Raange Blog

Understanding your SMS data using Raange and Google Analytics

When someone views an SMS campaign you send, clicks on a link, subscribes, purchases or even leaves part way through the process to re-visit your links another time, all this data is recorded. To best use this valuable data, it must be accessible and organized for it to become a valuable tool in calculating ROI and to fine-tune your marketing efforts. Otherwise, it’s just data without a purpose.

Raange can help you easily track your campaign activity and interpret nuances such as

which links are getting the most clicks, which creative content engages more and where people are clicking from.

All you’ll need is to have Google Analytics enabled on your system and a UTM builder.

This tool is used to create UTM parameters which are additional tags that are added to the end of your URL link to track the performance of marketing campaigns. These tags become tracking codes that store and send tag-specific data to your Google Analytics.

Here’s what a UTM builder looks like. There are several online that you can use:

How you can make the most of your SMS data:

Enter the URL for your campaign into the Website URL field on the UTM builder. Then enter the 1st three required fields on the UTM builder to be able to interpret data using Google Analytics. 

Default UTM tags Required by Google analytics:

• The source: Where a person first interacts with your campaign
• Campaign ID or name
• Medium: type of marketing channel (SMS, online, in-store)

Optional tags you may want to use:

4.   Campaign term (identifies keywords that triggered the ad containing the link)

5.   Campaign content (used to differentiate similar content from other campaigns)

Click on Build or Generate URL and copy the new URL link onto your clipboard.  

Next, go into Raange and paste your long URL into the Raange URL shortener on Smartlink screen. Generate your ShortURL.

Now you’re ready to use your powered-up ShortURL on your campaign. Your collected data acquired from those that interact with your campaign will be sent to your Google Analytics.

We like to say that it’s not enough to have data, it’s what this data can tell you that counts. At Raange, we’re here to help. Feel free to contact us at support@raange.com if you have any questions or would like to hear more about how Raange, UTM and Google Analytics can work for you.

Our client is a fast-food chain with over 60 locations and 2,000 employees. The firm has amassed a sizable and active social media fan base, and has recently reallocated a portion of its marketing budget to SMS marketing with Raange to test a new revenue channel, with the following results:

• Sold out of pizza dough after first SMS campaign with Raange
• Uplift in online orders in the first hour after sending campaigns
• +25X ROI on SMS marketing campaigns

“There’s no denying SMS marketing with Raange really works. The online sales are instant and ongoing and we’ve had a great reaction from our customers. Now text messaging is part of our monthly marketing mix.” – CMO.

Challenge

The Pizza Chain wanted to try a new revenue channel that could drive more online sales for each restaurant location. 

They were having success with their social media programs and advertising to grow their audience and maintain market share, but they were looking to try something new to boost customers’ lifetime value and encourage repeat pizza purchases.

A new marketing platform for needed to be able to scale with the company’s rapid expansion over the past two years and future growth plans, plus provide robust store-level segmentation in order to be considered.

Solution

The marketing staff at the Pizza Chain collaborated closely with their Raange account manager and customer success team to determine the most effective strategy for launching a new text message marketing program.

“Working with the team at Raange has been great,” CMO says. “They’ve really gone out of their way to make sure we’re set up on the marketing engagement platform and they provide strategic guidance on running SMS campaigns.”

The Pizza Chain was already sitting on a valuable marketing database (customer contact information) in their online ordering platform (and/or POS) and needed a way to unlock this data to drive more sales. 

Raange created segmented store-level lists in the marketing engagement platform, with the customer data. Each list could receive a customized message for that specific store location. 

The Pizza Chain held a lunchtime sale on a Friday at 10:00 am, providing customers with an all-dressed pizza for only $8.99 as part of the campaign for the real test.

Customers were sent text messages in the language of their choice: French or English. 

Results

It was a surprise rush for the Pizza Chain, and they sold out of pizza dough by lunchtime.

Because consumers read and reply to text messages in less than 5 minutes, you can expect to see a boost in traffic to your online ordering page as soon as you send the message (98% open rate for text messages vs. 15% open rate for email).

Since then, the Pizza Chain has continued to use SMS marketing for their restaurants and Raange’s SMS Chat features, for customer support.

Kidd Family Auctions Inc. is a family-owned and operated company that was founded in 2015. Dennis Kidd founded the company, which now includes three generations of Kidds as well as hand-picked staff members.

Prior to 2019, the company was entirely focused on in-person events, but it has since shifted its focus to online and mobile events, serving hundreds of customers across Ontario, Canada.

Doing business these days requires activity on many marketing channels including eBlasts, radio ads, print, national TV commercials, social advertising among others. These channels help to reach a broad demographic of buyers. The company recently allocated a portion of its marketing budget to sms marketing with Raange in order to test a new revenue channel, and the following results have been obtained:

• Results are almost instant – you can see an increase in online traffic and sales within 1-2 hours of sending a campaign.
• Because they are constantly on their phones, sms marketing targets a younger demographic of 18-35 year olds.

