Tag: sequences

Launching Text Sequences

Launching text sequences typically refers to the process of sending a certain number of text messages to one or a group of recipients all at once, using an automated messaging system.

Those messages are typically pre-written (text templates) and scheduled in sequences in advance. And, ultimately, aNinja takes care of launching  those text sequences at the designated time or interval.

However, it is important to ensure that the messages comply with applicable laws and regulations, to avoid your messages being marked as SPAM.

Text sequences can be sent individually to a single lead, in Bulk to a group of leads, or to all the leads at once.

Creating text sequences

  • First, prepare the text template(s) that you want to include in the sequence.
  • Then, go to Settings > Automations > Text Sequences

Launching a Text Sequence to a single lead

Launching a Text sequence to a single lead is done from the lead view

  • ( + ) Active Text Sequence,
  • Or from the Toolbar > Text dropdown > Text Sequences

Launching a bulk text sequence

After creating templates and sequences, you can launch bulk sequences to your leads.

Follow links in the article above to get full instructions.

Or, browse aNinja Knowledge Base for more articles.

Launching a Text sequence to a single lead

Launching a Text sequence to a single lead can be done from the Lead View.

And the “Active Text sequences” show you the Text sequences this lead is enrolled in.

Overview of Text sequences

To launch a Text sequence in aNinja, you want to follow these steps:

  • First, create a Text templates
  • Then, create a Text Sequence with at least one step. Choose to send “Immediately” if you want your sequence to launch with no delay.
  • Finally, you can choose to either send your sequence to a single lead or in bulk sequence.

Launching Text sequence to a single lead

  • First, go to the lead view.
  • On the toolbar, click Text Sequence under the Text dropdown

  • Or, on the left side of the page, scroll all the way down to find the Active Text Sequences.

  • To create a Text sequence, just click on the plus sign (+). As a result, this opens a new Text window in the lead interactions on the same page.

  • Go ahead and select a Text sequence.
  • To send the sequence, click on start.
  • And to cancel it, just click on the recycle bin.

Viewing Active Text sequences for a lead

  • First, go to the lead view
  • Then, on the left side of the page, scroll down to find the Active Text Sequences.
  • Here, you can see all the Text sequences sent to this lead.
  • Thereafter, to see details of the Text sequences in which this lead is enrolled and the steps reached, just click on “Show previous“.

Updating Templates and Signatures in in-queue messages

Updating templates and signatures in in-queue messages ensures that the messages being sent to customers are up-to-date.

Outdated templates and signatures can lead to confusion and inaccuracies.

Overview

To launch bulk text sequences, you want to start by creating templates and sequences. Then you set the launching date.

Once a text sequence is created, the system retrieves

  • the corresponding template(s),
  • the phone number used to initiate the sequence,
  • and the lead info available at the time of creation.

Modifications made to the template(s) or the signature of the phone number used to launch this text sequence can be reflected in the sequence, post-launching.

However, any changes made to the lead info are not currently being updated in the queued-up texts.

How to include template updates in the sequence

When editing a template’s content, you can choose to update all in-queue texts that are using this template.

  • Go to Settings > Automations > Text or Email Templates

  • Click on the pencil next to the template to go to the edit view

  • Make your changes.
  • And click Save.
  • Afterward, go back to the edit view once again to click on Update in-queue texts or emails.
  • Otherwise, the template’s updates will be saved but changes will not reflected in in-queue texts and emails.
  • In case there are no messages in queue using this template, the update in-queue button is disabled.

Note: The update might take several minutes depending on the size of the in-queue messages.

How to include Signature updates in the sequence

Update Text signatures in-queue

When editing a signature saved in a phone number, you can choose to update all in-queue text templates that were sent from this number.

  • Go to Settings > Phone Numbers
  • Click on the pencil next to the phone number to go to the edit view

  • Type in the new signature,
  • And click Update.
  • Then, you should go back to the edit view once again to click on Update in-queue texts.
  • Otherwise, the signature updates will be saved but changes will not reflected in the in-queue texts.
  • You can also see the number of in-queue texts that are using this phone number.
  • In case there are no messages in queue using this template, the update in-queue button is disabled.

Note: The update might take several minutes depending on the size of the in-queue texts

Update Email Signatures in-queue

When editing a signature saved in a email account, you can choose to update all in-queue email templates that were sent from this email account.

  • Go to Settings > Email Accounts
  • Click on the pencil next to the email to go to the edit view

  • Type in the new signature,
  • And click Update.
  • Then, you should go back to the edit view once again to click on Update in-queue emails.
  • Otherwise, the signature updates will be saved but changes will not reflected in the in-queue emails.
  • You can also see the number of in-queue emails that are using this email account.

