10 Digit Long Code (10DLC) Best Practices


You can refer to this glossary to better the terms used for 10DLC Compliance.

This article covers:

Why do I need to sign up for 10DLC, I am not doing campaigns?

The major wireless carriers have adopted new rules for sending text messages to their customers in the US and Canada. These rule changes mean that all messaging traffic sent from a Zoom Phone customer to a mobile number must be registered to the business that sent it. As used here, the term “campaign” can be confusing. Most people are familiar with a campaign as a marketing term but in this context, it covers all text messages sent from a Zoom Phone account to wireless customers. You create a campaign to identify what type of messages you are planning to send to wireless customers so that the mobile carriers know who is sending the message and what it should be about.

What are the best practices to create your brand?

Provide the correct information when creating your brand

This information is based on your IRS tax documents. For best results, please have a copy of your IRS information that includes your business name and tax ID so that the lookup is successful. Failure to match the information from the IRS will result in your Brand not being confirmed. You only get two attempts at this step before needing to call support for assistance. Please be mindful of the information you are submitting when creating your brand.

Note: For Canadian customers trying to register as a non-profit, there is a known issue with TCR’s registration process where an error is encountered. The workaround for this is to register as Private Profit for Entity Type rather than Non Profit. This will not affect your tax status with the Canadian government in any way. It is just a workaround to enable Brand registration with TCR

Confirm your business has an online presence

The goal of 10DLC is to prevent SPAM and bad actors from sending messages to mobile users. In the website field, please share a link that shows your business has an online presence. This can be your website URL, your Google business link, or your social media link about your business. This helps the registry confirm you are in fact a real business that has a legitimate purpose for reaching out to mobile subscribers via text messaging.

Describe the purpose of your campaign

This step is to describe what you are sending via text messaging. You will describe what you are doing with the campaign and give examples of the content.

Campaigns can take up to 4 weeks for carrier's review and approval. Please pay attention to the tips below to maximize your chances of being approved.

Provide a descriptive name for your campaign

Use a descriptive name for your campaign.

Good name example: Messaging to customers from the sales and marketing team

Bad name example: Text messaging

Bad names will get the campaign flagged, increasing the time needed to get the campaign approved.

What should your message include?

Will your message include links?

If you are including links in your message, you need to include them in your sample message so they can be vetted through the registry. URL shorteners such as Bitly should not be used.

Will your message include phone numbers?

If you are including phone numbers in your message to be called back for a reason, include them in your sample message so they can be vetted.

Be mindful of age-gated content in your message

You are not allowed to send age-gated content in your messages. Please see this link to learn more about age-gated content.

Will your message provide lending or loan arrangement information?

If you are a lending institution or in the loan business and will be sending information about loans in the message, ensure you check the box that you are sending messages around lending and make one of your example messages include the loan information that you would send to a mobile user.

What should be the best practices for your sample messages?

Your sample messages are critical to the success of your registration for a campaign. This offers insight into the registry of what you are sending to your users. There is a manual process that someone reads the message and if it doesn’t meet their criteria it will be rejected.

You should provide the following in your message:

Good examples of a sample message:

Bad examples of a sample message:

Message examples that don’t follow best practices will slow the process as they will be rejected and need to be modified. Please follow the best practices to help expedite the process for campaign confirmation.

10DLC non-usage changes

You can review this article for changes applying for non-usage of 10DLC.