Create a text message (SMS/MMS)

Last update: April 7, 2025

CREATED FOR:

  • Beginner
  • User

You can design and send text (SMS) and multimedia (MMS) messages with Adobe Journey Optimizer. You first need to add an SMS action in a journey or a campaign, and then define the content of the text message, as detailed below. Adobe Journey Optimizer also offers capabilities to test your text messages before sending, so that you can check the rendering, personalization attributes, and all other settings.

NOTE
In accordance with the industry standards and regulations, all SMS/MMS marketing messages must contain a way for the recipients to easily unsubscribe. To do this, SMS recipients can reply with opt-in and opt-out keywords. Learn how to manage opt-out

Add a text message

Browse the tabs below to learn how to add a text message (SMS/MMS) in a campaign or a journey.

  1. Open your journey then drag and drop an SMS activity from the Actions section of the palette.

  2. Provide basic information on your message (label, description, category), then choose the message configuration to use.

    For more information on how to configure a journey, refer to this page

    The configuration field is pre-filled, by default, with the last configuration used for that channel by the user.

You can now start designing the content of your SMS message from the Edit content button, as detailed below.

  1. Access the Campaigns menu, then click Create campaign.

  2. Select the type of campaign that you want to execute

    • Scheduled - Marketing: execute the campaign immediately or on a specified date. Scheduled campaigns are aimed at sending marketing messages. They are configured and executed from the user interface.

    • API-triggered - Marketing/Transactional: execute the campaign using an API call. API-triggered campaigns are aimed at sending either marketing, or transactional messages, i.e. messages sent out following an action performed by an individual: password reset, cart purchase etc.

  3. From the Properties section, edit your Campaign’s Title and Description.

  4. Click the Select audience button to define the audience to target from the list of available Adobe Experience Platform audiences. Learn more.

  5. In the Identity namespace field, choose the namespace to use in order to identify the individuals from the selected audience. Learn more.

  6. In the Actions section, choose the SMS and select or create a new configuration.

    Learn more about SMS configuration on this page.

  7. Click Create experiment to start configuring your content experiment and create treatments to measure their performance and identify the best option for your target audience. Learn more

  8. In the Actions tracking section, specify if you want to track clicks on links in your SMS message.

  9. Campaigns are designed to be executed on a specific date or on a recurring frequency. Learn how to configure the Schedule of your campaign in this section.

  10. From the Action triggers menu, choose the Frequency of your SMS message:

    • Once
    • Daily
    • Weekly
    • Month

You can now start designing the content of your text message from the Edit content button, as detailed below.

Define your SMS content

To configure your SMS content, follow the steps below. Settings for MMS are detailed in this section.

  1. From the journey or campaign configuration screen, click the Edit content button to configure the text message content.

  2. Click the Message field to open the personalization editor.

  3. Use the personalization editor to define content, add personalization and dynamic content. You can use any attribute, such as the profile name or city for example. You can also define conditional rules. Browse to the following pages to learn more about personalization and dynamic content in the personalization editor.

  4. After defining your content, you can add tracked URLs to your message. To do this, access the Helper functions menu and select Helpers.

    Note that in order to use the URL shortening function, you must first configure a subdomain which will be then linked to your configuration. Learn more

    NOTE
    To access and edit SMS subdomains, you must have the Manage SMS Subdomains permission on the production sandbox. Learn more about permissions in this section.

  5. Within the Helper functions menu, click URL function and then select Add URL.

  6. In the originalUrl field, paste the URL that you want to shorten and click Save.

    CAUTION
    The lifespan of short URLs is set to 15 days. After this period, these short URLs will no longer be accessible and will display the message: 404 short-code not found.

  7. Click Save and check your message in the preview. You can now test and check your message content as detailed in this section.