Send SMS Step

Send SMS texts a customer from an automation. Find it in the step list under Twilio. The step does not talk to Twilio by itself. It hands the text to your brand’s SMS settings, which run the compliance checks (STOP list, quiet hours, consent, state rules) and then send it from one of your senders in Settings -> SMS. Set those up first: see SMS compliance.

The fields

Field	What it does
Phone number	Required. A variable such as `{trigger.customer_phone}`, or a number with its country code.
Sender	Optional. One of the senders in Settings -> SMS. Empty uses the brand’s default sender.
Type	Marketing (the default) or Transactional for order and account updates.
Message	Required, up to 1,600 characters. Variables work here.
Image URL	Optional. A public image link to send with the text.

Marketing or transactional

Pick Marketing for anything promotional: offers, cart reminders, win-backs. Pick Transactional only for texts the person needs, like a shipping update.

	Marketing	Transactional
Needs the consent statement accepted	Yes, skipped until it is	No
Quiet hours, frequency caps, excluded states	Apply	Do not apply
Suppression list, STOP	Applies	Applies
Consent check	SMS marketing consent, for example a ticked checkout box	A purchase records it

A transactional text with promotional words in it gets a content warning.

What the step returns

The step finishes with the result of the checks, and the run goes on to the next step in every case:

Output	Meaning
`status`	`queued` or `sent` when it went out, `deferred` when quiet hours hold it, `skipped` when a check stopped it
`skipped`	`true` when the text was not sent
`skip_reason`	Why, for example `suppressed`, `no_attestation` or `quiet_hours_expired`
`warnings`	Problems logged in warn mode while the text still went out, for example `content_shortener`
`defer_until`	When a held text will go out
`message_id`	The text’s row in Settings -> Logs -> SMS

A skipped text is not a failure. See Why a text was skipped. A retried run never texts the same person twice for the same step and event. A test run in the builder asks the checks for their answer and sends nothing.

Example: cart reminder

Trigger: a cart abandon. Step: Send SMS with Phone number {trigger.customer_phone}, Type Marketing and a message such as:

Northwind: You left something in your cart. Finish your order here: https://shop.example.com/cart Reply STOP to opt out

Start the text with your brand name and end it with how to opt out. Use your own domain for the link: public shorteners like bit.ly get a content warning, and carriers often filter them.

SMS compliance: the checks, senders, suppression list and SMS log
Twilio: connect the account your texts go out from
Variables: insert values from the trigger and earlier steps
Run history: see what each run did

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The fields

Marketing or transactional

What the step returns

Example: cart reminder

​The fields

​Marketing or transactional

​What the step returns

​Example: cart reminder

​Related docs

The fields

Marketing or transactional

What the step returns

Example: cart reminder

Related docs