Stop Getting Denied: How to Get Your SMS Campaign Approved First Try Ep. #479

If your SMS campaign gets rejected, it's not because Twilio's broken.

It's because they don't trust how you're collecting permissions.

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Welcome to Profits with Page Ag.

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And today we're diving into something that is frustrating a lot of you right now.

And it's getting your text messaging campaigns approved.

You know, you're trying to communicate with your customers, send reminders,

maybe even market your services, and you keep getting rejected.

And you're sitting there thinking, what am I doing wrong?

Well, today, I want to break this down in plain English

and show you exactly how to get your A2P-10 DLC campaign approved the first time.

So here's the problem.

You know, let's call it what it is.

It's, this is not a tech problem.

This is a compliance problem.

You know, your carriers like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile,

they get hammered with spam over the years.

So now everything is filtered through strict approval systems.

And, you know, companies like Twilio are just the middlemen.

You know, there's a lot of companies out there that do the A2P-10 DLC services

that Twilio does.

But the reason we talk about Twilio and I'm specifically targeting them

is because they're the only one that's integrated with Yardbook.

Yardbook is our preferred CRM.

I've been using Yardbook since 2015.

And, you know, we do use the texting feature.

So it's very important to be able to use those tools, especially if you're paying for them.

So the thing is like, when you're using Twilio again,

he's there, that company is just the middleman.

When you submit your campaign and let's just say it gets rejected,

they might throw some things back at you as saying like an invalid call to action

or opt-in is not compliant or insufficient disclosures.

Okay?

Those three tend to pop up.

I've been helping a lot of Yardbook users do this,

but it's kind of getting out of hand.

And a lot of people, sometimes it's user error.

They're not reading enough.

They just think that they could click a couple buttons and then they're good to go.

With this process, you have to pay attention.

You have to look.

You have to read.

There are a lot of little buttons that you hover over,

and it will give you a lot of detailed information.

And this is really what I've been approved for Twilio.

Oh, excuse me.

You know, I've had my Twilio integration for years now.

I believe it was 2023 when this whole thing had to roll out.

But we're going on about three years now that I've since I've gone through the process.

And what work then doesn't work now because they've cracked down on more regulation, you know?

So when you say you submit your campaign and it gets kicked back for those things,

I said like invalid call to action, the noncompliance of whatever it might be, it's not random.

That means they cannot verify how your customer gave you permission to text them.

And this is where most long-care operators mess up.

You know, they think, I have a checkbox on my website and I'm good.

Well, no, you're not.

You know, this regulation was meant to help prevent spammers and things.

But it seems like the spammers are the ones that are winning at this.

They have the R&D and they have the people that literally that's their entire job

is to get around all the red tape and whatnot.

Most of us, we're just worried about, you know, getting the job done,

getting our schedule filled, right?

So when you're going about this, whenever it doesn't matter if it's Twilio

or another one of the ATP 10 DLC providers, you have to think like an auditor.

You don't think like a business owner right now, okay?

Someone is reviewing your submission who has never seen your business before.

And they're asking, okay, where does the customer opt in?

Can I see it?

You know, is it clear? Is it legal?

And if they cannot answer those questions in 10 seconds, it's rejected.

Now, truth be told, a lot of this is actually AI that, you know,

usually the first time it goes through, it's usually AI that looks for it.

Not saying that AI rejects it.

If you're, if you're compliant, then more than likely,

if you have to have the right wording in the right places in order for it to get approved,

if not, then they'll send a real person looking after it.

You know, when you try to submit it again, you submit a ticket.

But so here's how you can really improve your success rate, okay?

So here are three really big mistakes that you can make while you're trying to get approval here.

And the first one is having just really like vague opt-in language, okay?

You will basically tell Twilio or the other providers

that customers opt in through our website.

Okay, where?

What they want, what they're looking for is the exact page.

They want the exact page, they want the working link,

and they want something that they can click.

So it, you know, it's not abclongcare.com.

It's abclongcare.com slash contact us, you know, whatever that page is, okay?

When you look at your, when you look at your, your web address,

that you're logged on to, okay?

Like so whatever page it might be, you need to be able to provide that specific page.

And that page should have the working link to where they click to opt in, okay?

The second biggest mistake is missing disclosures.

And, you know, maybe your checkbox says, you know, you agree to be,

I agree to be contacted.

That used to work, it's not enough anymore.

You have to include your message frequency, your message and data rates may apply.

You have to have a way for them to opt out.

So a lot of times it's stop if they need help, you know,

you need to have a thing that says like reply help for help.

You know, if you miss one of those, you're not going to get approved, you're done, okay?

And then the last, the other big mistake, the third one, I shouldn't say it's the last

because there's probably other stuff that's happening right now that's changing.

