Carrier Filtering
Information about carrier filtering and best practices to avoid it.
The Basics
When a message is sent from Avochato, it is sent to the recipient's carrier service (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc.) for delivery to the recipient's device. Once a message is sent from Avochato to a carrier, the carrier may filter the message and prevent its delivery if they deem it violates their messaging policy or uses promotional language.
Carriers do not share their particular reasoning for filtering a specific message, and once a phone number is being blocked by a carrier Avochato is not able to un-block it. However, we do have general tips and knowledge for avoiding carrier scrutiny in the first place.
Best Practices
Comply with carrier and government guidelines
There are certain guidelines from carriers and federal laws to abide by when texting customers. Carriers are increasingly filtering messages that could be interpreted as spam or unwanted. The best way to have reliable deliverability of your messages is to have genuine conversations with people that have opted in and continue to interact with your messaging.
- State who you are. Announce your identity and remind customers why you are reaching out to them.
- Make sure your contacts opt in. When you collect contacts’ phone numbers there should be language stating that you may contact them. Ex: Having a checkbox on a web form giving permission to reach out to the contact via text, email etc. For extra coverage, consider implementing Double Opt In
- Allow for opting out. Make sure that your contacts are fully aware that they can opt out of receiving messages from you at any time by sending any of these keywords: “STOP, STOPALL, CANCEL, UNSUBSCRIBE, QUIT"
- Vary your messaging. Carriers detect repeated messages as spam and frequently filter those messages.
- Use conversational language. Avoid generic marketing lingo and messaging such as: $, FREE, PROMO, DEAL, etc.
Many of these guidelines are best practices to be compliant with the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). Read the full TCPA law here.
What to Avoid
- Opt outs. While it is important that you disclose to contacts how they can opt out, generally a high opt-out rate tells carriers that your messages may be unwanted and can increase the likelihood of filtering.
- Avoid links and shorteners. Try to refrain from sending out messages with links; carriers often filter messages containing URLs and will flag domains. Shortened links in particular (e.g TinyURL, bit.ly) have been known to exponentially increase filtering.
- Avoid referring to other numbers. This is considered suspicious and will likely be flagged by carriers.
- Avoid promotional language. Common keywords are DOLLAR SIGN ($), FREE, PROMO, DEAL, etc.