Note: The update might take several minutes depending on the size of the in-queue texts

Avoid texts being marked as SPAM

When messages are flagged as spam, they are either filtered into the recipient’s spam folder or blocked altogether.

In this article, we discuss practices to increase your text deliverability, protect your reputation, and avoid potentially having your account blocked/suspended and texts being marked as SPAM.

Practices that avoid your texts being marked as spam

Here are some common things you can do to reduce the chance that the carriers filters flag your texts as spam:

  1. Definitely, you want to make sure you’re using opt-in lists. (carriers use software to detect leaked / non-opt-in lists). In simple words, an opt-in list is a list of your customers who willingly give you permission to text them.
  2. Sender Identification: Ensure that your messages clearly identify who is sending the message.
  3.  An opt-out language: Inform your recipients how they can opt-out of receiving any future emails: Ultimately, add an unsubscribe link to your emails. Basically, the initial message needs to include the following language: Reply STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, or QUIT.
  4. Also, honor opt-out requests: send an automated reply through aNinja triggers.
  5. High key messaging metrics: A high delivery error rate. It indicates you may be attempting to contact numbers that are no longer in service, or are unreachable such as landlines; and/or external carrier filters are refusing to deliver your messages.
  6. Also, you can provide us with your business address; there is an additional verification process (A2P). We can set it up and it helps reducing chances of carrier systems flagging your text as spam; as long as you follow the above. Reach out at support@aninja.com.
Text Content

Review your text template content to adhere to the messaging policy:

  1. Firstly, include Sender identification
  2. Secondly, add an opt-out language
  3. Thirdly, try and use multi-step sequences to engage customers.
  4. Fourthly, avoid using spam trigger words such as “free”, “guarantee”, “limited time offer”, and “act now”. Instead, use clear and concise language that accurately conveys your message.
  5. And, don’t overuse abbreviations and emojis. They can be a red flag for spam filters.
  6. Lastly, avoid anything that is illegal or forbidden:
    • Prescription Medication. Offers for prescription medication that cannot legally be sold over-the-counter are prohibited in the United States.
    • Illegal substances such as Cannabis, CBD (puff, gummies, vape, delta, etc…)
    • Sex, Hate, Alcohol, Firearms, Tobaco, and Vaping-related.
    • Gambling.
    • Fraudulent messages.
    • Malicious content, such as malware or viruses.
    • Any content that is designed to intentionally evade filters.

aNinja is forced to comply and temporarily block your text sending capability if it is being flagged as spammy by upstream carriers. Make sure to comply with all the above practices to avoid the carriers filters flagging your texts as spam.

Text template examples

These templates should serve as a starting point, and you should customize them to fit your business needs and communication style.

Promotional message:

“Hello {{Contact.name}}, this is {{User.firstname}}. We’re offering a limited-time discount of 20% on all our products. Use code XXXX at checkout. Offer ends [date]. Reply STOP to opt-out.”

New product launch:

“Hey {{Contact.name}}, this is {{User.firstname}}. We’re excited to announce the launch of our new [product]. Get yours now and receive a 10% discount using code NEW10 at checkout. Reply STOP to opt-out.”

Limited-time offer:

“Hello {{Contact.name}}, our [product/service] is now available at a discounted price of [price]. This offer ends [date]. Don’t miss out! Reply STOP to opt-out.”

Flash sale

“Hi {{Contact.name}}, for the next 24 hours only, we’re offering a 15% discount on all our products. Use code FLASH15 at checkout. Hurry, this sale ends soon! Reply STOP to opt-out.”

Referral program

“Hey {{Contact.name}}, refer a friend and receive a $20 credit towards your next purchase. Your friend will receive a 10% discount on their first order. Share the love! Reply STOP to opt-out.”

Seasonal promotion

“Hello {{Contact.name}}, get into the holiday spirit with our festive [product/service]. Enjoy a 20% discount using code HOLIDAY20 at checkout. Happy holidays! Reply STOP to opt-out.”

 

Relevant articles:

A few things you want to consider before sending out texts

Forbidden message categories for SMS

Reordering Lead Contacts

The Lead’s contacts are the info you have on a lead, saved in his lead view. A lead might have multiple contacts saved in his lead view. This could be the example of a company and its employees.

The first info saved in the Lead’s contacts is considered the primary contact. And the system automatically selects the primary contact for the outbound emails and texts.

With aNinja, you can change the order of the lead contacts in the way that suits you.

