SMS Text Channel Setup: Opt-Out Campaign

After you have your Short Code set up within Engage+, you can set up your opt-out process for consumers who wish to unsubscribe from your promotional SMS Text Campaigns. When a consumer opts-outs, he or she is no longer a valid recipient for any of your promotional SMS Text marketing efforts.

The opt-out campaign should be set up as a perpetually running, Trigger-based Campaign that uses specified Keyword Responses (such as CANCEL or STOP) as the trigger mechanism. Upon receipt of a text message with one of these keywords, the system will set the consumer's Status flag to "Opt out via reply," and respond back to the consumer with a "sorry to see you go" message, as depicted in the following process flow:

To set up the "Opt-Out" Campaign, you must first define the Keyword Group that contains the opt-out -related Keyword or Keywords, then create the trigger-based Campaign.

Create the Opt-Out Keyword Group

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To set up the "Opt-Out" Keyword Group:

From the System Tray, select Campaigns > Execution > SMS Keywords. The SMS Keywords screen is displayed.
Above the list of existing Keyword Groups, click the New Item button. A "New Keyword Group" pop-up window is displayed.
In the "Name" field, enter a name for the new Keyword Group.
Click save new item. The Workspace is refreshed to show a blank Keyword Group detail screen.
The "SMS Keywords" section is used to define all of the Keywords in this group. In the "Add New Keyword" field, enter a Keyword, then click the add button (plus-sign icon). Repeat this step as needed to define more Keywords for this Keyword Group.
In the "Status Fields" section, place a check mark in the "Opt-Out Flag" check box.
The "Status Fields" section is used to set a status flag based on the receipt of a response containing one of the Keywords in this group. Every mobile phone field (where the Data Type of the field is "Phone") has a corresponding, system-generated Status Field. Select the desired phone field from the drop-down menu, then select a status value of "Opt-Out via Reply."
When finished, click Edit > Actions > Save in the Tool Ribbon.

Create the Opt-Out Campaign

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To create the Opt-Out Campaign:

From the System Tray, select Campaigns > Management > Campaigns. The Campaigns screen is displayed.
In the Tool Ribbon, click Home > New. A "New Item" pop-up window is displayed.
To select the folder where you want to save this new Campaign, click the folder name in the Navigation Tree on the left side of this pop-up. The "Where?" field is updated with the selected folder name.
In the "Name" field, enter a name for your new Campaign. This name must be unique within the selected folder.
From the "Data Source" drop-down menu, select the source table from which this Campaign will pull its audience of recipients.
From the "Type" drop-down menu, select "Event-triggered."
From the "Channel" drop-down menu, select "SMS."
Click save new item. The Workspace is refreshed to show a blank Campaign details screen, where you can configure the details of the Campaign.
The trigger mechanism for this Campaign is the receipt of a text message containing any of the Keywords in the "Opt-Out" Keyword Group you defined above. To define this trigger, click Edit > Add Trigger in the Tool Ribbon. From the "Add Trigger" drop-down menu, select ""Mobile SMS Response." The "Build Mobile (SMS) Response Criteria" pop-up window is displayed.
Place a check mark next to "... to a specific SMS ShortCode." The system creates a new tab named "SMS Short Code."
From the "Select a Short Code" drop-down menu, select the Short Code that customers will use to send you text responses.
Return to the "Add Criteria" tab. Place a check mark next to " ... with a specific SMS keyword." The system creates a new tab named "SMS Keyword."
From the "Sender Profile" drop-down menu, select the Short Code that you'll use to send out the "opt-out" message.
The default audience for a triggered-Campaign is "All Triggered Records." You can optionally apply a Filter to this audience, but for the purposes of an Opt-Out response, you likely want to leave the default audience.
In the "Content" section, select a message encoding option -- either "Latin 9 (ISO)" or "Unicode."
The "Expiration Date" field is used to set an end-date on the Keyword Group bound to this Campaign. You likely want your Opt-Out Keyword Group bound to this Campaign indefinitely, so leave this field blank.
Leave the "Content" field blank. You'll enter the opt-out message below, when you bind the Keyword Group to this Campaign.
The default Campaign schedule will queue and send messages immediately after receipt of the trigger message. The "Schedule" section allows you to optionally define a customized queueing / sending schedule for your Campaign.
The "Responses" section allows you to set up link tracking for any links that the platform detected within your message content.
Next you need to "bind" the Opt-Out Keyword Group to this Campaign. Binding the Keyword Group means that all responses will be tracked and associated to this Campaign only (Keyword Groups can be bound to only one Campaign at a time). In the Tool Ribbon, click Responses > Add Keyword Response. The "SMS Keyword Responses" pop-up window is displayed.
From the "Short Code" drop-down menu, select the Short Code to which customers will text their responses.
From the "Keyword" drop-down menu, select the Opt-Out Keyword Group you created above.
From the "Match Phone Field" drop-down menu, select the desired "Phone" field on the Campaign's source table. The system will look for a match between the mobile phone number on the customer's response and the field you select here, in order to identify the customer.
In the "Confirmation Message" text field, enter your opt-out message. Typically this message should say something like "We're sorry to see you go." You may want to include instructions for how to opt-in, in case the consumer changes his or her mind.

Note: The reason you enter your opt-out message here within this "Confirmation Message" field, rather than in the Campaign's main "Content" field is because of the difference in the way the platform handles these two fields.

Messages entered into the main Campaign "Content" field go through the platform's full message deployment process, which includes a check of the consumer's Status field. Consumers that have a Status of "Opt-out via Reply" will be restricted from receiving any messages. When a consumer sends you an Opt-out keyword, the system immediately toggles their Status flag to "Opt-out via Reply." Therefore, any message that you entered into the "Content" field would never get delivered, because the deployment process would see their Status flag, and prevent the message from getting sent.
Messages entered into the "Confirmation Message" field within the "SMS Keyword Responses" pop-up window do NOT go through the full deployment process, and are therefore NOT validated against the consumer's Status field. A message entered into this field will always get sent, regardless of the consumer's Status. In this manner, the platform can still send out your "sorry to see you go" text message, even to a consumer who just opt-ed out of receiving text messages.

Click save response. The system adds a new section named "SMS Keywords" within the "Responses" section of the Campaign detail screen. From this new section, you can see a list of all the automated response Keyword Groups assigned to this Campaign.
In the Tool Ribbon, click Edit > Save.
In the Function Menu, click "Launching." The Launch screen is displayed.
In the Tool Ribbon, click Launch > Launch Campaign.

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