Were my messages delivered?


Assessing message deliverability is integral to running a good texting program. Once messages leave ThruText, they go to our provider, who may encounter issues forwarding them to carriers or delivering them to contacts. When that happens, admins can review deliverability in a few ways.


TABLE OF CONTENTS


Campaign delivery analytics

Delivery can be determined at a glance on the campaign details page using the campaign's analytics. The Delivery Rate represents the number of messages that are in the "sent" status and do not have any error codes (regardless of whether those codes are billable or unbillable) divided by the total number of messages in the "sent" status. Admins can expect to see a number greater than 90%. If the number is less than 90%, admins should take steps to assess why a campaign has a low delivery rate using message exports or by reaching out to [email protected].


Message export

A message export contains the details for every incoming and outgoing message. 

Each outgoing message has its sending status listed, and if the message encounters an error, its error code is also included. Some errors are not billable, and the billing status is also shown in the message export. By opening the file in Excel or Google Sheets and creating a pivot table, an admin could see the total number of messages of each error code in the campaign.


Some message errors are specific to the content sent in the initial message. For example, if a message had the 4771 error, the body of the text likely contains a link. Comparing the body of the message to the error code is helpful in understanding why some messages were blocked.


Tips for reviewing deliverability 

If the campaign's analytics display a low delivery rate, the next step should be generating a campaign-level message export and filtering based on the messages that have an error code to review the type of error(s) encountered.


Examples:

  • SPAM filtering:
    • If there are 4470 errors (rejected as SPAM), you should review the initial message to ensure it meets the best practice standards. This may include removing any shortened links or avoiding prohibited words. For more details on initial message best practices, please check out our SMS Best Practices and MMS Best Practices guides.
    • If there are 4470 errors (rejected as SPAM) and you are using a dedicated number, it may indicate that the number has been flagged due to a high rate of recipients marking messages as spam. For these cases, we would recommend deleting the phone number and utilizing a different dedicated number going forward. If you are at your maximum of dedicated numbers within your account and require a new one, please reach out to support at [email protected] for further assistance.
  • If there are 4730 (no route to desination) or 4781 (throttling) errors, the issue may be that the campaign's messages were sent out before provisioning completed for the sending number. If that is the cause, the admin will want to ensure they wait until provisioning has completed before sending on the new copy of the campaign.
  • If there are 4700 or 4720 errors (invalid service type), the issue is likely that the number being contacted is invalid. When one of these errors is received, admins should not send additional outreach as it most likely means the number is no longer available to text.
  • If there are 4411 or 4751 errors (message is too long/message size invalid), the message could not be delivered because the total size of the message exceeded the allowable limit. This includes the message text in addition to any attachments. For MMS, carriers recommend keeping file sizes under 500kb for optimal delivery. See our guide on resizing your media for tips on image compression to reduce the file size while maintaining image quality. AT&T in particular will return this error for SMS messages that exceed 10 segments or MMS messages greater than 750kb.


If one believes they have determined the cause of the errors and wants to resend outreach to the contacts whose messages weren't originally delivered, they can create a new campaign targeting these undelivered by completing the following steps:

  • Filter the message export for contacts that were successfully reached in the original campaign. Save the file to create a "Remove" group.
  • Clone the original campaign.
  • Add the original group (or past campaign) as the base segment in the cloned campaign.
  • Add the new "remove" group as a remove segment in the clone to exclude anyone who was already contacted.
  • Update the initial message to follow best practices (if needed).
  • Add the preferred senders and launch the cloned campaign.