Guidelines for using SMS marketing through Constant Contact

What you need to know about consent, prohibited use, quiet hours, your assigned phone number, and other policies for SMS marketing

Important: Our SMS marketing tools are only available to US customers (excluding Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands) with a valid 9-digit Tax ID Number (TIN), or an Employer ID Number (EIN) for businesses assigned by the IRS. Sole proprietors who are the only employee do not need to enter Employer ID Number (EIN). Contacts with phone numbers from Puerto Rico can join your list and receive text messages. Learn more.

• Privacy policy and terms of service for SMS marketing
• Consent
• Prohibited use and content
• Assigned phone number
• Quiet hours
• Abandoned cart text message restrictions

Privacy policy and terms of service for SMS marketing

Since SMS marketing requires requesting and handling personal data from your subscribers, a link to your organization’s updated privacy policy and terms of service is required to use our SMS marketing tools. You can easily upload a copy of your privacy policy to your Constant Contact library to generate a URL, or add a URL to where your privacy policy is currently hosted online.

If you don't yet have a privacy policy or terms of service document, you can use our templates to create them, either ahead of time or during the registration process:

• Example template: Privacy Policy for SMS [Download
• Example template: Mobile Messaging Terms of Service for SMS [Download]

For more information, please check out our article Privacy policies and terms of service for SMS.

Consent

At Constant Contact, we make it easy for you to send text messages only to contacts that genuinely want to receive them. Since anything other than this can be considered spam, we built our tools to keep you compliant and have put in place all the required elements by requiring consent from your contacts and explicitly stating that they have given you permission for SMS text messages, in addition to email consent.

Get permission: For more information, please see Constant Contact's SMS permission policy.

Automatic outgoing messages

One of the key differences between SMS marketing and email marketing is that there are specific text messages automatically sent to opt-ins, ensuring your contacts have given consent. These automated messages keep you and your account compliant with the consent laws around SMS marketing. These text messages will be:

• Confirm opt-in: This is what someone receives when they submit their information to opt in to SMS text message marketing.

  Thanks for your interest in receiving {SENDER NAME} news & alerts! Reply YES to confirm your subscription or STOP to cancel. Msg&data rates may apply.

• Opted in: This is what will be received when someone replies “YES” to confirm their subscription.

  Welcome to recurring text alerts! Msg&data rates may apply. Text HELP for help & STOP to stop. Privacy: {policy link}
  
  

• Help: This is what will be received when someone texts “HELP” to your assigned phone number.

  {SENDER NAME}: Please visit {WEBSITE} for support or call {PHONE NUMBER}. Msg frequency varies. Msg&data rates may apply. Reply STOP to cancel.

• Unsupported text: When an unsupported command or message is texted to your assigned phone number, they will receive this message.

  {SENDER NAME}: Sorry, we didn’t understand that. Visit us at {WEBSITE}. Reply HELP for help, STOP to stop. Msg&data rates apply.

• Opt-out: This message will be sent when an SMS Subscriber wishes to stop receiving SMS marketing messages and texts “STOP” to your assigned phone number. 

  You will no longer receive text messages from {SENDER NAME}. Type UNSTOP to restart messaging.

• START and UNSTOP replies: When a previously subscribed phone number has opted out of SMS marketing messages, and texts “START” or “UNSTOP” to your assigned phone number, they will receive this message.

  Welcome back to {SENDER NAME} text alerts. Msg&data rates apply. Text HELP for help & STOP to cancel.

• Reply to an opted-out customer: If someone who has opted out of your SMS marketing messages attempts to text your assigned phone number, they will receive this message.

  {SENDER NAME}: Sorry, we didn’t understand that. Visit us at {WEBSITE}. Reply HELP for help, STOP to stop, or START to resubscribe. Msg&data rates apply.

Important: The automatic outgoing messages count towards your monthly text message limit for billing purposes.

Opt-out policy 

Just as with email marketing, you are required to have an easy opt-out option for your text recipients at the end of each SMS message. We automatically include instructions with a command (STOP) for recipients to opt out in every text message, to comply with laws and regulations for text message marketing.

Please see Title 47, Chapter 5, Subchapter II, Part I, § 227 of the U.S. Code for more information about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).

Prohibited use and content

It’s important to note that SMS prohibited content is stricter than email. Even if you meet Constant Contact’s content requirements, you should confirm that your SMS content is permitted. Constant Contact prohibits any SMS messaging that includes the following:

• Illegal substances
• Sex, hate, alcohol, firearms, and tobacco (S.H.A.F.T.)
• Tactical Weapons (knives, swords, etc)
• Third-party lead generation
• Political campaigns
• High-risk financial services
• Debt collection and forgiveness
• Gambling
• Multi-level marketing
• Cannabis

Please see the CTIA's Short Code Monitoring Handbook for more information about S.H.A.F.T. and prohibited content.

Assigned phone number

Upon approval for use of the SMS tool, you'll receive an assigned 10 DLC phone number to send marketing messages from. 10 DLC phone numbers are long code phone numbers that allow you to send at a higher volume than a normal phone number while meeting the legal requirements for sending marketing messages to those who opt in. In addition, 10 DLC phone numbers allow messages to be sent at a lower cost than a standard text message, and with better delivery rates.

Quiet hours

Marketing to someone via text message also comes with limitations on when you are allowed to send messages. Quiet hours for SMS marketing messages are between 8:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. We have built the quiet hours into our SMS tool to prevent you from sending SMS messages during quiet hours:

• The quiet hours are based on the time zone you select in your account settings.
• Quiet hours are also applied to SMS phone numbers by area code. For example, if you're in New York and sending to a number with a California area code, the message won't be sent to that contact until the quiet hours based on the Pacific time zone are over.

Abandoned cart text message restrictions

When using an SMS message to remind someone that they’ve left some items in their cart, there are several requirements that you must follow:

• An automation path is limited to a single SMS message containing the abandoned cart URL. 
• The message must be scheduled to send within 48 hours of the cart being abandoned.
• You cannot complete the abandoned cart transaction on your customer’s behalf.

Any links we provide from non-Constant Contact sites or information about non-Constant Contact products or services are provided as a courtesy and should not be construed as an endorsement by Constant Contact.

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