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Text messages

Text messages work differently from email in one way that decides everything else about this screen: you cannot send a text from an anonymous address. You send from a telephone number, that number has to belong to you, and a carrier has to approve it before a single message goes anywhere. That approval is a review by a person: usually a few days, sometimes a few weeks. If texting is in your plans, apply for your number as soon as you can.

So the channel comes on in two steps, and they are deliberately far apart.

Step one — turn it on

Open Settings, then Text messages, and turn the switch on.

Once it is on, the screen has two tabs. Your number is everything about getting your number and where it stands — the registration, the carrier's answer, and the number itself once you have it. Settings is how your texts go out, and the switch itself, which stays there so you can always turn text messages off.

If your store sends email from its own domain, turning text messages on adds one record to that domain's setup, so links in your texts carry your own name. A note at the top of the screen says so and links the Domain page, until the record is in place.

Nothing is sent and nothing is bought. What changes is that your sign-up forms may now ask for a telephone number, and the people who give you one are recorded, with what they agreed to and when.

That is a real place to stop. You can collect for weeks before you ask for a number — and it is usually the right order, because the registration you file later has to show a carrier a live form that asks for a number, and a form you published this morning is the evidence for it.

Until the switch is on, a form that asks for a telephone number cannot be published. That is not a limitation of forms; it is this switch. Turn it on and publish.

And it works the other way too: while a published form is still asking for a telephone number, the switch will not turn off. It would have no effect on that form — a form that is already live goes on asking whatever this screen says — so the switch names the form, links it, and asks you to pause it first. Pause is in the form's own ⋮ menu, and Resume puts it back.

If text messages are off when somebody sends you a form, the number is not recorded. The rest of what they typed is kept as usual. Nothing is lost that was ever collected; what was never collected is simply not there, and turning the switch on later does not go back and find it.

A number typed into a form never moves a number you already have. Filling one in is somebody saying "text me here", and the six-digit code is what proves they are holding that handset. So a blank is filled at the moment we text that code — never before, and never at all if no code went out — and the number only becomes textable once the code comes back. A number that is already on file changes in your store, on the customer's own record, where they sign in as themselves.

And somebody who texted STOP stays stopped. Typing their number into a form does not put them back: a form can be filled in by anybody, and STOP was that person's own word from that handset. The way back is the same way — START, texted from the handset itself.

Email works the other way round, and on purpose. There, a typed address is that person's consent, even if they had unsubscribed before — see Consent. The difference is the code: on this channel there is a stronger proof available, and the six digits are it. Email has no equivalent that does not cost somebody a message they never asked for.

Step two — ask for a number

When you are ready, the Your number tab becomes Get your text-message number. It shows only what that takes: a card with the four steps from here to sending (number bought, registration sent, carrier review, ready to send), the list of what the carrier will look at, and the registration itself, already filled in and set out as numbered steps — Your business, How people sign up, What you sell, and Start. How your texts go out (the hours, forwarding) is on the Settings tab.

Before you start — what the carriers will not carry

The carriers decide what crosses their networks, and they refuse whole categories of business outright. Check this list before you go any further, because it is the one thing on this page nobody can fix for you:

If your store sells or promotes any of these, a number cannot be approved for it, however well the registration is written. That is the carriers' rule and there is no appeal to it, so we ask you here rather than letting you buy a number and find out in a fortnight.

Alcohol is the exception. The carriers allow it with age verification — turn on This is for adults only on the registration, and say so in what you send. It is the only one: everything else on that list is refused here, whether the carriers forbid it outright or allow it only with an authorization we do not hold.

You will be asked to confirm that your store sells none of the refused categories before Start verification will do anything. Until you do, no number is bought and nothing is filed. It is your statement about your own business: make it only if it is true, and tell us if that changes while your number is registered.

What the carrier will look at

A registration is read by a person, and there is a short list of things they check. The screen marks each one:

The two that are always yours are the business name and, on a store whose pages we have not read yet, your about page. The business name has to match your registration document exactly — not your trading name, not the name on your shopfront — and we have never seen that document, so nobody but you can check it.

The registration itself

Every descriptive field is written for you, out of what your store already knows: your name, your website, the wording on your own sign-up form, and an image of that form as your customers see it. If your form asks for the phone number on a later step, the image is of that step, so it shows the number box and its consent wording. The paragraph about how people sign up quotes your form's consent wording in full, word for word; only wording longer than the carrier's box allows is shortened, and then the sentences that go are the last ones that carry none of the terms a carrier checks for — your name, that consent is not a condition of purchase, how often you text, the rates notice, HELP and STOP. Read every line before you send it. You are the one making these statements, in your own business's name, and the carrier checks them against public records.

A few boxes are yours to fill in:

In What you sell, turn on My store does not sell or promote any of these. It must be on to register: if it is off, the carrier will not issue a number.