But as of right now, if you don't have proof of opt in, then more than likely,

you know, they're not going to be able to verify it and you're going to get rejected.

And the thing is, if you have an example of why you would have,

you wouldn't be able to approve an opt in, is if your form is behind a login,

if it's not built yet, if it's not accessible, okay?

This opt in should be available, like right on your website,

without having to log in as a customer, technically,

you shouldn't even have to have a sign up,

they have to become a customer in order to do this.

I know that that's, I know it doesn't sound, I don't know how to explain it.

This is all legal, you know, mumble jumbo to me, but the thing is,

this is what they expect now.

It's like basically no purchase necessary type of burbage, okay?

So like if you look at a lot of the giveaways and things that you see on TV

or here in the radio, you know, there's no purchase necessary,

open to, you know, Indiana residents, blah, blah, blah.

Basically, you kind of have to have that available.

So they don't sign into your website in order to do this.

It has to be right up front, it has to be public.

The link has to be there, it has to work.

It also, there's, you know,

terms of service and our privacy policy,

that needs to be displayed publicly as well.

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So here's the fix.

This is how you can get approved on your first try.

I know it's very frustrating to go through something

where you actually have to purchase a telephone number.

I mean, it's very cheap.

It's only like $1.10 a month.

There's something I forgot what we pay for our phone numbers,

but it's really, really cheap.

It's less than 20 bucks a year.

But, you know, the,

and then the actual text messaging packages themselves.

You're talking like, you know,

you can send 100 texts for a penny or something.

It's ridiculously cheap.

But the thing is, you know,

every time you submit a campaign, you get charged,

you know, like there's a fee.

I forgot what it is.

But what you want to do to make sure

that you're getting through this process

cleanly, efficiently, and you get approved,

make your opt-in public, okay?

Put it like on your website.

Have a real website page just for it.

You know, whether it's a contact form

or an estimate request form,

you have to have a dedicated page

to where a person or a bot could like actually find this

and click on the link.

And you want to make sure it loads.

You want to make sure the link works

and you want to make sure that anyone can access it, okay?

I know that maybe some people are like,

well, I don't want spammers.

I don't want bots, guess what, kid?

It's just the way it is now.

Otherwise, you're going to get denied time and time again,

you're going to be getting more mad about it.

And you know, the past couple of days,

I've gotten like 36 DMs asking about

how to get this approval thing done.

And it's because everybody's like freaking out

because there's seasons about to start.

I'm like, oh, I just waited till the last minute

and I'm going to do this.

You know, and I'm not blaming you, okay?

I understand we all drag our feet on stuff,

but especially when it's stuff we don't want to face,

but you don't want to get it taken care of as quickly

as possible, okay?

You know, so make your opt-in public too.

You want to make sure you fix your check box language, okay?

You want to use something like this.

By checking this box, you agreed to receive messages

from your business name regarding services and promotions.

Message frequency varies.

Message and data rates may apply,

replace, stop the op-out and help for help.

I just gave you a winning recipe right there, okay?

Not being angry, but I'm sorry, I'm kind of struggling

with a little bit of an upper respiratory infection

right now, but I'm kind of gasping for air,

so forgive me if I sound angry.

But this is the way you go about it.

There's no shortcuts here, okay?

Make sure that the name that you're using,

you know, if it's ABC, landscape, LLC,

then make sure you're using the full name every time.

Don't just say, yeah, ABC, lawns or, you know,

whatever your nickname for your company is, okay?

Make sure that, you know, even if you're doing business

as, you know, Chuck's lawns,

but your real company name as far as your EIN number

and the Secretary of State is concerned.

If it's like, you know, three letters

and few numbers, LLC, you have to use that, okay?

That's just part of the transparency

and everything to get approved, okay?

So just wanna make sure that language right there is gold.

So as of right now, that is working.

Make sure that you have your business name in there,

you're telling exactly what they're signing up for

regarding services and promotions,

message frequency varies, message data rates apply,

stop to off out, help for help.

I'll put that in the show notes

so you could actually copy and paste it, okay?

Number three, this big thing to get approved

on your first try is add your links, okay?

And I would have these on the exact same page

and if you can, make sure that like, you know,

talk to your web guy.

So like that, if they try to submit a S&R Quest form

or a contact us form that's opting into your text messages

and all that stuff, have it so where they have to click

on the privacy policy and the terms and conditions, okay?

And inside your privacy policy, however you've got that form,

it has to say no mobile data will be shared

with third parties for marketing purposes, okay?

That one line alone is causing a ton of rejections right now.

But again, like going back, I would make sure that,

you know, you have to check those boxes

as well as, you know, the check this box to contact us

to think, make sure that all three of those things

are checked before you can proceed, okay?

And another quick tip is to make sure

that those boxes aren't automatically checked

because if they're automatically checked,

more than likely you're going to get rejected, okay?

