How to create and send an SMS

With magnews, you can create and send SMS communications to contacts in your database. You can choose the sender, personalize the text with recipient data, insert tracked links, and configure the sending options. In this guide, you'll learn how to create an SMS, manage message length, and send it to your selected audience.

Create an SMS Communication

To create a new SMS:

1. Go to Journey lab, click Create, and select Communication.
2. Choose the journey where you want to create the communication and click Create.
3. Enter a name for the communication.
4. Select SMS as the channel and click Create Communication.

Once you've created the communication, you can configure the sender and start writing your message.

Configure the SMS Sender

Before writing your message, assign a sender alias, which is the name that identifies the SMS sender.

If you've already configured a sender alias in the journey setup, the field is populated automatically.

Next, enter your content in the Message text area of the message.

To make your message clear and effective, keep it short and direct. If you want recipients to take action, add a call to action and, when necessary, a link.

As you write, magnews shows the number of remaining characters based on the selected encoding.

Choose the message encoding

The encoding determines which characters you can use and the maximum length of a single SMS.

The standard GSM 03.38 encoding supports the most common characters, including those used in the Italian alphabet.

If you're preparing a message for an international audience or need to use characters that aren't supported by the standard encoding, you can choose Unicode UCS-2.

The number of available characters therefore varies depending on the encoding used.

Manage long SMS messages

Below the text area, you can check how many characters you have remaining.

If you exceed the limit, magnews displays a warning in red.

In this case, you can:

• Shorten the message to stay within the character limit.
• Enable the option to send long messages.

If you enable long messages, the text is split into multiple parts. Each part is counted as a separate SMS and deducted from your remaining SMS package.

Personalize your SMS with placeholders

You can make your message more personal by using placeholders, which automatically insert recipient-specific information.

For example, you can add:

• The contact's name.
• Another database field.
• Service information, such as a PIN code or coupon.

To insert a placeholder:

1. Place the cursor where you want to insert the information in the Text area of the message.
2. Click the placeholder icon.
3. Select the field you want to use, such as the contact's name.
4. If necessary, enter a default value to use when the database field is empty.
5. Click Save.

When the SMS is sent, magnews replaces the placeholder with the corresponding value from the database. If the field is empty and you've configured a default value, that value is used instead.

Check placeholder length

When using a placeholder, also consider the length of the value that will be inserted into the message.

If a text field doesn't have a configured maximum character limit, it can contain up to 255 characters by default.

This means that the inserted value could cause the message to exceed the limit for a single SMS.

For example, if the message text contains 124 characters and you expect the recipient's name to contain up to 20 characters, the total length will be 144 characters, which is below the 160-character limit for GSM 03.38 encoding.

To prevent the message from being split into multiple parts, consider the length of dynamic values when preparing your text.

Insert a tracked link in your SMS

You can insert a tracked link into your SMS to monitor recipient interactions.

magnews also allows you to create shortlinks, which are shortened URLs that take up fewer characters in the message. 

Before inserting a tracked link, make sure you have:

• A configured domain.
• The Enable link tracking option enabled in the journey setup.

If the link isn't tracked correctly, check that both requirements are met.

To insert a tracked link:

1. Place the cursor where you want to add the link in the message text.
2. Enter the full URL, including the protocol, for example https://www.magnews.com/.
3. Click Save.
4. Check the message preview, where you can view the SMS text and a preview of the linked page.

If you can't see the link preview, check that the Enable link tracking option is enabled in the journey setup.

Important: You can omit the URL protocol to reduce the message length, but some mobile devices may not recognize the link as clickable. For better compatibility, we recommend using URLs that include the full protocol.

Select recipients and send the SMS

After configuring the sender and completing the text, you can choose who will receive your communication.

To proceed:

1. Return to the communication's homepage.
2. Click Add Recipients, select the target audience from your database, and save your selection.
3. Click Check to verify your available SMS credit.
4. Click Send, review the settings, and select Continue.
5. Choose the sending method and click Continue again.
6. Review the information and confirm the sending.

Before confirming, make sure the sender, message text, and recipients are correct.

Generate Text with Content Assistant

Need help writing your message? With Content Assistant, you can use magnews Q to generate your SMS text from a short description of what you want to communicate.

Click Create with Q, describe the message you want to generate, and preview the result. If you're happy with the text, click Use to insert it into your communication and personalize it before sending.