How your texts name you is in step 2, because the first text somebody gets is written from it. It starts as your store's name.

Where your sign-up form is is the page a reviewer opens to find your form, and both the paragraph about what you will send and the one about how people sign up name it. If your form only shows on one page, name that page here — a reviewer who opens your homepage and finds no form sends the registration back. When your form is set to show on exactly one page, that page is already filled in for you; otherwise it starts as your web address. It has to be a page on your own store.

Your number is registered for marketing and order updates. You do not choose this: every store's number carries both, so we register it for both. That is why What you will send describes both, and why the example messages include an offer and an order update.

Press Save to keep what you have typed. The bar that appears when you change something saves your registration as well as your settings, so you can leave and come back to it; Discard goes back to what you last saved. Saving does not send anything to the carrier — that happens only when you press Start verification. My store does not sell or promote any of these is saved too, and it has to be on when you send the registration.

Four of the boxes stop at 500 characters. That is the carrier's limit, not ours, and the counter under each one tells you where you are. The box stops taking letters rather than letting you find out at the end.

When everything is filled in, press Start verification. Two things happen: a telephone number is bought for your store, and the registration goes in.

The number and its registration are included in your plan. Approval usually takes a few days to a few weeks.

Once it is filed, the form folds away. There is nothing left to change while a carrier is reading it, so the whole section collapses to a single row. The top of the screen shows your number, a status (such as Waiting for the carrier) and how far along the four steps it is. Press the triangle on that row to read back exactly what was sent. If the carrier sends the registration back, or refuses it, the form opens again by itself — because then there is something for you to do.

Easy Opt-in — the code they type back

Once your number is approved, this is how a telephone number reaches you, and there is nothing to set up.

Somebody types their number into one of your forms and presses the button. We text them a six-digit code. The form shows a box, they type the code back on the same page, and only then do they get the thank-you and the discount code if your form hands one out. On an iPhone the code is usually offered above the keyboard; everywhere else it is six digits to type.

They never leave your page, and nobody is asked to reply to a text.

You cannot turn this on or off. It is not a setting. Wherever your forms can show the code box, this is how a telephone number is collected, because it is what lets you text the people who give you one: a number somebody typed and never confirmed is stored, and it is not reachable for marketing.

One thing collects the number without the code, and it is not a setting either: a theme still drawing an older version of our form blocks has no box to show, so the sign-up finishes the way it did before this feature and the number is collected unconfirmed. That is the same position as a number collected before your own number was approved — it is confirmed the next time that person fills in one of your forms.

Why the reward waits

The code comes before the thank-you, which means somebody who abandons the form at the code step keeps the sign-up and does not get the discount code. That is deliberate, and it is the cost of knowing that every number on your list belongs to the person who typed it. A number that was never confirmed is the one thing you cannot text, so a code handed out before the confirmation would be a discount given away for a number you can never use.

Numbers people gave you on your own forms before your number was approved

They are stored, and they are on your profiles. They are not reachable for marketing yet — a number given on one of your forms is confirmed by the code, and the code cannot be sent from a number no carrier has approved.

Nothing is lost and nothing has to be redone. The confirmation happens the next time that person fills in one of your forms, once your own number is approved.

Numbers you imported from another service are a different case, and the section below says which of those arrive confirmed.

"Awaiting confirmation" on a profile

Open a profile and the text-message row says one of five things beside Subscribed:

There is no deadline on any of them and we never take the agreement away because somebody did not finish a form — that would be putting words in their mouth. A row that says Awaiting confirmation stays that way until the person confirms, and stays out of every marketing text you send.

Agreements you imported from another service

When you import your people from another email or text service, the agreements that service recorded come with them — and how it recorded each one decides what happens here.

People it watched agree arrive confirmed and you can text them once your own number is approved: people who texted a keyword to sign up, and people who used one of that service's own sign-up forms.

Everyone else arrives waiting. That covers people it got from a spreadsheet upload, people a staff member switched on by hand, and people written in by another tool through its API — in each case that service's own record says it did not watch anyone agree. It is not a mistake and there is nothing to redo. Those rows confirm by themselves the next time each person fills in one of your forms.

If a whole list agreed with a text provider you used before, you can say so. On the Settings tab, at the bottom, under Lists that agreed to texts with another service, each list you imported where at least half the people agreed to texts has a switch beside it and a line saying how many of the people on it are in that position. Enable it to certify that the people on this list agreed to texts with a previous provider, and we record your name and the date against the list, because that is the evidence the phone carriers expect a store to have. It only reaches the people that service could not vouch for — anyone who has since unsubscribed stays unsubscribed — and a certification cannot be withdrawn: the people it confirmed stay confirmed. To stop texting one person, unsubscribe that person on their profile. Only an owner or a manager can certify a list — see the help page on moving over from another service, which walks through it.

