When carriers filter your messages, those messages are not delivered. This article covers how to see when your messages are filtered, how to avoid filtering, and how to target contacts who have been filtered.

Tracking your deliverability

You can track the rate at which your messages are being filtered on the data display page of every text campaign. 

To access the campaign’s filter rate, go to the Campaigns page in your Spoke admin view and click on the name of the text campaign. This will open up the data display page with the filter rate.

 Image of a campaign data display page with the percentage of filtered contacts.

Note, however, that the filter rate only includes messages that have gone undelivered with a spam filtering error code. It does not represent all messages that have gone undelivered due to errors. For more detailed information about your deliverability, export the campaign’s data as a CSV. On the campaign data display page, click “Export Data” to receive an email with the CSV data. Open the CSV and check the “error codes” column. See here for more information on what each error code represents.

Reading your filter rates

Most campaigns will experience some carrier filtering. Unless you are using 10DLC or a registered toll-free number, 30% or less is normal.

If your filter rate is high, this may indicate that you’re getting a lot of complaints about your texts, that you have a link in the initial message, or that the content of your message resembles known spam. In particular, messages with links that use a generic or shared domain and language reminiscent of sweepstakes content (i.e. winning a prize, cashing in, claiming credits, entering a lottery) are likely to experience carrier filtering.

How to avoid filtering

The mobile carriers don’t tell us why they filter your messages, so it can be difficult to narrow down exactly why your messages are getting filtered and how best to prevent it going forward. That being said, here’s what we’ve learned about deliverability trends and best practices.

The #1 cause of carrier filtering is a link in the initial message. 

Including links in your initial message is the number #1 cause of carrier filtering. Removing your link from the initial message will almost always result in better deliverability. 

Avoid public link shorteners like bit.ly, tinyurl, or tiny.cc.

If you must have a link in your initial message, never include a public link shortener (bit.ly or tinyurl, for example) or a generic/shared domain. These links almost always guarantee higher filtering rates.

AT&T and T-Mobile consistently block messages that include the following public link shorteners:

9qr.de
alturl.com
app.link
bc.vc
bit.do
bit.ly
bitly.com
bitly.ws
budurl.com
clicky.me
cutt.ly
is.gd
lc.chat
linki.la
lnkd.in
minm.xyz
ow.ly
rb.gy
rebrand.ly
s2r.co
serveirc.com
shrtco.de
soo.gd
t.ly
tiny.cc
tinyurl.com

Carriers want to see links that are both proprietary and branded. In other words, they want to see a dedicated custom domain that belongs to your business. And the domain should align with the message sender identified in the message. You run a much higher risk of experiencing filtering or even getting your number blocked when using a generic shortlink.

For example, this message would run a high risk of getting filtered:

Hi, it’s Meg from Scale to Win. Please contact your representatives today to let them know you care about voting rights. For more info: bit.ly/1234xyz - Reply STOP to unsubscribe

Whereas this message contains a link that is both proprietary and branded:

Hi, it’s Meg from Scale to Win. Please contact your representatives today to let them know you care about voting rights. For more info: scaletowin.com/1234xyz - Reply STOP to unsubscribe

Avoid ActBlue links in your initial messages.

Unless you're using toll-free, including a full Actblue link in your initial message can cause your text campaign to be filtered out completely. If you need to send an Actblue in your initial message, we recommend a Rebrandly link or building a shortlink based on your web domain.  

Vary your initial messages.

Use the script variance feature to add more than one initial message to your campaign. We recommend adding at least three script variations. The more you can vary your scripts, the more insight you can gain into whether specific content is triggering filtering.  

Check for typos, broken links, and lots of wrong numbers.

If you don’t have a link in the initial, and your filter rates are high, it’s possible the carriers have received a number of complaints about your messages. Here are some things that increase the likelihood of getting reported as spam:

• Typos in your initial message

• Sending a broken link

• Texting too many wrong numbers

How to retarget filtered contacts

We offer a follow-up campaign feature that will allow you to retarget contacts who were initially filtered in a previous campaign. These texts will come from a new phone number, which can be helpful in reducing filtering. That being said, it’s critical that you change your script before texting these contacts again, otherwise filtering is likely to continue.

Reach out to us

If you are experiencing filtering and none of these methods are helping troubleshoot, reach out for support.