[AMA] SMS Marketing & RoboCalling

[The Gambler]

Can you share what modem are you using? Just for personal reference.. lots of option that confuses me as starter..

I really don't want to give you any recommendation because I've tested every brand in the market and I found pros & cons with each one especially when you try to scale your setup and with the pre-sale service & warranties (Depend on where you're located),
But I will tell you to check: GoIP (Good for starting), Dinstar (Overal experience is good), and OpenVox (Found some problems with pre-sale & warranties).
See which one can suit your needs best.

Surely not lounge material as this is value being provided in terms of experience

Thank you, if there's a better section then the mods can move the thread.

 

[MisterF]

Moved to Making Money as it's a way to make money.

 

[The Gambler]

Moved to Making Money as it's a way to make money.

Thank you.

 

[dragonguy4]

But I will tell you to check: GoIP (Good for starting), Dinstar (Overal experience is good), and OpenVox (Found some problems with pre-sale & warranties).

I've got chances to take closer look for several days on each and I think will go with either Dinstar or Goip. But I need your final input

As per your experience, would you provide some pros & cons of both? Do you switch from goip to dinstar for some reason?

(as per my situation, of course I need to keep expense as little as possible, but if its worth willing to invest more)

 

[The Gambler]

I've got chances to take closer look for several days on each and I think will go with either Dinstar or Goip. But I need your final input

As per your experience, would you provide some pros & cons of both? Do you switch from goip to dinstar for some reason?

(as per my situation, of course I need to keep expense as little as possible, but if its worth willing to invest more)

Both GoIP and Dinstar are goods,
The only problem with GoIP (I don't know if it still exists) after some time of running the hardware it will start to lag and overheat,
With Dinstar I didn't found that problem at all,
But I doubt that GoIP still having that problem, they always update and tweak their hardware,
Another thing, Openvox have some good hardware and I still using some Gateways from it till today,
the only problem I found is in the warranties & Pre-sale (But I think it's due to the country where I'm located).
That's why I didn't want to give you any recommendations when it comes to Hardware choice,
Try to find a local supplier or reseller of the brand you want to go with, if you can't, go to their official website, check the forum and try to contact support and ask as many questions as you can and check for yourself if it's a good fit for you.

 

[J.Oldschool]

As I have looked into it further, I see a lot of negative chatter surrounding sms marketing.
Have you been able to get good results? I’m in the gambling niche so I know niche has a lot to do with it but I was wondering what the best way to get leads is. Scraping relevant Facebook / instagram? Further targeting by demo?

 

[The Gambler]

As I have looked into it further, I see a lot of negative chatter surrounding sms marketing.
Have you been able to get good results? I’m in the gambling niche so I know niche has a lot to do with it but I was wondering what the best way to get leads is. Scraping relevant Facebook / instagram? Further targeting by demo?

If you're using SMS Marketing the right way, you'll be surprised with the results you're gonna get (the ROI can easily surpass FB Ads, Email Marketing...),
Leads for the gambling niche can be a little tricky,
If you can't build your own list, try to find someone who is willing to sell you a list in that niche,
Also, you can post here in the Hire a Freelancer section and see if someone here can provide you a list in that niche (I'm sure you'll find someone here with a list in that niche).

 

[dragonguy4]

Both GoIP and Dinstar are goods,
The only problem with GoIP (I don't know if it still exists) after some time of running the hardware it will start to lag and overheat,

Awesome! I thought its all about performance-thing. Like, with dinstar could do sim rotation, IMEI, etc (that I am not quite sure about)... or with goip you can have higher sending rate within same port amount..

I think i will go with dinstar then
Will ask for more after tried myself out and do couple things
Wish me luck

 

[The Gambler]

Awesome! I thought its all about performance-thing. Like, with dinstar could do sim rotation, IMEI, etc (that I am not quite sure about)... or with goip you can have higher sending rate within same port amount..

I think i will go with dinstar then
Will ask for more after tried myself out and do couple things
Wish me luck

Good luck,
My advice to you is to start with a small setup: 4 SIM Gateway, and get familiar with the problems you're going to face, then start to upgrade your set up a little by little.