A list where fewer than half the people agreed to texts — a newsletter list, say — is left out of the card, because being on it says nothing about texts. So is a list with nobody in that position, and a list you have deleted. A list you have already certified always stays, even if fewer people on it agree to texts later. If the card is not there at all, nothing you imported needs it.

While it is being verified

Everything except send.

Keep collecting numbers on your forms. Write the texts you want to send. Build the audiences you want to send them to. The moment the carrier approves the number, all of it is ready and nothing has to be redone.

The answer lands on this screen by itself. There is nothing to check and nothing to chase. The status card says the day you sent it, so you can see how long it has been.

Once the number is approved, Your number is a short summary: the number, the day it was approved, and Your registration, folded, which opens to show what you sent.

If it says "It is your turn"

This is the one to read carefully.

A carrier can send a registration back rather than approving or refusing it. It means somebody read it, wants something changed, and is now waiting for you. The screen shows their words exactly as they wrote them — usually a short list of the fields they want different — and the date they asked.

A registration left in this state is eventually refused outright. Not because anything went wrong, but because nobody answered. Change what they named and press Send it again.

Two things about sending it again: something has to actually be different, or the carrier reaches the same conclusion and you wait another fortnight for it; and your number is not affected either way — it stays yours through any number of attempts.

Rewriting the wording on your own sign-up form counts as a change. The registration is built from your store again every time you send it — your name, your website, your form's own consent wording and a fresh image of it — so when the carrier asks for different wording, the place to change it is the form. Rewrite it there, publish, come back to this screen, and the new words are already in the registration waiting for Send it again.

What you typed yourself is kept. Everything you filled in about your business comes back the next time, exactly as you last sent it, so a send-back never hands you an empty form to fill in twice: your legal and trading names, your web address, your address, your tax registration number, your contact details, the kind of business you are and how much you expect to send, your privacy policy and terms addresses, Where your sign-up form is, the words that sign somebody up, This is for adults only, anything you wrote in Anything else, and My store does not sell or promote any of these. You change only what the carrier asked about.

Three boxes are written for you unless you rewrote them. The two paragraphs describing what you send and how people ask for it, and the example messages, are written again from your store every time — along with the image of your form — which is why rewriting your form's consent wording is enough on its own. If you rewrote one of them yourself and sent it, your own words come back instead, exactly as you sent them.

The first text somebody gets is written for you. It carries your store's name and the way out, and it is the same sentence the carrier is shown and the same one that is actually sent — so it is shown on this screen but cannot be typed over. Change your store's name for texts and that sentence changes with it.

If it is refused

The reason is shown in the carrier's own words. Change what it names and send it again. A refusal is not the end of it, and the number you have already bought stays yours.

The two refusals we have seen most are a registration whose summary tells two stories — one number used for two different kinds of message — and one whose sign-up evidence does not match what the summary describes. Both are fixed in the boxes on this screen.

How your texts go out

Three settings, on the Settings tab, and they apply to everything you send. You can set them at any time; they take effect once your number is approved — until then nothing is going out.

How your texts name you also appears in step 2 of the registration while you are filling it in, because the first text the carrier is shown is built from it. It is one setting: changing it in either place changes it in both.

Changes on either tab are kept while you move between them, and one Save saves them all.

The hours

Texts go out between the hours you choose, in each person's own local time — not yours.

The law sets its own hours, state by state, and yours are applied inside them. Widening your window never widens theirs: if you say 8am and the law where somebody lives says 9am, they get theirs at 9am. Narrowing it works exactly as you would expect.

How your texts name you

This goes at the front of every marketing text you send. A text nobody can place is a text that gets reported, and reports are what cost a number its registration. Usually your store's name, kept short — every character of it is part of what you pay for.

The box starts out with your store's own name already in it, so you have nothing to do here unless your texts should say something else. Type over it to change it, or empty the box to come back to your store's name — and if you rename your store later, your texts follow.

Forwarding calls

People call the number they were texted from. This is where you say what should happen to those calls.

Calls are not passed on yet. The number you put here is kept for when forwarding is switched on; until then, somebody who rings your text-message number reaches nothing. We would rather tell you that here than have you put your shop's line in the box and believe it was answered.

Who can do what

Turning the channel on, changing the hours, the name and the forwarding number are a manager's or the owner's.

Filling in and sending the registration is the owner's alone. It buys a number for your store and signs a declaration in your business's legal name, with your EIN on it, so it takes the person who owns the store. A manager sees where the registration has got to and what the carrier said. In place of the form they see one of two sentences, depending on where things stand:

The registration's details — your EIN and the named contact's email address and telephone number — are not shown to anyone else, a manager included.

It is not something we will ever do for you either, and it is not something our own staff can do on your behalf even when they are helping you with something else.

What we never do

We never text anybody on your behalf without your say-so, we never file a registration for you, and we never promise you a carrier's answer. What this screen does is check what it can, count what it can, show you what somebody else said, and refuse to do the things that are yours.