“There’s no denying that SMS marketing generates traffic and sales for our events. I can see an increase in traffic to my website as soon as I send a text messaging campaign,” explained Lyn Grose, Owner Operator at Kidd Family Auctions Inc. “Now text messaging is part of our monthly marketing mix.” 

Challenge

Kidd Family Auctions was looking for a new marketing channel to engage a younger demographic of buyer between the ages of 18 and 34. 

They were having success with radio ads, print ads, and a national TV commercial targeting older generations. Finding the right channel for young buyers became more important as they transitioned to mobile and digital events in order to continue growing their business.

The Kidd Family Auctions team was constantly talking to younger buyers to see where they spent the majority of their time and it quickly became clear that they spent a lot of time on their phones.

Kidd Family Auctions needed a way to engage users on their mobile devices and preferred to collaborate with a Canadian company that provided SMS marketing services in Canada.

Solution

People look at their phones 150+ times per day on average. Text messaging became an obvious channel for the company to test.

Despite the fact that SMS is a decades-old technology, text messages are opened (98% open rate) and read in 3-5 mins. This meant that you were able to send a campaign and expect instant results.

Kidd Family Auctions tested Raange, a Canadian SMS marketing platform that safely hosts all customer data in Canada, to try out SMS marketing for their company.

Because digital and mobile auction events can occur at any time, traffic and audience must be engaged quickly and timed just before auction events.

On the same day as their auction, Kidd Family Auctions decided to send a text message campaign. If a sale is planned for 5:00 p.m., an SMS message is scheduled and sent to their marketing list at 2:00 p.m.

Results

Buyers read and respond to text messages in less than 5 minutes, and Kidd Family Auctions saw an increase in traffic to their online auctions immediately after launching their messaging campaign.

“I can monitor the events on my site and see that traffic and bidder registration are at a standstill. So I’ll set up and send a campaign from the Raange Marketing Engagement platform, and almost immediately after the text message is sent, there’s an increase in traffic and sales – exactly what I wanted,” explains Lyn Grose.

Kidd Family Auctions has continued to use SMS marketing on a monthly basis since then.

Pizza Salvatoré, founded in 1964 by Mr. Salvatoré Abbatiello, is a fast food chain with over 60 locations and 2,000 employees in Canada. The firm has amassed a sizable and active social media fan base, and has recently reallocated a portion of its marketing budget to SMS marketing with Raange to test a new revenue channel and increase online orders, with the following results:

• Sold out of pizza dough after first SMS campaign with Raange
• Uplift in online orders in the first hour after sending campaigns
• +25X ROI on SMS marketing campaigns

“There’s no denying SMS marketing with Raange really works. The online orders and sales are instant and ongoing and we’ve had a great reaction from our customers. Now text messaging is part of our monthly marketing mix.” – Sébastien Abbatiello, CMO of Pizza Salvatoré.

Challenge

Pizza Salvatoré wanted to try a new revenue channel that could drive more online orders for each restaurant location. 

They were having success with their social media programs and advertising to grow their audience and maintain market share, but they were looking to try something new to boost customers’ lifetime value and encourage repeat pizza purchases.

A new marketing platform for Pizza Salvatoré needed to be able to scale with the company’s rapid expansion over the past two years and future growth plans, plus provide robust store-level segmentation in order to be considered.

Finally, as a Canadian family-run company, Pizza Salvatoré preferred to partner with a Canadian company offering SMS marketing in Canada and could offer text messaging campaigns in both French and English.

Solution

In order to try out SMS marketing for their company, Pizza Salvatoré trusted Raange, a Canadian text messaging software company that hosts all customer data securely in Canada.

The marketing staff at Pizza Salvatoré collaborated closely with their Raange account manager and customer success team to determine the most effective strategy for launching a new text message marketing program.

“Working with the team at Raange has been great,” Sébastien says. “They’ve really gone out of their way to make sure we’re set up on the marketing engagement platform and they provide strategic guidance on running SMS campaigns.”

Pizza Salvatoré was already sitting on a valuable marketing database (customer contact information) in their online ordering platform (and/or POS) and needed a way to unlock this data to drive more sales. 

Raange created segmented store-level lists in the marketing engagement platform, with the customer data. Each list could receive a customized message for that specific store location. 

Pizza Salvatoré held a lunchtime sale on a Friday at 10:00 am, providing customers with an all-dressed pizza for only $8.99 as part of the campaign for the real test.

Customers were sent text messages in the language of their choice: French or English. 

Results

It was a surprise rush for Pizza Salvatoré, and they sold out of pizza dough by lunchtime.

Because consumers read and reply to text messages in less than 5 minutes, you can expect to see a boost in traffic to your online ordering page as soon as you send the message (98% open rate for text messages vs. 15% open rate for email).

Since then, Pizza Salvatoré has continued to use SMS marketing for their restaurants and Raange’s SMS Chat features, for customer support.

