Before you start
Things you need to know:
If you’re not using Fresh Relevance for triggered SMS messages, skip to Get started with SmartBlocks.
You must create a messaging channel for SMS.
Learn how in the section SMS messaging providers.
Introduction to SMS triggers
SMS messages in Fresh Relevance work in a very similar way to messages sent by email, but are much simpler: the whole message is created as a cart layout. No part of the content comes from your SMS messaging provider.
SMS triggers are used for product abandonment messaging, and the cart layout contains the text of the SMS message along with the abandoned products. It also controls how the contents of a shopper's cart are formatted for various types of triggered SMS messages.
Create a cart layout for SMS messages
Go to Content > Cart Layout
Select CREATE CART LAYOUT FOR TRIGGERED MESSAGE FROM TEMPLATE.
Enter a name for the layout.
Select the SMS template.
In the Edit the Cart Layout field, find the body text for the SMS, for example Did you forget about these?.
This is the text not surrounded by curly brackets.
Select SAVE.
SMS messages should be kept short, so you may want to cut down the text. You could also consider decreasing the number of products that are included in the message. You can reduce it to one product by changing the following line in the cart layout:
{%- set max_products_to_show = 1 %}
Best practice for cart layouts for SMS
Keep them short. SMS messages are charged at 1 message per 160 characters.
Only include one or two products.
Think about sorting the products by price, so as to only include the most expensive.
If your ecommerce system supports it, use cart rebuild links. People are much more likely to click on a different device to the one they were using before.
Learn more in Rebuild the shopping .
Test your cart layout for SMS
Go to Content > Cart Layout.
Hover over the layout you want to test and select VIEW.
Under Send Test Message, expand the drop-down menu and select your trigger program.
Enter the mobile number you want to test to in the Mobile field
The mobile number must be in E.164 format, meaning it must start with + followed by the relevant country code.Select SEND TEST MESSAGE(S).
Permissions for triggered messages
Permissions for triggered emails are normally handled by your messaging provider. By default, in Fresh Relevance, Require Positive Permission is not enabled for email. Permission to send email marketing communications is checked by your messaging provider, and not by Fresh Relevance.
Permissions for triggered SMS are handled differently. By default, Require Positive Permission is enabled for SMS. This means that permission to send is checked by Fresh Relevance.
Some SMS messaging providers do further checks of their own.
It's therefore important that the primary permission field in the person record, Person.medium.sms.perm, is set to 1 if permission has been given to receive SMS messages. This can be set either by importing data or submitting data on your website.
To adjust SMS permission checking, expand the User menu and go to Settings > Triggers and Messaging integrations > Trigger Settings.
This is an important area to understand. Learn more in Set marketing permissions with data fields.