Adding new Personalized GIF templates
To add a personalized GIF to your text campaign, you will first need to build them on the account level, similar to the process for Response Scripts. From the home page, navigate to the left hand menu and select the Personalized GIFs tab. In the top right corner, select the + New Personalized GIF. A pop up will appear with several template options to choose from. Each GIF template has a name, you can refer to these GIFs by that name when submitting a support ticket. Select your preferred template, then click Next to proceed.

After clicking the Next button, you’ll be prompted to fill out a few fields to customize your template.

Each template has different fields, fill out the appropriate fields with your desired information. Each field for a personalized GIF has a character limit to ensure the text does not overflow and appear cramped. Using the below Volunteer Record Thank You template as an example, complete the fields as detailed below:

• Shift types: This is the shift type that you are pulling in via contact fields
  
  

• Organization: Include your organization name in this field. 
  
  

• Goal/Deadline: This names your goal in the sentence “but we need your help to __________.”)

• Shift type: this is the shift type in the call to action of the GIF below (include question mark) 

• First_name Fallback: if your contact does not have a name, or the name has an invalid character or contains profanity, this field will populate the {first_name} field

• Num_shifts Fallback: if your contact list does not a record of the number of shifts for a contact, this field will populate the {num_shifts} field
  
  

Once you’ve completed filling out the required fields, click Next.

Edit Personalized GIF - Customize Design

On this screen, you can customize the text and background colors of the GIF. Additionally, you can upload a logo by clicking Upload Your Organization’s Logo and selecting an image. The file must be .PNG and 500kb or smaller.

Click Next to submit and save! Make sure to thoroughly review and test new GIF templates to yourself and team, before sending to your audience. 

Building campaigns with Personalized GIFs

Sending Numbers
At the time of this article’s publishing, Scale to Win only supports GIFs on Bandwidth phone numbers.

Load Contacts
When loading contacts for a new campaign, make sure to use a list that includes the contact fields shown in the GIF. In this example, the field is “total count of phone banking shifts”. After loading the list, rename that contact field to match the corresponding field name in the Personalized GIF template. In this case, the correct name is “num_shifts”. 

Initial Message
Continue creating the campaign as usual. When you’re ready to build your initial message, you’ll have the option to add a Personalized GIF to the message. If the “num_shifts” field in your contacts field is formatted correctly, you’ll select the desired template for this campaign and click Save to move on to the next step.

Generate GIF
After launching the campaign, the final step is to generate the GIFs. Simply click the Generate Personalized GIFs button under the sending menu. Please note that this process may take some time, and you will not be able to click Send unless you click Generate Personalized GIFs. Once you click this, you will no longer be able to go back and edit the script in the Initial Message step.

Custom Field Characters
Ensure all custom fields used in GIFs cleaned, any unsupported characters may cause the GIFs to fail to render when launching campaigns. 

We support the unicode character sets Basic Latin, Latin-1 Supplement, Latin Extended-A, and Latin Extended-B. This includes:

• everything in ASCII: upper and lowercase letters, basic punctuation (" ' ? ! , . : ; { } $ [ ] () and more)
• ¿ and ¡ as well as modified Latin characters used in Spanish (ñ, é, etc)
• Alternate letters used by Germanic languages (ß, ð, ö, etc)
• Modified Latin letters used by Turkish, Polish, Romanian, Hungarian, Portuguese, Vietnamese, and most other languages that use some kind of Latin script
• A limited subset of mathematical and other symbols (± ° ÷ © ® ¥ ¢ £ being the most common ones)

It does NOT include:

• Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, or other non-Latin scripts
  • Watch out: these and other non-Latin scripts or extended Unicode characters are sometimes used by people who want their name to appear ?? ??????? or uʍop ǝpᴉsdn or ???? ????? -- none of these are supported
• Chinese or Japanese characters
• Most mathematical symbols
• Emoji
  
  

How can Personalized GIFs help your organization?

1. Increased Engagement: Personalized GIFs grab attention with their dynamic nature and personalized touch. By customizing GIFs with names, goals, and other campaign details, you create a sense of exclusivity and connection with each recipient. This personalized approach can significantly increase the likelihood that your audience will engage with your message, whether it's by taking action or sharing the content.

2. Enhanced Brand Recognition: Adding your organization’s logo and choosing colors that reflect your brand in the GIFs helps reinforce your organization’s identity every time the GIF is shared or viewed. Consistent branding across personalized GIFs creates stronger brand recall and fosters trust, making your communications more memorable.

3. Better Call-to-Action Response: Personalized GIFs allow you to craft more targeted and relevant calls-to-action (CTA). For example, by incorporating specific shift details or goals tailored to the individual recipient, you make the CTA feel more relevant and urgent. This can lead to higher response rates, as people are more likely to act when they feel personally addressed and know exactly what is expected of them.

4. Scalable Personalization: Creating personalized content for each recipient can be time-consuming, but with the ability to easily integrate dynamic fields such as first name or volunteer shift type, personalized GIFs allow you to scale this effort across a large contact list. You can automate the creation of thousands of unique GIFs, ensuring that every recipient feels personally involved, without sacrificing efficiency.