MMS campaigns allow you to create even more personalized campaigns through multimedia messages. If you add images or videos to your campaigns, it can increase user engagement and brand awareness. This guide will show you how to build an MMS campaign in the SMS Campaigns module.

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Refer to our main MMS Campaigns article to documentation which explains what you can do within the MMS Project Settings, and guide you through the integration process of MMS. Moreover, it elaborates on the SMS fallback and illustrates how the messages are tracked.

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MMS are handled by the third-party providers Sinch and Infobip. Both provide support only in the US and Canada. Note that due to regulatory requirements, service to Canada is fairly limited.

Setup in a Nutshell

1. Create an MMS Campaign

Go to Campaigns > SMS campaigns and click on + New SMS Campaign.

2. Choose Your Template

You can either build your MMS campaign from scratch or use our Predefined templates or Project templates.

• Predefined templates are part of the built-in library of templates that can be easily reused during the campaign creation process.
• Project templates are templates you build within the Asset Manager. These templates can be re-used during the campaign creation process.

Access to a list of predefined or project templates is visible when you click on the + New SMS Campaign button.

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SMS/MMS template settings are disabled by default. If you enable its settings, it includes:

• Link shortener
• Transfer identity to URL links
• Link transformation
• Custom campaign tracking

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When you create a new SMS/MMS campaign using a template, the campaign settings will be prefilled if the template Settings are enabled.

Therefore, you do not have to configure the settings every time for the same template. When you change a template in an existing campaign, you will have the option to apply the settings from the template or to not apply them, and keep the existing campaign settings unchanged.

3. Customize Your Message

The message and media to be sent can be typed within a user-friendly editor with an option to include Jinja personalization. The editor also displays a ‘characters counter’ and automatic highlighting of special characters, as well as the option to define fallback SMS with limited automatic message splitting.

1. Enter the Sender of the MMS. It can be short-coded (in the US), a toll-free number (in the US and Canada), a 10DLC number (in the US and Canada), or a long number (in Canada and Australia).
2. Fill out the Subject of the SMS.
3. Write your SMS text.
4. You can insert the media URL. There are 3 supported media types:

• Image (GIF/JPG/PNG)
• Video (MP4)
• vCard (VCF)
  You can read more about best practices later in this section of the article.

5. Configure SMS fallback where you enter the fallback message and enable automatic message splitting.

4. Configure the Settings

You can access SMS/MMS campaign settings through theSMS campaigns module in Settings. In this tab, you can configure various SMS/MMS parameters:

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Silent Hours Best Practices

1. Try to avoid disrupting your subscribers' quiet time, like late in the evening or early in the morning.
   1. It is best to avoid sending texts after 9 pm and before 8 am in the recipients' local time zone.
2. Not adhering to the silent hours may result in higher unsubcribe rates and spam reports.

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Consent Policy

Keep in mind to always set the right Consent category to comply with the applicable regulations. Read more about how to manage consents here.

5. Test the Message

You can preview your final SMS/MMS message before you actually send it or test it for the selected group of your customers.

You can test your SMS/MMS message through the editor when you click on the Send test SMS button. Here, you have two options:

1. You can send it to a specific provided phone number (e.g., you can send it to yourself).
2. You can send it to the previewed customer.

6. Run the Campaign

Once you created your MMS campaign and made all the adaptations needed, you are ready to run the campaign.

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Limitations

• Subject can have up to 80 characters and should not contain emojis or Unicode characters.
• Maximum allowed size of the message text is 1600 characters per message.
• The maximum recommended size of the media is 1MB.
• In the case of the fallback message, the single message can consist of 160 characters, and longer messages will be split into multiple messages.
• MMS messages are sent using the customer attribute phone. It is required to have the customer attribute phone set to a phone number in an international format (either starting with "00" or with "+").
• Maximum number of predefined senders is 100 per one single project.

MMS Best Practices for Media Files

There are several recommended practices regarding sizes, files, and design considerations of media:

• Recommended file formats are .jpg for images, .gif for animations, and .mp4 for videos.
• Regarding various media sizes and other recommendations, please read this article by Sinch or alternatively this article by Infobip.
• It is not recommended to use any transparency in your designs as the actual colors of images would be unpredictable.
• It is recommended to test your MMS to ensure the images/animations/videos/contact cards are displayed correctly.
• The supported media type for contact cards is text/vcard, read more about the standards of this format. Other media types such as text/directory, text/directory; profile=vcard and text/x-vcard are deprecated in favor of the text/vcard format.

SMS Campaigns Version History

You can restore accidentally deleted versions and continue your work where you ended. SMS Campaigns history offers also a view of changes, showing specific versions that have been changed.

You can access the version history when you:

1. Open your SMS/MMS Campaign.
2. Click on the three-dots menu.
3. Navigate to SMS Campaign history.

You will be able to preview the historical changes if you click on each version. It allows you to revert to it or make a copy of it. Moreover, in the SMS Campaigns list view, you can restore a deleted SMS campaign.

Campaign Evaluation

The SMS campaigns module provides an evaluation dashboard that displays multiple metrics that indicate the performance of your SMS campaign. You can analyze data for SMS performance, audience engagement, conversion funnel, and failed sends and deliveries. Refer to our documentation to lear more.