 

[outie]

Hi there, I've been using SMS to remarket my opt-in leads for over a year using Twilio and Nexmo. All phone numbers are mobile and in the US. After a year of success, my Nexmo account was flagged early this year for spam. I was told there were a few spam complaints from one carrier, but I've been sending over a year with 15k txt/day to all carriers on Nexmo alone. Apparently just a few complaints was enough to get blocked. Tried to appeal it without success. All opt-outs were strictly enforced. Today I also got a notification from Twilio that the account will be outbound-restricted in 2 weeks due to high rate of unwanted messages. I think for this one I probably went a bit too far back on my opt in list and many numbers already went out of service, causing a high delivery error rate. I will stop sending to the older records and then try to appeal it but I need to think ahead and need a backup strategy.

Do you have any suggestion on how to proceed? I have no issue with the price I paid for Twilio/nexmo as I was still ahead with the highly targeted offer. The tips you've suggested, like fresh domains / personalized greeting / personalized shortened URL / fresh long codes after X sends, etc. I already utilized them in the past year+ from sending through those platforms. I know you are not suggesting any service or product but I really want to continue my marketing effort. Any help or hint or keyword is greatly appreciated.

 

[The Gambler]

Hi there, I've been using SMS to remarket my opt-in leads for over a year using Twilio and Nexmo. All phone numbers are mobile and in the US. After a year of success, my Nexmo account was flagged early this year for spam. I was told there were a few spam complaints from one carrier, but I've been sending over a year with 15k txt/day to all carriers on Nexmo alone. Apparently just a few complaints was enough to get blocked. Tried to appeal it without success. All opt-outs were strictly enforced. Today I also got a notification from Twilio that the account will be outbound-restricted in 2 weeks due to high rate of unwanted messages. I think for this one I probably went a bit too far back on my opt in list and many numbers already went out of service, causing a high delivery error rate. I will stop sending to the older records and then try to appeal it but I need to think ahead and need a backup strategy.

Do you have any suggestion on how to proceed? I have no issue with the price I paid for Twilio/nexmo as I was still ahead with the highly targeted offer. The tips you've suggested, like fresh domains / personalized greeting / personalized shortened URL / fresh long codes after X sends, etc. I already utilized them in the past year+ from sending through those platforms. I know you are not suggesting any service or product but I really want to continue my marketing effort. Any help or hint or keyword is greatly appreciated.

Hi,
Your problem seems to be with the aggregators (Twilio/Nexmo),
I think it's better to look for other alternatives especially if you're sending 15K+ SMS daily,
For the problem you have with the carrier, if they don't resolve your issue, the best solution is to create a new website with a new domain name and start your campaigns with another aggregator & your SenderID (Sender Name) should be new and preferably the same as the domain you're sending people to,
Also, you should always clean your list after every campaign,
When you finish the campaign, check if a number didn't receive the SMS due to out of service,
If this number didn't receive the SMS after 2 campaigns it should be permanently removed,
Also, if you're using personalized URL for each number, you should delete a number if it didn't click on the link after X campaigns,
That way you'll keep your list clean and you'll avoid 90%+ of the problems with any aggregator.

 

[outie]

Hi,
Your problem seems to be with the aggregators (Twilio/Nexmo),
I think it's better to look for other alternatives especially if you're sending 15K+ SMS daily,
For the problem you have with the carrier, if they don't resolve your issue, the best solution is to create a new website with a new domain name and start your campaigns with another aggregator & your SenderID (Sender Name) should be new and preferably the same as the domain you're sending people to,
Also, you should always clean your list after every campaign,
When you finish the campaign, check if a number didn't receive the SMS due to out of service,
If this number didn't receive the SMS after 2 campaigns it should be permanently removed,
Also, if you're using personalized URL for each number, you should delete a number if it didn't click on the link after X campaigns,
That way you'll keep your list clean and you'll avoid 90%+ of the problems with any aggregator.

