The recipient did not receive my texts

Issues that can impact SMS Text Delivery

Sometimes, when users send out text messages, the recipient says they have not received them. Users also wonder why they have not been responded to after sending an important text message to a lead or to their agent.

The Contact Previously Opted Out (Most Common Fix)

If a contact previously replied STOP to your Brokerkit texts, they will not receive any new messages from your number. This is the most common reason texts stop going through to a specific contact.

Solution: The contact must text START, YES, or UNSTOP back to your Brokerkit phone number to opt back in. You cannot override this from your end — the contact must send the keyword themselves. Once they reply with a start keyword, texts will resume automatically.

For more details on opt-out and opt-in keywords, see How to manage opt-out requests for SMS/MMS text messages.

The Phone Number Can't Accept Texts

Reviewing our logs, there are many instances of SMS/MMS texts that are blocked for a variety of reasons, such as:

1. The phone number is for a landline phone that does not accept calls
2. The cell phone is turned off
3. The phone number is not valid

Carrier filtering

First, note that telecommunications carriers like AT&T and Verizon have implemented carrier filtering on SMS/MMS texts to:

1. Enforce rules or regulations about what types of messaging is allowed in that country or mobile network.
2. Protecting mobile subscribers from unwanted messaging such as spam, fraud, or abuse.

There is no standard practice for carrier filtering across all carriers. Filtering can range from a simple static list of prohibited terms to advanced machine learning systems that constantly adapt based on the messages passing through them. Regardless of the system, carriers keep their filtering systems closely guarded secrets. Due to the ambiguous nature of these filtering mechanisms, Brokerkit cannot say definitively how these systems work or why a particular message was filtered.

Steps to Troubleshoot:

1. Check if the contact opted out: Look at the text delivery status for that contact. If it shows "unsubscribed" or "opted out," the contact needs to reply START to your Brokerkit number to resume receiving texts. See opt-out management for details.
2. If you are in the US (this does not apply in Canada), make sure your account has verified texting configured, and that your phone number is linked to the verified texting use case. Important: After adding a new phone number to an existing verified texting campaign, you must resubmit your Texting Use Case profile for the new number to be approved for texting. Simply adding the number is not enough - click submit again to resubmit your entire campaign for approval. This process typically takes about an hour to complete. You can find more details here.
3. Check the phone number to determine whether it is a mobile number or not:
   1. Here is a tool to look up the type - wireless or not, and carrier of phone numbers: https://veriphone.io/.
   2. If the number is identified as wireless, meaning mobile, that number should be able to receive text messages.
   3. Need to check a list of numbers in bulk? Use PhoneValidator.com to upload a CSV and identify which numbers are cell, landline, or VoIP. Free single lookups are available on their site, and bulk batch processing starts at $0.004 per lookup (~$4 per 1,000 numbers).
4. We recommend that the initial outbound message not exceed 306 characters, which generally equates to two segments of text on most standard carriers.
5. Use the contact's first name to greet them using variables. "Hi Jane, this is Tom Thumb following up..." For more detail on variables, go here.
6. Do not use links in your initial outbound message. There is a high probability that carriers will not deliver an outbound message that includes a link. If you plan to send links, be sure to select that option in the verified texting use case described here (US Only).
7. Do not use "spammy" terms in your text like "CA$$H."
8. Keep the text clear and straightforward. Don't include repetitive phrasing. This might trigger spam filtering.
9. Change the message completely to see if that's something in the text body that was blocked
10. Decrease the number of recipients sent at once
11. Send the messages from a different phone number one of two ways:
    1. Send messages from a different Brokerkit user using their phone number.
    2. Go to the Brokerkit phone number page, release your number, and get a new one (click your name in the top right > Phone Number > Release to release your number).
12. If the above steps don't address the issue, please email us the recipient's phone number(s) and the timeframe to support@getbrokerkit.com. The Brokerkit Customer Success team will pull the logs for texts sent to that phone number to review and report back to you.