Everything You Need To Know About 10DLC SMS
The most common and cost-effective way for businesses to send SMS messages to customers is A2P. A2P messaging is “Application to Person” texting. It removes the manual labor of texting and enables businesses to send text messages in bulk. You might not know this, but any one of the several PressONE messaging apps, or integrations that allow for SMS and MMS, like Microsoft Teams or Cisco Webex, are A2P Messages.
SMS and MMS have become the most vital channels for communication. In fact, SMS probably has the highest level of engagement with an 88% open rate! Even if you don’t know the number messaging you, chances are you are still going to open it! By comparison, email has a paltry 22% open rate.
When people start receiving more SPAM than legitimate messages, that SMS open rate will drop precipitously and that is where 10DLC comes in. 10DLC, or 10-Digit Long Code is the term that is being used for the “sanctioned” method of sending messages to end users on a mobile network via an A2P method.
How does this benefit me?
There are three main reasons how 10DLC help your business, your customers and the mobile community at large;
- Message Volume and Send Rates: Now that your campaigns (also know as a use case) have been registered and therefore regulated, you will have the ability to send larger volumes of messages without worrying about being throttled by the carrier. This might not be a problem for you now as you might only send a few messages a day. However, there may come a time where a majority of your communication will be over SMS/MMS and you want to be ready for that!
- Lower Costs: Traditionally, if you wanted to send SMS and MMS at scale you would need a Short code Number (4-6 digits) or a Toll Free Code. Short codes were generally too expensive for most companies to justify (up to 1500.00/month, just for the number), especially for those whose messaging volumes weren’t large enough. 10DLC Messaging is a low cost option that allows you to send messages without a large investment.
- Dedicated Line: One of the benefits of 10DLC over Short Codes is the fact that the same number you SMS with can be and normally is a Voice Enabled number, where a mobile user can just call it back. With shortcodes, this wasn’t possible. Its just one more way that people can communicate with your brand.
What do I need to do?
There are TWO Main components of the Registry that the majority of PressONE’s customers will need to concern themselves with.
- Brand Registration: Registering a Brand is essentially providing your company information to TCR (The Campaign Registry) in order for them to ensure that your organization is a legitimate sender of SMS. This check is carried out for each Brand by TCR after its registration. TCR locates and confirms the existence of the Company you submitted by checking against several databases and utilizing best practice third party verification vendors. The Brand Identity Status is based on the accuracy* of the submitted information. The following information must be verified for the brand to obtain a “Verified” status: • EIN / Tax ID • Legal Company Name • Legal Company Address This check also returns the following
- Whether the Brands is a Tax-exempt organization if the “non-profit” entity type is selected.
- Whether a Brand is part of the Russell 3000 list.*Typos and outdated information can significantly affect this outcome
- Campaign Registration: While Brands registration defines your business, the 10DLC campaign is how you plan on USING your 10DLC Numbers for messaging. The Mobile Industry (MNOs (ATT, VZ, Tmobile, etc) and CTIA) came up with several STANDARD and SPECIAL use cases which define the content of your messages and rate and volume at which you send messages. You may be using SMS to communicate with your stakeholders (customers, suppliers, etc), or for reminders and notifications. The word campaign when it comes to 10DLC does not mean it is a marketing or sales campaign, it is how you are using the numbers assigned to the campaign. We are defaulting the campaign type to “Low Volume Mixed” which encompasses many of the commonly prevalent use cases. Example: You have sales reps that need to send messages to their clients. This is not a sales or marketing campaign. When you set up your campaign, you will describe that the numbers that are assigned to the campaign are being used to reach out to customers of your business. For the majority of customers, 1 campaign will handle all of their numbers on the account. NOTE: The maximum numbers on any campaign has been limited by Tmobile to 49.
Use Cases
Standard use cases
Standard use cases are automatically approved.
Use Case | Description |
---|---|
2FA | Any one-time use passcode, authentication, or verification. |
Account Notifications | Standard notifications for account holders. |
Customer Care | Customer interactions, including account management and customer support. |
Delivery Notifications | Status of delivery of a product or service. |
Fraud Alert Messaging | Notifications about potentially fraudulent activity on a user’s account. |
Higher Educations | Messaging on behalf of colleges or universities, as well as school districts and educational institutions. This use case is not for the free to the consumermessaging model. |
Low Volume Mixed | Brands that have multiple use cases but only need very low messaging throughput (ex: test or demo accounts, small businesses). |
Marketing | Communications that include marketing or promotional content (ex: sale notifications, discount codes, etc). |
Mixed | Any messaging campaign containing 2 to 5 standard use cases. |
Polling and Voting | The sending of surveys and polling/voting campaigns in non-political arenas. |
Public Service Announcement | Informational messaging to raise an audience’s awareness about important issues. |
Security Alert | Notification that the security of a system, either software or hardware, has been compromised and action is needed. |
Specialty use cases
Specialty use cases require additional approvals and/or steps. The approval is not instant and may take additional time.
Use Case | Description |
---|---|
Carrier Exemptions | Exemption by a carrier. Select this use case only if you have a previous agreement with the carriers or your campaign will be blocked. |
Charity | Communications aimed at providing help and raising money for those in need. This includes 501(c)(3) charities but not religious organizations. 501(c)(3) Tax-Exempt Organizations only. |
Proxy | Peer-to-peer app-based group messaging with pooled/proxy numbers. Supports personalized services and non-exposure of personal numbers for the enterprise of A2P communications. When submitting, please describe your use case thoroughly to allow for the carriers to review as required. This use case typically utilizes number cycling from a number pool vs dedicated numbers for each agent (we recommend the Agents and Franchises use case for numbers dedicated to specific agents). |
Sweepstakes | Gambling and sweepstakes messaging. |
Group messaging | Peer-to-peer group messaging and/or supporting personalized services with non-exposure of personnel numbers for the enterprise. |
Emergency services | Public Safety notifications are designed to support public safety/health during natural disasters, armed conflicts, pandemics, and other national or regional emergencies. |
Agents, franchises, local branches | Brands that have multiple agents, franchises, or offices in the same brand vertical, but require individual localized numbers per agent/location/office. Please provide use case details when submitting, and allow time for carrier approval. |
Large CSP free trial | Strictly controlled category for pre-approved Campaign Services Providers (CSPs). Must show spam mitigation controls and controlled onboarding of developers. Will have low throughput. Requirements are currently being finalized. |
Political messaging | Part of an organized effort to influence the decision-making of a specific group. All campaigns must be verified. If an organization is a 501 (c)(3), it should register under the charity class. If a 527 organization needs to register, it should register with Campaign Verify to receive a token that can then be input on the Brand page in order to register a political campaign. |
Social engagement | Communication between public figures/influencers and their communities. Restricted and upon business case review. Strictly limited. |