Using Custom Fields in ThruText


Custom fields allow you to personalize ThruText messages beyond the basics like first and last name. You can insert dynamic values such as a contact's city, graduation year, or membership ID into your message. Adding these fields can make your outreach more engaging and helpful to your contacts.


In this guide, you'll learn how to insert custom fields into messages and replies, and how custom fields affect the character count of your message.


This guide describes how to use custom fields in ThruText after you've created them in your account and mapped them in your group. Before reading this guide, make sure you've created your custom fields and mapped them in your group, which you can read more about here: Custom Fields - Personalization and Integrations.


TABLE OF CONTENTS


Adding Custom Fields to Messages

Start by creating a ThruText Campaign. From the left sidebar navigation menu, expand the ThruText and Campaigns menus, and click Create New Campaign. 


In the Campaign Creation Wizard, you'll go through several steps shown as connected dots across the top of the screen



See the following numbered sections that correspond with numbers in the above image. If you are creating a campaign for the first time, you can learn more about campaign creation in our guide on Launching a ThruText Campaign.


1) Targeting - Using Segments that have Custom Fields

After completing the first step of campaign creation, you'll arrive at the Targeting step. In the Targeting step of campaign creation, you'll select Segments for your campaign. These are the contacts that you'll be sending text messages to. 



The segments that you select must have custom fields already mapped in order to proceed. Every segment that you add must have the same set of custom fields, or they won't be available to add to your message.


2) Initial Message - Adding Custom Fields to the Initial Message

After completing the Targeting step, you'll go to the Initial Message step.


Here, you can use the Custom Fields & Variables dropdown to select a custom field to add to your message.



The Custom Fields & Variables dropdown will have the following:

  • Name Variables: in the image above, you can see 4 fields that are available in every campaign for contact and sender names. For example: "Hi %FirstName%, this is %SenderFirstName%" in your message text will dynamically populate the contact name and sender name for each contact and sender.
  • Custom Fields: After the 4 name variables, you'll see any custom fields from your segments. In the example above, "County" is the custom field.


Click on a custom field from the dropdown menu to add it to the Message Text editor where you create your initial message. Your cursor’s current position in the message will determine where the field is inserted. In the image below, you can see that the custom field was placed at the cursor position:



At the bottom of the page, you'll see a message preview where the fields will populate using a sample contact. You can confirm that custom fields are being populated correctly by comparing it with the initial message script in the Message Text editor. In the image below, see how %county% is populated with Brian's county: "Wayne".



3) Replies - Adding Custom Fields to Replies

In the Replies step of campaign creation, you can add custom fields to recommended replies - pre-written replies that texters can easily and quickly send to contacts. You can read more about Recommended Replies here: Recommended & Saved Replies.


Here's an example using the %county% and %drop_off% custom fields to personalize a reply about ballot drop box locations. By adding these custom fields to your initial message, you can dynamically provide addresses to contacts through replies.


Screenshot of replies text input box of black text on a white background above an illustrated text message conversation showing variables replacing custom field codes.


Custom Fields and Character Counts

When text messages are sent, they are split into SMS segments based on the character count and character encoding (aka Character set). Each segment typically holds between 70 and 160 characters. The segment count of your messages can impact your costs if you pay per segment, or they can impact your deliverability with regards to carrier rate limits.


GetThru approximates the number of segments and character count in your initial message when you craft your Script.



In the image above, you can see the Total segments and Characters remaining in current segment values as you create your initial message. These two values are approximations because the variables in a message will be different for each contact in your campaign. When you add something from the Custom Fields & Variables dropdown to your message, the counter will count the characters in the placeholder, not the value it will be replaced with in the final message.

For example, in the text editor:

  • %county% - Will be displayed as 8 characters.
  • %FirstName% - Will be displayed as 11 characters.


When these fields are replaced with dynamic variables as the messages are sent, the final character count is different than the approximate character count.

  • When %county% is replaced by the variable "Northumberland" the character count is 14.
  • When %FirstName% is replaced by the variable "Hana" the character count is 4.


To read more about segments, characters, and rate limits, read the following guides: