Building and managing SMS templates
After setting up your SMS channel, you can use the SMS builder to create and personalise message templates for reuse in your campaigns.
To build an SMS template:
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From the Campaign screen, click Template Builder.
Note: You can also create a new template from the SMS message step side panel in the Journey builder.
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Under SMS Builder, click Create.
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Click + New Template.
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Give your template a meaningful name (e.g., “Welcome” or “Promo Reminder”) to make it easy to identify in future campaigns.
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Begin typing your Message.
As you draft your message, a character counter displays the number of characters used and remaining in each message part.
Note: You can use 160 characters per message.
The editor supports personalisation, which allows you to add placeholders like the recipient’s first name.
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To add personalisation, click + Add Content Field.
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Add the text for the Field Name which is passed through, and specify a Default Value.
Tip: The Default Value is fallback text for personalised content fields (e.g., if the first name is missing, display 'you' instead).
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Click Add.
Note: When you come to use this SMS template in a campaign, you must specify how this is populated. In this example you need to specify what is passed through as the 'Forename' field. See Personalisation validation.
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You can see your message in the Preview panel.
As you draft your message, a character counter displays the number of characters used and remaining in each message part. You can use 160 characters per message.
Note: SMS supports plain text only, so images are not included. Emojis, while supported, use additional characters and can increase the number of message parts, which affects costs. You’ll see an adjustment in the character counter if you add emojis.
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Once you’ve finalised your message, click Save.
Your template is now stored and available for use in any SMS campaign.