Understanding SMS Delivery Analytics

SMS Delivery vs. SMS Deliverability

SMS delivery and SMS deliverability are often used interchangeably, but they measure different aspects of message performance. While both are essential for evaluating SMS campaigns, understanding the distinction helps identify issues and improve overall effectiveness.

• SMS delivery refers to whether a message has reached a recipient’s mobile device. If a message is marked as delivered, the network carrier has confirmed its arrival.

• SMS deliverability is a broader measure of a message's ability to reach recipients, considering factors that may prevent delivery, such as carrier filtering and content restrictions.

Goals and Outcomes

Yotpo now provides SMS delivery performance sections on analytics pages. Understanding SMS delivery analytics is essential for evaluating campaign and flow performance, optimizing future sends, and ultimately reducing costs.

In this article, you’ll learn how to read the data and use it to make informed, data-driven decisions.

SMS Delivery Analytics Overview

The SMS delivery performance section provides a breakdown of messages by status:

• Attempted: The messages that were attempted to be sent in the campaign or flow. This number equals the total number of subscribers targeted in the selected segment or list.

• Sent: The messages that left Yotpo’s platform and were billed.

• Delivered: The messages that left Yotpo’s platform and received a successful delivery receipt from the network carrier, confirming they reached their destination.

• Failed: The messages that were sent from Yotpo’s platform but received an unsuccessful delivery status from the network carrier, meaning they didn’t reach the recipient. This can happen when, for example, the destination is out of signal for a long period.

• Skipped: The messages that didn’t leave Yotpo’s platform and weren’t billed. The reasons for skipping a message include:

  • Restricted country: The recipient's country is not supported for sending messages due to restrictions in the app’s Country Limitations settings.

  • Smart Sending: The message was skipped due to Smart Sending settings, which prevent excessive messaging.

  • Unsubscribed: The recipient has opted out of receiving marketing SMS messages.

  • Invalid number: The recipient’s phone number is incorrectly formatted or doesn’t exist.

  • Unverified TFN: The toll-free number used for sending messages has not been verified.

  • Landline: The recipient's number is a landline and cannot receive SMS messages.

  • Banned: The recipient has been blocked from receiving messages, such as in cases of fraud.

  • S.H.A.F.T.-restricted: The message contains content that violates the S.H.A.F.T. guidelines and was blocked.

Accessing Your SMS Delivery Analytics

In Yotpo SMS & Email, you can send text messages as part of single SMS campaigns, multi-message campaigns, and flows. Each campaign and flow has a dedicated analytics page, allowing you to track performance.

Understanding SMS Billing

Understanding what you’re billed for helps you manage costs effectively and make informed decisions about your SMS strategy. In Yotpo SMS & Email, you are billed only for messages that have successfully left the platform. This includes messages with the status Sent, Delivered, and Failed. Messages that remain in the Attempted or Skipped status never leave the platform and are not billed.

Improving SMS Deliverability

Optimizing SMS deliverability ensures that more of your messages successfully reach recipients. Best practices include avoiding flagged keywords, excessive capitalization, and URL shorteners that might trigger carrier filtering.

Mobile operating systems like Android and iOS may automatically flag messages as spam and move them to a Spam & Blocked folder. To prevent this, encourage subscribers to save your sending number in their contacts. Adding a virtual business card to your message makes this process easier. To learn more, see Virtual Contact Card Settings.