SMS Studio
Write a text message, check it, review it with your team, send yourself a test, and send it to an audience – all on the same document. Every save keeps a copy in your library, where journeys pick it up.
Open it from Studios → SMS & Messaging → SMS Studio, or from the journey SMS step ("or write it in SMS Studio").
Write
The header carries the text itself: its name (click to rename), its review status, the brand it belongs to, and Send and Save. The chevron next to the name opens recent texts, a new one, or a starting point.
A new text opens on Describe the text: say what the message should
do, choose Marketing or Service, and Write the text drafts one
message in your brand's voice (the voice set on the business profile) –
links come out as {link} for you to fill in, and nothing is invented. Or Start from a template (a
welcome, an offer, a come-back nudge, an event, a service confirmation,
a verification code) or Write it yourself.
The text sits on a sheet and is sent word for word. The toolbar above it
inserts where the cursor is: Personalize opens the same field
palette as e-mails – First name inserts {{p.first_name|there}},
which greets by name and says "there" when the name is missing, and
every column you imported is there too; Brand name fills in the
brand; Add a link takes an address and puts it in as a tracked short
link on your brand's link domain – a fixed short host plus an eight-character
code instead of a whole address, and every tap counts in What's Working and
can trigger a journey. Which domain your links carry is chosen in Brand
Settings › Messaging by an organisation owner or administrator; the shorter
the domain, the more of each text is left for your words. Links in the text are listed on the Message tab; a long raw
address can be shortened from there. STOP replies opt people out on
their own, so there is no opt-out line to add.
Under the sheet, the numbers a carrier counts: characters, parts, what
is left in this part, and the messages billed for the chosen audience.
They count the text as it goes out, never the placeholders you
typed: {{p.first_name_vocative|hráči}} is counted as the name a
recipient gets, and a condition or a formatted value such as
{{ facts.total_spent | money: 'CZK' }} is filled in as it would be for
the sample person. With no audience chosen, a sample person stands in –
Petr Novák for a Czech brand (so "Petře"), Peter Novák for a Slovak one,
John Doe otherwise – and the line under the numbers says so. Choose an
audience and every member's own name is counted: messages billed is the
real total, and a name that adds a part shows as "1 to 2 parts depending
on the name". When a text splits, Where it splits shows each part as
the carrier cuts it, numbered, with its own count, so you see the seam
before a recipient does.
Accents
One accented letter switches the whole text to Unicode: 70 characters in one text and 67 per part once it splits, instead of 160 and 153. A Czech text of 71 to 160 characters is two or three parts with accents and one without – which is why Czech and Slovak SMS usually go without them.
Under the numbers, Accents gives the choice with what each costs, for example Without accents: 1 part · default and Keep accents: 2 parts. The brand's default is marked on its own option. For a Czech or Slovak brand the line is there whenever the text is, and says No accents in this text: 1 part either way when nothing would change; for other brands it shows once the choice changes the text. The parts also count someone without a first name and, for Czech and Slovak brands, names with accents of their own, so a real name that adds a part shows as "1 to 2 parts".
- Without accents sends every accented letter as its plain letter (á → a, č → c, ř → r, é → e, ů → u …), € as EUR, and turns typographic quotes, dashes, the ellipsis and special spaces into their plain forms, so the text stays at 160 characters a part. Links, e-mail addresses, numbers and the opt-out number go out exactly as written.
- Keep accents sends the text as written. (In both modes a space you cannot see – a no-break space pasted from Word, the one in a formatted amount – goes as a plain space, so it never doubles the cost.)
A brand whose content language is Czech or Slovak sends without accents unless a text says otherwise; every other brand keeps the text as written. (A brand with no language of its own takes its owner's account language.) A choice you make is saved with the text and applies wherever it is sent – a journey reading it from your library uses it too, and shows it on the step with a link back here. A text you never chose for, including every text saved before the choice existed, follows the brand's default. The writing itself never changes: the AI still writes proper Czech and Slovak, and the accents come off only when the text is sent, so you can switch back at any time.
An emoji or a letter from another alphabet keeps a text Unicode even without accents. The numbers then say which character it is and what the text would be without it, for example Still Unicode: "😀" is outside the SMS alphabet. Without it: 1 part.
Message tab: To, Marketing or service, Sends from
To is the audience this text goes to – one of your audiences from Customer Intelligence → Audiences, with how many people it holds and how many have a phone number (only they are texted). New audience opens the builder – from an event, a profile attribute, or both. The audience is saved with the text, and Send starts from it.
Marketing or service says what kind of text this is. A marketing text goes only to people who agreed to marketing, and a STOP reply ends it. A number that came in with a new customer and no SMS consent is skipped until consent is given, and the send says how many ("without marketing SMS consent") – see Unsubscribes, opt-outs, and the blacklist. A service text – a confirmation, a code, a notice the person is waiting for – reaches people who opted out of marketing and leaves from your service sender (or from the marketing sender, until a service sender is connected; the studio says so).
Sends from shows the sender a real send uses: the number or sender ID connected under Connections → SMS sending. It is not typed per text. With no verified sender, a real send does not go out.
On the phone shows the text exactly as it goes out – the sample person's name in it, the accents choice applied – one bubble per part when it splits.
Quality
The Quality tab reads the text before it ships: how many parts it
is and why (counted on the text that goes out, and naming the character
when it is Unicode – with accents kept it also says how many parts it
would be without them), placeholders still to fill, a plain http
link, opt-out wording you can leave out, marketing wording inside a
service text, a missing brand name (the recipient only sees a number),
and fields without a fallback.
Review
The Review tab carries the text's status – Draft, In review, Changes requested, Approved – and the comment thread your library uses: @-mention a teammate, reply, resolve. Approval works the way it does for e-mails: off by default, turned on per brand under Brand → Messaging → Review & approval, where you also choose who approves. A service text needs no approval.
Send a test
Send a test text under More sends one copy to one phone from your verified sender, prefixed [Test], filled in for the sample person and with your accents choice applied – the same text the studio counted. The dialog shows that text, says which sample person it was filled in for (so the name on your phone is not yours), and its parts before you send, and what went out afterwards. The number is remembered per brand. A number on a block-all blacklist gets nothing, test or not.
Send
Send is a one-off send: everyone in the To audience with a phone number gets this text once. It opens the text as a one-step journey – the audience enters, the text goes out. Publish it there, send yourself a test from the SMS step, then Run now sends to everyone. Opt-outs, the blacklist, the weekly cap and your budget apply; a large audience goes out in batches and continues on the next run until everyone has been reached; every send is logged and shows on the calendar.
Recurring or multi-step texts – a reminder series, a text after an event – are journeys. Use in a journey under More opens the journey builder with this text as a step; you choose the trigger and the timing there.
Performance
Once a journey has sent the text, History shows sends and parts per journey. Carriers report delivery, not reads; tests are left out.