An overview of SMS requirements

ActiveCampaign requires explicit consent to send SMS communication to contacts.  

SMS consent should be explicit, and you should keep a record of your consent for future reference. If you have any doubts, you can connect with our Compliance team.

Note that a contact's consent applies only to the campaign they signed up for. You cannot use one consent to cover all types of SMS communications you want to send.

If you don't send an SMS within a reasonable time frame after you get your consent, you may need to get consent again before sending any future messages.

An exception to these consent parameters is if a contact reaches out to you first and opens a two-way, consensual conversation.

Traditionally, you can get opt-in consent through a form that collects a contact’s mobile phone number. The form can include a question that asks a contact to confirm if they would like to opt-in to receive SMS text messages for specific SMS campaign types (for example, notifications, marketing promotions, product updates).

You can then use the default phone form field to collect the contact's mobile phone number. Their consent will be valid for the specific SMS campaigns to which the contact confirms consent.

General consent to receive messages will not be considered a valid opt-in.

Learn how to create a form.

All SMS senders must include a STOP clause to inform contacts how to unsubscribe from SMS communications. ActiveCampaign automatically adds the STOP clause when it’s not detected. To learn more about this and other required SMS message codes, visit SMS STOP clause requirements.

All SMS senders must identify themselves in their messages by including their company name or brand identifier so that the recipient can easily understand who the message is from.  

You can accomplish this in one of two ways:  

1. Complete the Sender Name field under the “Addresses” tab in your Settings. Once completed, your company name or brand identifier will automatically be appended to all messages. Or,
2. Manually add your company name to the SMS template using automation. This can be as simple as "Hi, COMPANY NAME here" or something similar.

Free or public link shorteners are prohibited in SMS communications. If a message contains public link shorteners created from a free service, the message will not be delivered. If you would like to learn more about this rule, you can visit The rules for free or public link shorteners in SMS.