The contact items (email, phone number, URL) inside the contact also can be reordered.

Reordering the lead contacts & items

  • When on the lead view, you can see the lead contacts on the left side.

Reordering Lead ContactsIn this picture, this lead has 2 contacts. Demo (primary contact) and Demo1.

  • Drag Demo1 to the top, and the system will consider it as the primary contact.
  • Also, if there are multiple phone numbers in the contact, you can reorder them to make the primary one for example the mobile number.

Does reordering the lead contacts affect the sequences and triggers

Reordering the lead contact does not affect the previously saved sequences and triggers. As their data was pulled on the day they were created and are waiting in queue till the launching date of the sequences or triggers. So any changes in the lead info after creating a sequence are not reflected in the sequences.

Does reordering the lead contacts affect the “do not contact”

If the primary contact happens to be marked as “do not contact“, the system uses the second contact saved in the lead.

So, if you don’t want your automation to reach a specific lead, make sure to mark ALL his contacts as “do not contact”.

 

Updating lead info after creating a sequence

After creating a sequence, you may need to update lead info to ensure that the sequence is effective in nurturing and converting leads.

Although updating the lead info is a common practice, lead info changes are not currently being reflected in the sequence post-launching. This means that any updates made to the lead info after launching the sequence will not be applied to the queued-up text messages.

Overview

To send bulk email sequences or bulk text sequences, first, you create the templates and sequences. Then you set the launch date.

Immediately, the system retrieves the data from the lead info and templates.

It then saves them in the sequence till the time is due to launch the sequence.

Modifications made to the template(s) or the signature of the phone number used to launch the sequence are now accurately reflected in the sequence.

However, any updates made to the lead info after the sequence has been created will not be applied to the queued-up text messages.

Preparing the email and text sequences

When you create an email sequence or a text sequence, the system queues up all the emails and texts as soon as the bulk email or text is created.

That means it builds up the emails/texts to be sent from the template and lead information at the time and queues those up for future sending.

How to include the lead updates in the sequence

To reflect any lead info changes in the text sequence, you need to cancel the current sequence and re-create a new one with the updated lead info.

aNinja Activities Logs

It’s important to have a clear understanding of all the activities and interactions that occur on your aNinja account. aNinja provides a helpful solution in the form of activity logs reports, allowing you to conduct audits whenever necessary.

Specifically, the logs report feature provides a comprehensive overview of all incoming and outgoing calls, emails, and texts, and the triggers you’ve launched. Additionally, you can easily view the failed leads API injection.

Accessing aNinja Activities Logs reports

Activities Logs

  • Calls
    • You can see the details of the incoming and outgoing calls, including the lead ID, duration and date of the calls.
    • You can also listen to the recordings of the conversations.
  • Emails
    • Here are saved all the details on the incoming and outgoing emails, including the sequences and their statuses.
  • Texts
    • You can see the details of the incoming and outgoing texts, including the sequences and their statuses.
  • Audit Log
    • As an admin user, this option allows you to see the activity of the users in searching for leads using smartlists or from the top navigation bar, and the lead view that the users opened.
  • Failed leads API injection
    • You can identify any leads that failed to import into your aNinja account via API for duplicate emails.

Creating Text & Email Sequences

 

By creating Text & Email Sequences, you can automate scheduled sequences of texts or emails.

Creating Text Sequences

    • Go ahead and click on the help (?) icon next to Sequences. It redirects to a short youtube video to get an overview of Sequences.

Creating Text & Email Sequences

    • You can also watch a guide video that explains specifically on Text sequences.

  • Here, click on Add Text Sequence

  • Give a name to your text sequence.
  • And add each step to your text sequence:
    • Select when you want the sequence step to be sent out:
      • If you want to send out the step as soon as you launch the sequence, choose “Immediate”. This fires the step within the acceptable text time window that’s set in Global Settings.
      • If you want to send out the step with disregard to the acceptable text time window, choose “Immediate (skip global settings validations). This fires the step immediately after the sequence is launched.
      • Otherwise, define the number of days after which you want the step to be sent out.
    • And choose which text template you want to use in this step.

  • Lastly, you can change the text template. Just click on the link View template.

Creating Email Sequences

    • Go ahead and click on the help (?) icon next to Sequences. It redirects to a short youtube video to get an overview of Sequences.

Creating Text & Email Sequences

  • Give a name to your email sequence.
  • And add each step to your email sequence:
    • Select when you want the sequence step to be sent out:
      • If you want to send out the step as soon as you launch the sequence, choose to send after a delay of “0”-zero days from launch.
      • Otherwise, define the number of days after which you want the step to be sent out.
    • And choose which email template you want to use.