Thanks for the insight. The reason I'm stuck with those 2 because they offered the best deliverability based on my own tests. I test every creative I send out beforehand to my 3 SIM cards (3 top carriers in the US) and verify I get the SMS before sending the campaign. I've tried few other aggregators and even though DLR showing delivered I never received the messages on certain carrier, like ytel.

The only thing I didn't do was scrubbing out numbers that failed to deliver 2 times, which was a huge mistake. Now that I am having issue w/ my aggregators already I am not sure how to proceed to a backup plan. Twilio I can probably get another account, but new Nexmo account has a starter limit of $10 every 24hr, so that's pretty useless and even if warmed up I don't know if they will raise the limit. I need a comparable aggregator who provides similar deliverability, pricing and API. I've tried to work with Bandwidth and ClickSend as well but they were not fond of my use-case so we couldn't proceed. Thanks for your help.

 

[The Gambler]

Thanks for the insight. The reason I'm stuck with those 2 because they offered the best deliverability based on my own tests. I test every creative I send out beforehand to my 3 SIM cards (3 top carriers in the US) and verify I get the SMS before sending the campaign. I've tried few other aggregators and even though DLR showing delivered I never received the messages on certain carrier, like ytel.

The only thing I didn't do was scrubbing out numbers that failed to deliver 2 times, which was a huge mistake. Now that I am having issue w/ my aggregators already I am not sure how to proceed to a backup plan. Twilio I can probably get another account, but new Nexmo account has a starter limit of $10 every 24hr, so that's pretty useless and even if warmed up I don't know if they will raise the limit. I need a comparable aggregator who provides similar deliverability, pricing and API. I've tried to work with Bandwidth and ClickSend as well but they were not fond of my use-case so we couldn't proceed. Thanks for your help.

As I said before, there are tons of aggregators out there that can provide you with 95%+ delivery rate, just search and try,
Also, if you have a problem with receiving the SMS to your own SIM cards, you should probably contact the support, each aggregator uses multiple routes, and sometimes they will not activate a good route until you reach certain SMS per month or until you ask.

 

[PatJustPat]

Have you ever tried running a pure blackhat spam campaign, promoting CPA offers for example? If so, how many messages can you run before getting hit with problems, such as low delivery rate?

What escalations can happen when running a blackhat campaign?

 

[The Gambler]

Have you ever tried running a pure blackhat spam campaign, promoting CPA offers for example? If so, how many messages can you run before getting hit with problems, such as low delivery rate?

What escalations can happen when running a blackhat campaign?

Yes, I did run some Blackhat spam campaign promoting CPA & CPI offers,
But I did only send the SMS to tier 3 countries,
I've sent 300K+ to each country and didn't get blocked or have any problems,
But even when you send SPAM, you should try to get a targeted list to get the best results,

What can happen:

1. Operators will block your numbers/sender ID/Name
2. Operators will block your URL...
3. You can get easily sued if you're targeting tier 1 countries and some other countries where data protection law are applicable
   
4. ...

 

[PatJustPat]

Did you get a positive ROI? Did you have to do lots of testing?

 

[The Gambler]

Did you get a positive ROI? Did you have to do lots of testing?

ROI is always high for SMS if you can get a good list and your delivery rate is high,
For testing, You should know how to write a good text that will get the user to click on your link,
Also, you should optimize your landing page... (The things you normally do to optimize for any type of traffic).

 

[PatJustPat]

Damn! I need to move to a country with less strict laws pronto.

 

[outie]

As I said before, there are tons of aggregators out there that can provide you with 95%+ delivery rate, just search and try,
Also, if you have a problem with receiving the SMS to your own SIM cards, you should probably contact the support, each aggregator uses multiple routes, and sometimes they will not activate a good route until you reach certain SMS per month or until you ask.

Ok thanks!

 

[The Gambler]

Damn! I need to move to a country with less strict laws pronto.

Actually you don't need to move,
You need to search for a Grey/Black route SMS provider in the country you want to target,
And when you pay, find a way to pay without revealing your real identity.

Ok thanks!

You're welcome