Only Owners, Admins, and Managers can access this feature. You must have also set up SMS in Klaviyo.
You will learn
Learn how to build an SMS automation, which allows you to ask your subscribers questions, respond to their answers, and send personalized recommendations.
For instance, you can run quizzes, surveys, and buying guides all through SMS. Not only is this a quick and easy way to engage your audience, it is a great way to gather more data and inform your marketing strategies.
Note that this article focuses on the steps to create an automation. For details on how automations work, their settings, etc., see getting started with automations.
Before you beginBefore you begin
Please note the following:
- Automations only reply to SMS subscribers.
- SMS automations are not available for branded sender IDs, as this number type cannot receive text messages.
- Your outbound SMS messages use credits in your billing plan.
- Each automation must include at least:
- 1 message.
- 2 choices per message.
- 1 recommendation.
Build an automation
Set up an automation and its trigger keywordsSet up an automation and its trigger keywords
- Navigate to Automations.
- Click Create automation.
- Once in the new automation, click on the Trigger.
- Select a trigger type from the right sidebar, either:
-
Always on
or -
Campaign response
-
Always on
- Type in the word or phrase you want as the trigger keyword. Please note that:
- Trigger keywords work by checking if an inbound text is an exact match those words.
- Ex: if you use “Pets” as a trigger keyword, the automation will only trigger for “Pets,” and not “pet” or “petsitter.”
- Trigger keywords must be:
- 4 or more characters.
- Unique (i.e., they cannot be used for any other automation, subscribe keyword, or compliance keyword).
- Trigger keywords work by checking if an inbound text is an exact match those words.
- Click Save.
- Optional: to add more trigger keywords:
- Click the trigger again.
- Select Add keyword.
Create your messages and add choices
- Click Add message.
- Optional: name your message in the Internal name field. Naming your messages makes it easier to refer back to them later.
- Add in your message text in the Message box.
- Include at least 2 choices for the message. Note that:
- Choices are numbered sequentially.
- Subscribers can reply with either the choice text or the number.
- Choices are recognized using “contains” logic:
- A choice can appear anywhere in a message (including as part of another word).
- Abbreviations or misspelled words may be recognized (although it is not guaranteed).
- Best practices for choices are to not use:
- Single numbers or letters as choices (e.g., the number “21” or only the letter “A”).
- Hard to spell words.
- Long phrases.
- Optional: to add more choices, select Add Choice.
- Optional: to set profile properties based on choices, toggle on the Assign response to a profile property option.
- For the example below, this sets a custom profile property of “Pet” to be either “Cat,” “Dog,” or “Other.”
- For the example below, this sets a custom profile property of “Pet” to be either “Cat,” “Dog,” or “Other.”
- Select Save.
- Optional: add more messages by clicking the plus (+) button and selecting Add message.
- We recommend limiting the number of messages to 2-3 per automation.
Add recommendations
Let's say you have a cupcake shop, and your automation is trying to direct customers to a product they'll love. Your recommendations can leverage all of the answers someone provided to questions like "vanilla or chocolate?" or "what's your favorite fruit?"
- After your messages, select the plus (+) button and then click Add recommendation.
- Name your recommendation something descriptive (e.g., “Chocolate strawberry lovers”).
- Add in your message.
- Example: “We also love chocolate and strawberry together. Try some of our favorites.”
- Select which choice combination you want this recommendation to apply to (e.g., people who selected both “strawberry” and “chocolate”).
- You can select multiple choice combinations for a single recommendation.
- You can select multiple choice combinations for a single recommendation.
- Select Save.
- Click the arrow for Default recommendation.
- Name the recommendation.
- Type out your default recommendation message, which acts as a fallback for your recommendations. Often, people use a best seller or new product as the default.
- Example: “A classic combo! Check out our products here: www.cupcakes123.com/products”
- Example: “A classic combo! Check out our products here: www.cupcakes123.com/products”
- Click Save.
- Add a recommendation for each choice combination, or use your default recommendation to send to all other choice combinations.
Optional: adjust your settings
Optional: adjust any session settings for your automation. To do so:
-
- Click the gear icon in the upper right.
- Select Session settings.
- You can update the following settings:
- Reprompt response
- Fallback response
- Maximum number of reprompts
- Maximum timeout (in hours)
Preview and turn on an automation
Once you're happy with your automation:
- Preview the automation by clicking the "play" button in the upper right
- The preview is slightly different from the live experience. It doesn't catch typos or show link shortening. Learn more about previewing an automation.
- Double-check your trigger keywords, messages and choices, and recommendations.
- Once the automation is on, you must turn it off to edit it, which causes it to immediately drop everyone currently in the automation.
- Click Turn on in the upper right.
Once you turn on an automation, it will send to any SMS subscriber who sends a trigger keyword.
Additional resources