  • Lastly, you can change the email template. Just click on the link View template.

In conclusion, creating text & email sequences allows you to use them in your triggers and target your leads in order to turn them to customers!

Message Statuses for the Bulk Text Sequences

“Bulk text sequences message statuses” refer to the status updates associated with the delivery and processing of text messages sent as part of a bulk SMS campaign.

These statuses can provide valuable information about the status and count of messages and the success of the campaign.

Where can I see the bulk text sequence message statuses

  • You can see the Bulk text sequence message statuses in the Dashboard Widget “Bulk Sequences”.
  • However, if you can’t see this widget on your dashboard, just enable it from the little gear on the top right of the Dashboard.
  • For an overview of the dashboard, go ahead and click on the help (?) icon next to Dashboard.Bulk Text Sequence Message Statuses

Bulk text sequence message statuses

Bulk text sequence statuses indicate the status of the bulk sequence:

  • Being processed: The system is preparing your Bulk text for delivery.
  • Canceled: This indicates a Bulk text that you have canceled.
  • Done: The system has successfully delivered the Bulk text to all the recipients with a confirmation from the destination carriers.
  • In progress: The Bulk text is on the way and it started to reach the recipients gradually.

The bulk sequence sets itself to completed once all the messages have gone out.

In some cases, some messages get stuck in the “Outbox” because the carrier doesn’t return with a reply. The status of those messages changes to “Delivery unknown” in a few days.

Usually, the standard protocol is to give the carrier a window of 48 hours after the last SMS was sent successfully, before closing the bulk sequence (status done).

Count of messages

The stats column displays the count of messages in different stats, which includes:

  • Error: The texts did go out through our Carrier, but they were not delivered to the lead.
    • You can check the description of the error message in the lead view.
      • In the Bulk Sequence widget, click on the blue number next to “error”; then click on the name of the lead. In the history of interactions, you can see an info bubble next to the error under the text. Hover over it to see the message.
  • In-queue: The messages are in-queue and waiting to be sent out.
  • Outbox: The messages have been sent through aNinja, and the system is awaiting confirmation of success from the destination Carriers.
    • Click on the info bubble next to “outbox”: “Awaiting response from destination carrier”
    • Some destination carriers don’t return a confirmation message.
    • In this case, the status of the sequence remains “in progress” even though the messages went through aNinja.
    • And it will change to “Delivery Unknown” in a few days if we didn’t receive from the Carriers.
  • Sent: The messages were successfully sent out and the destination carriers confirmed delivery success.
  • Deleted_leads_count: This indicates the leads that were part of the initial request but have been deleted since the request was made.

Error type: Unknown error

If a message you sent is not delivered to the end device and returns a 30008 error code, this means that the delivery of your message failed for unknown reasons.

When our carrier receives a very generic error from the destination carrier that he has no further details about, he then associates the message with the error code 30008; letting you know that he truly doesn’t know what caused this error from the provider.

Possible reasons:

  • The phone/device you were sending to is not turned on or can’t receive messages.
  • Or, the phone is roaming or off-network. They cannot guarantee message delivery on roaming phones.
  • Or, the issue is likely device-related. Test sending to other phones who have the same mobile carrier.

We can still contact our Carrier to connect with the destination carriers to ask about the reasons/explanations for the unknown error.

Important!

As per the US country guidelines: https://www.twilio.com/guidelines/us/sms

Gambling content being sent in the US is not allowed.

For reference, here is the documentation for sending MMS: https://support.twilio.com/hc/en-us/articles/223179808-Sending-and-receiving-MMS-messages.

aNinja Automations

aNinja Automations are tools used to automate certain tasks and processes within your account. This includes automating tasks such as lead capture, lead scoring, lead nurturing, email campaigns, and more.

They help you to automatically follow up with leads, engage them, close them, and much more.

For example, an automation can be set up to automatically send a welcome email to new leads or customers, or trigger follow-up emails based on specific actions taken by the lead or customer.

Start by creating templates, use them in your sequences, to be launched when a condition is triggered on a special event.

Overview

Go ahead and click on the help (?) icon next to Automations in the header. It redirects you to a short youtube video to get an overview of automations.

  • Here, you see the building blocks that allow aNinja Automations to work:
  • Templates:
    • Here, you create and manage email, note, and text templates. You create your templates once. So you can use them later on.
  • Sequences
    • In this feature, you create and manage email and text sequences. You prepare sequences using the templates you have created.
  • Triggers
    • With triggers, you schedule templates and sequences. The system fires them when the set event, time, and date are due.