Creating SMS Creatives in SAS Customer Intelligence 360

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SAS Customer Intelligence 360 now has a built-in way to send SMS Messages to customers. The purpose of this post is to detail how to create the Creatives that will be sent in an SMS Task. Future posts will go into more detail on how to deliver SMS Tasks.

The creative for an SMS Task is a text message that is sent directly to customers’ phones. It is recommended to include the following three components in a message.

1. The text-based marketing content or offer.
2. A link that directs customers either to a mobile application or website where they can fulfil the offer.
3. Instructions on how to opt out of receiving SMS based marketing.

Additionally, SMS creatives can include personalization and emojis.

It is recommended to create creatives for SMS tasks in the Content section of the Task design experience. First, choose to create a New creative or select from existing creatives.

Select any image to see a larger version.
Mobile users: To view the images, select the "Full" version at the bottom of the page.

If New creative is selected, then a preview of what the Creative will look like will be displayed. You are then able to enter the desired text in the Text message box.

There are a few things to keep in mind when creating the Creative. There is a maximum of 160 characters allowed in an SMS creative. If this is exceeded, then when the message is delivered it will be delivered as two fragments which will result in additional costs.

Next, to enter a variable into the Creative select the Insert variable button and select the desired location where to enter the variable. The variable name can be changed. It is then necessary to select what attribute will be used to go in place of the variable for each creative. For example, in this message I have entered the customers name as the variable. I would then need to connect this attribute after the creative is saved.

It is recommended to consider a buffer length when using merge tags to stay in the 160 characters limit. For example, if a message contains merge tags, restrict the total image length to about 145, to give room for the merge tags to resolve and still meet the 160-character limit for a single SMS message.

Additionally, there is an option to shorten the link. This will enable tracking automatically and it will shorten the length of the URL in the creative. For example, in this creative the link www.sas.hotel.com/book/dessert gets shortened to https://2.lnkme.net/LnRyZX, reducing the character count.

SAS Customer Intelligence 360 has also built in the capability to generate recommendations for creatives. I will dive into this feature more in a future post.

Once the Creative is ready make sure to save it, give it a name, and publish it. It will then be ready to be sent to customers.

For additional information on creating SMS Creatives see the Mobile Messaging with SAS Customer Intelligence 360 course which is part of the SAS Customer Intelligence Learning Subscription.

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