction on how to unsubscribe. E.g ‘Text [code] to 88802 to cancel.

Keywords are not case sensitive.

One of the main reasons that sms is such a responsive direct marketing channel is that if hasn’t been ruined in the way that e-mail has, by endless spam. Open rates for sms campaigns run at over 95%, whereas e-mail open rates have sunk to as low as 2 or 3%, (source Mobile Marketing Association).

To keep your customers happy and to make sure that you can’t be accused of text spamming them in any way, it’s a good idea to have an opt out service that allows you customers to opt our from receiving further texts from you.

How does an sms opt out service work?

The opt out service works, using a keyword and a five digit short code. Customers who wish to unsubscribe from your list, simply text a unique keyword to a 5 digit short code. Their mobile number is then captured by your account and added to your unsubscribe list.

Your account will then always check your unsubscribe list before sending out an sms campagn. This means that you cannot send an sms to an unsubscribed customer by mistake.

How do I set up the unsubscribe service on my bulk sms account?

Setting up the unsubscribe service is free and your account will have already been allocated a 4 letter keycode. Full instructions on this can be found here.