So talk to your web guy or if you're, you know,

if you're confident enough to know how to do all this stuff,

make sure that all those boxes must be checked before approval, okay?

You also want to be extremely specific with your submission.

Don't say Optimers or Optimers,

and I don't say customers opt into our website.

Okay?

You must specifically say,

customers opt in our contact form

located at, you know, www.yourlongcarebusiness.com slash contact

where they could check an unchecked consent box

before submitting.

Spell it out like you're explaining it to a child.

I've had to do a ton of research on how to navigate this.

And that wording seems to get people across the finish line.

So I'm telling you, when I first started working through this,

I thought the same thing, a lot of you are thinking,

like this is ridiculous,

but once you start to understand the game,

it actually becomes pretty simple.

It's not easy, but it's simple.

You know, this is really about documentation,

transparency, and then consistency.

And here's the bigger picture.

If you could get this right,

now you have direct communication lines to your customers.

So when you're using your CRM,

it stays in your CRM.

You have a dedicated phone number

that you could contact back and forth with.

You know, think about that.

You've got appointment reminders.

You've got your service notifications.

You have your upsells, your retention campaigns,

and this is powerful,

but only if you play by the rules.

And I know there's going to be a few guys out there

like, man, this is too crazy.

I'm just going to use my phone and do everything.

It's like, okay, that's fine.

You absolutely can do that.

It is going to take a lot of your time up, okay?

The reason I'm talking about this is to help streamline

and manage your time.

Be more efficient with it.

Everything's dialed into your CRM.

And even though we have to use Twilio

as a middleman to make this all happen,

once you get it set up, it's very powerful.

So these are some of the parting tips

I want to give you, okay?

Match your business name everywhere.

So there's a two-part process with NEA2P 10 DLC company.

You have your brand approval that you need to get,

and you have your campaign approval.

Both of them are very similar in a sense,

but no matter what you do, make sure

that your business name matches everywhere.

Again, it's not Chuck's lawns.

It's if you're registered as ABC123 lawn care,

then that's the LLC, then that is the entity

that you have to enter everywhere.

That's in your campaign, your website,

your privacy policy.

If you have any mismatches, it's gonna get rejected.

Don't use the pre-check boxes.

That's an automatic denial.

And avoid any shady language, you know,

no pre-alerts, unlimited messages,

you know, just be honest and clear

because those data rates, we might not see them,

but who knows if we're, you know,

if we're sending to a specific carrier,

they might charge on both ends.

And most companies, they have unlimited texting everywhere,

but who knows, you know,

so this is why you wanna avoid that kind of language

where it's like, free alerts and unlimited messages, okay?

That might not be true.

It may be subject to some type of data charge, okay?

And here's another thing too.

I specifically with yard book users,

I'm not trying to, I know a lot of you guys,

use it because it is a very economical solution,

but a lot of guys don't have a website

and they're like, oh, I'm never gonna get one.

Well, it makes it even more challenging for you, okay?

If you don't have a website in order to prove

that you have whatever you're using as an opt-in,

you're gonna have to upload screenshots

of whatever your form is, whatever your opt-in process is.

And you're gonna have to host it publicly

like on Google Drive, something that anybody could have access to.

You know, you could have a, you know,

your Google Drive can be open to the public if you wanted to.

And only certain documents, not like they see everything,

but, you know, it has to, you know, do it.

I would highly suggest just getting damn website,

you know, if you're gonna be a business, be a real business,

you know, your digital age is been here for a long time.

The website is basically just a form of, not only advertisement,

but it is also, you know, your online presence

and it's necessary.

So, you know, the big takeaway for today

is that this is not just about sending text,

this is about proving permission.

And if you can't prove it,

you're not gonna get access to these tools.

So, again, create or verify your opt-in page

and make sure it's live and accessible.

Update all of your checkbox language,

you know, add all the required disclosures,

don't take any shortcuts here,

and then rewrite your campaign submission.

You know, be extremely detailed,

leave nothing to interpretation

tell them exactly what is,

what a customer has to do to do it,

what they're gonna get from it.

You gotta be very, very specific.

So, you know, if your campaign has been rejected multiple times,

stop like resubmitting the same thing.

Go back, fix the foundation

because once you get approved,

you unlock some of the most powerful tools in your business.

So, before the end of the day,

go review your opt-in process and ask yourself,

if I were a complete stranger, would I trust this?

And if the answer is no, then fix it.

I hope this helps you guys.

I know that Twilio, the A2P10 DLC thing,

has been an issue not only for yard book users,

but for other systems that's just been a bit of a headache.

But I hope that this helps you

and it helps you get approved immediately.

So, with that being said, God bless,

keep pushing through and we'll catch you on the next one.

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