SMS Campaigns — Complete Guide

SMS campaigns deliver your message directly to your audience's phone, cutting through the noise of crowded email inboxes and social media feeds. With open rates consistently above 95% and most messages read within three minutes of delivery, SMS is one of the most effective channels for time-sensitive event marketing. This guide covers everything from setting up your SMS channel to analysing delivery reports.

Overview

FuriosaCRM's SMS campaigns are powered by BulkSMS, a reliable global SMS gateway that supports delivery to over 200 countries. SMS messages are sent from a shared short code or alphanumeric sender ID, depending on your region and carrier. Messages are processed through our background worker infrastructure using fair scheduling, ensuring prompt delivery even during high-volume periods.

SMS is ideal for high-impact, time-sensitive communications such as ticket on-sale announcements, last-minute event reminders, flash sales, and urgent updates like venue changes or cancellations. Due to the direct and personal nature of SMS, it should be used strategically and sparingly to maintain engagement without causing fatigue.

Every SMS campaign in FuriosaCRM includes delivery receipt (DLR) tracking via webhooks, so you can see exactly which messages were delivered, which failed, and why. Campaign reports provide detailed breakdowns of delivery rates, costs, and performance metrics.

SMS Credits

SMS messages are charged on a per-message credit basis. Each standard SMS (up to 160 GSM-7 characters) consumes one credit. Longer messages are split into multiple segments, with each segment consuming one credit. Messages containing Unicode characters (such as emojis or accented characters) use a smaller character limit of 70 characters per segment.

Your credit balance is displayed in the SMS channel settings and on the campaign creation page. Credits are deducted when messages are dispatched, not when they are delivered. If a message fails to deliver, the credit is still consumed as the sending cost is incurred regardless of delivery outcome.

You can purchase additional SMS credits directly from the platform. Navigate to Channels > SMS and click Buy Credits. Credits are available in bundles of various sizes, with larger bundles offering better per-message rates. Credits do not expire and roll over between billing periods.

Creating an SMS Campaign

To create an SMS campaign, navigate to Campaigns in the sidebar, click Create Campaign, and select SMS as your channel. Enter a campaign name for your internal reference, then select the audience and optionally a group to target.

The campaign creation page shows a live count of contacts with valid phone numbers in your selected audience or group. Contacts without phone numbers are automatically excluded. Review this count to estimate your credit usage before composing your message.

Next, compose your message in the text area. The character counter updates in real time as you type, showing both the current character count and the number of SMS segments your message will consume. Keep an eye on this counter to manage costs effectively.

Message Composition

Composing an effective SMS requires a different approach than email. You have a limited character budget, so every word must count. Here are the key considerations for SMS message composition:

Character limits: A standard SMS message supports up to 160 characters using the GSM-7 character set (standard Latin letters, numbers, and common symbols). If your message exceeds 160 characters, it is split into multiple segments of 153 characters each (7 characters are used for the concatenation header). Plan your message to fit within one segment when possible to minimise credit usage.

Unicode handling: If your message includes emojis, accented characters (beyond GSM-7), or characters from non-Latin scripts, the message switches to Unicode encoding. This reduces the character limit to 70 characters per segment (67 for multi-segment messages). Avoid emojis unless they are essential to your message.

Personalisation: You can use merge tags like {{first_name}} in your SMS messages. The actual character count after substitution will vary per contact, so the character counter shows an estimate. Keep your personalised messages well under the segment limit to account for longer names.

URL shortening: Long URLs consume valuable character space. FuriosaCRM does not automatically shorten URLs, so we recommend using a URL shortener before pasting links into your SMS. Alternatively, use a short, branded link from your custom domain for a more professional appearance.

Scheduling & Sending

Like email campaigns, SMS campaigns support both immediate and scheduled sending. Click Send Now to begin dispatching immediately, or click Schedule to set a future date and time. The campaign scheduler cron checks for scheduled campaigns every minute, so your messages will begin sending within 60 seconds of the scheduled time.

For time-sensitive announcements, schedule your SMS to arrive slightly before the critical moment. For example, if tickets go on sale at 10:00 AM, schedule the SMS for 9:55 AM to give recipients time to open the link and be ready. Large campaigns are sent in batches to comply with carrier rate limits and ensure reliable delivery.

SMS campaigns support batch sending to manage delivery across large audiences. The worker processes messages in configurable batch sizes with appropriate delays between batches. This prevents carrier throttling and ensures consistent delivery rates across your entire audience.

Delivery Reports

FuriosaCRM receives delivery receipts (DLRs) from BulkSMS via JSON webhook callbacks. These callbacks are processed in real time and update the status of each individual message in your campaign. The delivery statuses you will see are:

• Delivered — The message was successfully delivered to the recipient's handset.
• Failed — The message could not be delivered. Common reasons include invalid phone numbers, handset turned off for extended periods, or carrier rejection.
• Pending — The message has been accepted by the carrier but delivery has not yet been confirmed. Most pending messages resolve within minutes.

Pause & Resume

If you need to stop a running SMS campaign, you can pause it from the campaign detail page. Pausing immediately stops the worker from dispatching further messages. Messages already submitted to BulkSMS will still be delivered, but no new messages will be sent.

To resume a paused campaign, click Resume. The worker picks up where it left off, continuing to send to the remaining contacts in the queue. The campaign report tracks the pause and resume events so you have a complete audit trail of the campaign lifecycle.

Pausing is useful when you discover an error in your message, when an event is postponed, or when you need to conserve credits for a higher-priority campaign. Note that pausing and resuming may cause some recipients to receive the message at different times, so use this feature thoughtfully for time-sensitive content.

Campaign Reports

SMS campaign reports provide a clear picture of your campaign's performance. The report includes total messages sent, total delivered, total failed, pending count, delivery rate percentage, credits consumed, and estimated cost. These metrics update in real time as DLRs arrive.

You can export the full delivery report as a CSV file, which includes each recipient's phone number (partially masked for privacy), delivery status, and timestamp. This export is useful for reconciliation, auditing, and identifying contacts with consistently failing phone numbers that should be cleaned from your audience.

Over time, review your delivery rates across multiple campaigns. A consistently high failure rate (above 5%) may indicate data quality issues in your audience. Use the phone number cleaning tool (available on Pro plans and above) to validate and normalise phone numbers before sending.

Best Practices

• Message length — Keep messages under 160 characters (one segment) whenever possible. Every extra segment doubles or triples your credit cost.
• Send timing — Avoid sending SMS outside business hours (before 9 AM or after 9 PM). For event reminders, send 1-2 hours before the event or on-sale time.
• Opt-out compliance — Always include a way for recipients to opt out, such as "Reply STOP to unsubscribe". This is required by most carriers and regulations.
• Frequency caps — Do not send more than 2-3 SMS messages per week to the same audience. SMS is a high-attention channel and overuse leads to opt-outs.
• Clear sender ID — Where supported, use an alphanumeric sender ID (like your brand name) instead of a random phone number. This improves trust and open rates.
• Call to action — Every SMS should have a clear, single call to action. Do not try to pack multiple messages into one SMS.
• Test first — Send a test message to your own phone number before launching the campaign to verify content, links, and character count.