Informed provisioning of ThruText campaigns


To ensure high deliverability, admins can see the status of a phone number's provisioning for each campaign. This article explains the provisioning process and provides best practices for managing that process.  


TABLE OF CONTENTS


What is phone number provisioning? 

When you launch a ThruText campaign, we purchase a sending phone number based on the area code preferences you provide. As a part of 10DLC, our provider then confirms with the major cell phone carriers (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile) that this phone number is associated with your brand registration and use case. This process is called provisioning, and it amounts to the carriers giving us a "thumbs up" that your sending phone number is ready for use. Once we get that provisioning "thumbs up" we change your provisioning status from "Provisioning" to "Provisioning Complete."


How long does provisioning take? 

In most cases, the provisioning process happens very quickly (under 1 minute), but in rare cases, it can take as long as multiple hours. While a campaign is provisioning, it remains in the 'Active' status. Admins can refer to the Provisioning flags to check if their campaign has completed provisioning.

As an alternative to launching a new campaign, admins can choose to launch Followup campaigns that do not require additional provisioning time. The audience is restricted to the contact list of the original campaign, but through advanced targeting, contacts can be removed from the Followup.


How to accommodate the provisioning process?

The best ways for you to ensure your ThruText campaign is ready for texting on time is 

  1. Create your campaign the day before you plan to text.
  2. Don't launch more than two campaigns at once 

If you do launch campaigns the day before, make sure your campaign's "initial message sending window", also know as Start Date, aligns with when you want the messages to go out, so that users added before launching can't text until you want them to. Here's some other tips for launching campaigns the day before:   


Campaign Pre-loading

Campaigns do not need to be launched with senders attached. Senders can be added after a campaign is launched using Campaign Pre-loading. Campaign Pre-loading is the preferred set-up for texters using Self Assign, as all messages remain in 'Unassigned' after the campaign is launched. To save time adding senders, use the Campaign Invite Link.


When enabled, the ThruText Campaign Invite Link generates a campaign-specific link you can share and toggle on/off at any point. When the link is clicked, users will be navigated directly to their assignment in the messenger when they click the link. Used with Self Assign, this is a powerful tool to make message senders self-sufficient.


Texter Self Assign

Self Assign in ThruText allows message senders that have already been added to a campaign to assign themselves batches of messages from 'Unassigned'. The Self Assign feature is optional, can be enabled or disabled in draft or active campaigns, can be adjusted to different batch sizes, and its default state is "off."


How do I know what status my campaign is in?

When looking at the campaign's Details page you can see the phone number's provisioning status at the top of the page:

  • A yellow "Provisioning" status flag indicates that the phone number has not yet finished provisioning. While the campaign is provisioning, there is some risk that messages will be delivered at lower-than-normal rates.
    NOTE - If senders were added to the campaign at launch, they can send messages before the number has completed provisioning. To launch a campaign without senders, use Campaign Pre-Loading.
  • A green "Provisioning Complete" status flag shows that the phone number is ready to go!
  • A red "Provisioning Failed" status flag means that your campaign could not be provisioned with all of the carriers.  There is an increased risk that your messages will be delivered at lower-than-normal rates. To re-attempt campaign provisioning before your messages are sent, clone your campaign and archive the "Provisioning Failed" campaign once the new one is ready.

When a campaign has finished provisioning successfully, GetThru will send out a notification email to the admin that launched the campaign.


See our Blog Post You Can Now See Phone Number Provisioning Status for ThruText Campaigns for analysis on why waiting to send messages until your number is fully provisioned will increase deliverability