We’ve been thinking a lot about SMS as of late. For those of you keeping score at home, we’ve been enhancing our SMS offering from the inside out—most recently with template logic for opt-out compliance and HIPAA compatibility.
When you think about persuasive marketing mediums, SMS probably isn’t the first channel that comes to mind. SMS is synonymous with intimate conversation between friends and family. However, some brands have proven enough value to capitalize on the space (think delivery alerts, order status changes, reminders, highly specific promotions, etc).
With the right message value, brands earn the right to use this channel. And now, we’re very excited to share how our new channel enhancements further increase this value!
The New & Improved SMS Experience
In our latest SMS release, we’re delivering new features and capabilities loaded with value that we’re certain mobile-specific and cross-channel brands alike will love! Here’s what’s new:
Custom Domain Support
We’re very excited to introduce custom tracking domain support to Iterable SMS! Branded domains add credibility to SMS links and ensure customers that their clicks equate to legitimate experiences. Whether you want to have your embedded SMS links to share your own website domain (e.g. links.yoururl.com) or configure a custom short domain (e.g. you.co), your links can now carry that extra special touch that reinforces link safety and customer trust. Gone are the days of relying on vague bit.ly links to drive and track clicks—more on that last part below.
Personalize links with your very own custom domain
Automatic Link Shortening
Lengthy URLs are ugly and they take up way too much space. There. We said it.
When you’re working on pack-a-punch SMS messaging, you can’t waste precious characters on lengthy URLs. Iterable now automatically detects and shortens any type of link found in your copy! We’re talking UTM parameters, handlebar logic, snippets, data feeds, and more! In this new state, you can now send branded links with auto-generated five-character encoded strings! Now you can send links that look great while better managing your character count cap to avoid splitting single messages into two.
Shorten static, partially dynamic and fully dynamic URLs into uniquely encoded strings
Highly specific link data packaged into a user-friendly presentation
itbl.co Optionality
Just as you can send your SMS links over our Iterable tracking domain (links.iterable.com), you can now take advantage of character count real estate using our new short domain: itbl.co. Even if you don’t have a custom or short domain of your own (yet), you can toggle-on this ability to shorten and tidy up your URLs.
Choose your preferred tracking domain from the built-in drop down menu
Click Tracking
This is a big one! Since this endeavor is an entirely native build, our new link shortening capabilities also come with click tracking capabilities, too! Now, you can add additional depth to the ways you monitor SMS campaign performances by seeing not only who your messages were delivered to, but also, who actually clicked the links. For marketers, this means no more reliance on third party shortening services, manual UTM workarounds, or settling for partial metrics.
Monitor all the clicks that matter to you
Gauge SMS campaign performance with built-in click tracking
SMS Click Metric
As mentioned above, whenever one of your subscribers clicks on your shortlinks, we’ll capture this information as a new click metric—”SMS Click” events under the user’s event histories. Now, it’s easy to monitor performance at both the SMS channel (Message Insights) and campaign (Campaign Analytics) level for a more well-rounded approach to managing campaign effectiveness.
SMS clicks are now captured just like the rest of Iterable’s event data
Sending A Message
As you can see, we’re continually building new possibilities into our different messaging channels. For SMS, we’re opening up new avenues of customization, performance tracking, and experience potential. And naturally, anytime we can improve a single channel’s capabilities, the benefits extend in a cross-channel fashion! We’re anxiously awaiting to learn how folks are taking advantage of these new features in all sorts of creative ways.
P.S. As you might have guessed, these new features lend themselves to a lot of new applications inside the Iterable platform. We’ve got big plans to build upon these elements, and we’ll be unveiling even more in the coming months! Stay tuned!
