Setup Jobs

WEL SMS Wizard

Step-by-step guide to sending an SMS or MMS broadcast using the WEL SMS Wizard.

Sending an SMS Broadcast

1. Open the wizard
   From the left-hand menu select Send Message › Send SMS/MMS.
2. Select your recipient list(s)
   Tick one or more lists to broadcast to. Several tools are available on this screen:
   • Manage My Lists — opens My Lists › Manage My Lists if you need to upload or edit a list first.
   • Filter / Sort — filter by last-updated date and sort by Date or Name to find a list quickly.
   • Remove Duplicate Destinations (Dedupe) — sends only one message to each unique mobile number across all selected lists, even if the same number appears under different recipient names. Recommended when combining lists that may overlap.
3. Confirm recipients & name your broadcast
   Check the recipient count at the top right, enter a Broadcast Name to identify this job in your history, then click Next.
4. Choose SMS type
   Select One-way or Two-way:
   • One-way — broadcast only, recipients cannot reply. You can set a custom Sender ID (your brand name) as the displayed sender.
   • Two-way — recipients can reply. WEL handles the reply number and processing. Additional 2-way response options appear when this is selected.
5. Write your message
   Type or paste your text into the message box. A live character counter shows how many characters you have used, how many SMS parts will be sent per recipient, and how many characters remain in the current part. See Character Limits for billing details.
   
   You can personalise messages using merge fields and use Saved Templates to store and recall messages you send regularly.
   
   Optionally, expand Advanced Options to send as MMS, configure Sender ID, set up opt-out, apply a cutoff time, or add a Link In SMS.
6. Test & submit
   Click Send Test SMS and enter a mobile number to send yourself a test before broadcasting. When ready, click Next to proceed to the final review screen where you can schedule delivery or set up a distributed send. A job number is assigned on submission.

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2-Way SMS Response Options

When 2-way is selected, three additional settings appear:

Setting	Description
Reply email address	The address replies are forwarded to. Defaults to your registered email; you can add multiple addresses separated by commas.
Replies delivered	Individually as they arrive — each reply is emailed as soon as it is received. All at end of campaign — a single summary report is sent when the active response period closes. A final report is always sent regardless of this setting.
Active Response Period	How long (in hours) recipients have to reply, from when the broadcast starts. Range: 1–120 hours (up to 5 days). Default: 24 hours.

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Character Limits & SMS Parts

Each SMS part has a character limit. Longer messages are sent as concatenated SMS (multiple parts joined on the recipient’s handset) and billed per part.

	Standard (ASCII) messages	Messages with non-ASCII characters *
1st part	160 chars	70 chars
Each additional part	153 chars	67 chars
Maximum total	1,530 chars (10 parts)	670 chars

* Non-ASCII characters include accented letters, emoji and other non-English characters. A warning banner appears in the character counter if your message contains any. To avoid the reduced limits, enable Filter out all non-ASCII from SMSs in My Details — this automatically substitutes or removes non-ASCII characters before sending.

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Merge Fields

Personalise each message with data from your broadcast list by including any of the following codes in your message text. Values are substituted at send time.

Code	Inserts
%%Recipient%%	Recipient’s name
%%Reference%%	Reference field (usually company name)
%%Email%%	Recipient’s email address
%%Fax%%	Recipient’s fax number
%%Phone%%	Recipient’s phone number
%%Mobile%%	Recipient’s mobile number
%%CustomField1%% – %%CustomField6%%	Custom fields 1–6 from your list
%%LinkInSMS%%	Shortened link to a URL or custom web page (see Link In SMS)
%%ReplyNum%%	WEL’s reply number — use when overriding Sender ID on a 2-way job
%%ID%%	Unique recipient identifier for opt-out links

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Advanced Options

Send as MMS

Attach an image, audio, document or video file to convert your SMS into an MMS. The message text is included alongside the attachment. MMS messages are charged at your MMS rate rather than the standard SMS rate.

Type	Accepted formats
Image	jpg, jpeg, png, gif
Audio	amr, aac, mp3, mpeg3, ogg, wav
Document	ics, pdf, txt, vcf, vcs
Video	3gp, h263, mov, mp4, mpeg, wmv

You can also enter an optional MMS Subject line, which is displayed on the recipient’s handset above the message.

Sender ID / Reply Number

Controls what recipients see as the sender of your message.

Mode	Behaviour
1-way SMS	Select from your authorised Sender IDs (alphanumeric brand names or dedicated numbers). To add a new Sender ID, click Request a new Sender ID.
2-way SMS (default)	WEL automatically assigns a reply number so incoming replies can be received and processed. The assigned number is shown on the form.
2-way SMS (override)	You can use your own Sender ID, but WEL will then not receive replies automatically. To still capture replies and opt-outs, include %%ReplyNum%% in your message text — WEL substitutes its own number at send time so recipients can reply to it.

Opt-Out Facility

If your SMS is a commercial or marketing message, you should provide an opt-out mechanism. See Opt-Out Policy for when this is required. Tick Provide opt-out facility to enable. Two methods are available:

Method	Available for	How it works
Reply keyword	2-way SMS only	Enter a keyword (e.g. STOP). When a recipient replies with that word, they are automatically added to your opt-out list. Include instructions in your message, e.g. “Reply STOP to opt out.”
Opt-out web page	1-way and 2-way	Direct recipients to welcorp.com/optout/ and include %%ID%% in the instructions. This code is replaced at send time with a unique identifier so WEL can identify the recipient.

Delivery Cutoff Time

Set a time of day after which no further SMS messages will be sent. This is shown in your account’s configured timezone. Any recipients not reached before the cutoff will not be retried automatically — use Resend Busy Numbers to retry them.

Link In SMS

Link In SMS lets you embed a shortened link in your message using the placeholder %%LinkInSMS%%. Two options are available:

Short Link

Enter a destination URL and WEL will generate a shortened link that is inserted where %%LinkInSMS%% appears in your message. You can include merge fields in the URL itself — for example, https://mydomain.com/page?id=%%CustomField1%% — so each recipient lands on a personalised page.

Custom Web Page

Build a custom HTML page using the built-in editor (or store HTML per recipient in a LinkInSMS column in your list). WEL hosts the page and inserts a shortened link where %%LinkInSMS%% appears. Merge fields work inside the HTML too.

Optionally enable Secure Link In SMS to require recipients to answer a security question (e.g. their date of birth) before the page is displayed. A common answer can be set on the form, or a per-recipient answer stored in a LinkInSMSSecPhrase column in your list.