What is 10DLC, and What Does It Mean to SMS Messaging?

A 10DLC number is essentially a local 10-digit phone number that enables your business to send high volumes of text messages. 10DLC numbers give you an optimal mix: mass text messaging support and lower overhead costs.

How does 10DLC work in practice, and what do you need to do?

You can use a Campaign Service Provider like Clickatell. Once the provider gathers your information, they submit a request to the regulator on your behalf. As soon as your brand and campaign has been approved, you can start using the 10DLC number to send mass notifications or marketing campaigns.

A 10DLC number is a perfect way to ensure that your messages reach their intended recipients on time.

Why 10DLC?

In the past, companies have used shared short codes for text messaging campaigns, which are a high spam risk according to the carrier networks. Shared short codes represent a very difficult-to-manage communications platform for businesses. Businesses risk broadcasting disruptive messages or having the short code shut down when other carriers see a single message they deem inappropriate. Likely this will affect all business users on the channel negatively. AT&T and T-Mobile have now prohibited the use of shared short codes and require companies to either register for a dedicated short code or 10DLC number for A2P (application-to-person) messaging.

The benefits of using the 10DLC system

10DLC has many benefits for businesses looking to increase their mobile marketing efforts. Customers can identify the messages they receive from companies, and you can save money by sending more texts without worrying about text charges or delays in delivery time.

Benefits include:

• Mass texting

• Higher throughput

• Reliable delivery

• Reduced costs

• Voice support

• A new stream of revenue

• Increased customer engagement

• Better customer experience

Who should use this system?

• Companies looking for a more cost-effective way to send SMS marketing messages.

• Companies that need to send many texts, but don't want to encounter blocks because of their texts being labeled as spam.

• Companies that want to provide a better user experience by creating text flows that lead to the customer's desired outcome.

• Companies that would like to take advantage of the higher open rates that SMS messages receive versus traditional email campaigns.

Register your 10DLC campaign with Clickatell

If you're looking for a provider to help you get started with your SMS marketing, Clickatell is here to assist. Clickatell provides a service for brands that want to send out messages with all the benefits of 10DLC-sanctioned A2P messaging.

Global brands rely on our expertise in mobile marketing tech to stay competitive. As the tech world rapidly transitions to one dominated by multiple mobile devices, we help businesses reach each one through a range of innovative solutions that span from chat software to SMS APIs.

How to register your campaign with Clickatell

The first step is to provide your registration information to Clickatell and submit the data to the Campaign Registry for carrier approval.

After the carrier approves your business and campaign data, your 10DLC will be ready to send messages at scale to your customers for all your mobile marketing needs.

What kind of information do I give Clickatell to register?

If you want to send and receive long numbers through the U.S., you need an A2P 10DLC number.

Register by providing us with your business's:

• Legal company name

• Country of registration

• Type of organization (i.e., nonprofit)

• Tax ID or EIN

• Address for headquarters location and all branches (if applicable)

• Website URL(s)

• Stock Symbol (if applicable)

• The intended use case for the 10DLC

• Campaign details

• How your end-users opt-in to your service and how they can opt-out

• Examples of proposed mobile marketing messages

How long is the registration process?

As of February 1st, there is a mandatory vetting process to confirm your campaign is compliant with best practice. The current indication is that this process will take 5 days although this is subject to change. Once the carrier has reviewed and given good standing to your campaigns, you can use the 10DLC. Please note that Mobile Network Operators can reject or suspend a campaign if it doesn’t comply with the guidelines for that campaign, resulting in the linked 10-digit long numbers being blocked.

Benefits of using a service like Clickatell

We have over 20 years of experience and a product suite. Our expert team can support your mobile messaging campaigns:

• Leverage our secure global network to reliably send SMS messages to your customers

• Take advantage of our cloud-hosted, user-friendly portal, and the wizard-driven code generation makes integration into your existing systems easy

• Send a high volume of messages delivered reliably and on time

• Ensure that conversations between your business and customers remain 100% private with default end-to-end encryption

Register with Clickatell today to request your long code.