Alice POS and Raange Interactive Announce Strategic Partnerhip

MONTREAL – Earlier today, industry leader Alice POS announced a new product relationship with Raange, a Montreal-based marketing engagement platform that offers affordable SMS marketing for businesses of all sizes.

Thanks to this collaboration, Raange is now the go-to SMS marketing partner for Alice POS users, helping businesses boost sales by integrating Raange’s Marketing Engagement Platform with Alice POS’s point of sale systems. By unlocking actionable marketing data from their POS systems, merchants can now run more promotions to drive repeat-purchases and stay connected with their most loyal customers. 

Although competition is higher than ever, SMS marketing is still the most effective channel to drive customer engagement because of its 98% open rate and 25x ROI.

In addition, compared to Raange’s entry-level solution, retailers will receive greater features and scalability at a lower cost.

A Common Goal

CEO Charles Beaupre says that “Alice POS’ mission has always been to increase revenue for our customers. By harmonizing the physical and the virtual, by taking the time to understand the realities of each industry, we fulfill our mission. The association with Raangeis a continuity of this objective. In a universe of notification, Raange stands out with its SMS promotion platform and Alice POS allows better profiling. This is just the start of a value-creating partnership.”

“Our partnership with Alice POS is a shining example of two companies working together to unlock useful data for their customers,” said Eric Nykamp, CEO of Raange. “With this partnership, our customers not only get the power of one of the best POS systems on the market, but when you take text messaging’s 98% open rate and near-instant engagement and combine actionable data from the POS, merchants can run very powerful promotions to increase revenue.”

About Alice POS – Alice POS is a cloud-based retail point of sale solution designed for multi-site stores such as franchises, corporate chains or buying groups, as well as individual stores that have the ambition to expand. Alice POS is built to increase revenue and save time while offering multi-store specific features such as inter-store inventory transfers, standardized network pricing, and advanced reports. Easily sync online and in-store sales with eCommerce integrations.

About Raange Interactive – Raange Interactive is an affordable SMS marketing solution for businesses of all sizes. Raange’s platform makes it easy to connect 1-to-1 with customers, send SMS marketing campaigns and grow marketing lists, fast and within budget. Their customer acquisition tools are the highlight of their platform: helping a client add more than 1 million new opt-in contacts to their marketing lists in only 6 months. Raange makes it easy to get started with SMS marketing and see continuous results.

In this blog, we’ll discuss why and how to send bulk sms messages with sms gateways.

Companies managing applications or software with text messaging features are most likely to use sms gateways.

What is an SMS Gateway?

Technically, a SMS Gateway permits a computer to transmit and receive SMS text messages via the telecommunications network to and from a mobile phone. 

The SMS Gateway adapts the message for transmission over the network and translates it into the target language.

Today, SMS Gateways send messages directly to telecommunications companies and to mobile users via an SMPP interface, preferred protocol by telecos. 

SMS Gateways are the easiest and most efficient way to send high volumes of text messages to directly to users.

What is SMPP?

SMPP stands for Short Message Peer-to-Peer messaging. The requirement of SMPP is to deliver SMS. SMPP’s are used for integrations where end users can integrate their application with the Short Message Service Center (SMSC) and the SMSC delivers the message to the mobile device. 

The SMPP client application is connected to an SMPP server and in turn an SMS gateway which is connected to the SMSC

Raange would act as the SMS gateway for a client application, as Raange has direct connection into telcos via SMPP.

Benefits of SMPP and SMS Gateways

One benefit of using an SMS Gateway is that it makes it easy for businesses to communicate with customers at scale.

Additionally, you can get replies, send mass text messages to groups of contacts, and send individual SMS.

What are more benefits of using an SMS gateway?

• High throughput – send a high volume of text messages at once.
• Delivery receipts – you can get delivery  notifications for transactions. 
• Save valuable development time – your application doesn’t have to connect into all telecos in whichever coding language required. Connect into one sms gateway and you will automatically be connected to a large network of telcos.

Cheaper – you don’t have to waste time developing your own SMPP interface. And you will get better pricing for bulk messages.

Use Cases for SMS Gateways

There are many reasons companies use SMS gateways. The integration of SMPP with an SMSC in order to transmit bulk text messages is the most fundamental use case for this protocol.

What are some other reasons companies use SMS gateways?

• Promotions, 

• Two-Factor Authentication, 

• Appointment Reminders, 

• Notifications, 

• One-Time Password

Does Raange offer SMPP or SMS Gateway service?

Raange provides an SMS gateway to both the United States and Canada. We have connections to every service provider in both nations.

Raange has a conversion rate of about 97-98% and gives nearly flawless deliverability. Additionally, our customers get delivery confirmations for all of their outgoing messages, as well as the most attentive and helpful customer support in the business.

Our customer service is the most important benefit that we provide for clients. When we can, we make it a point to personally connect with each of our clients and learn more about the companies they run.

People are shocked to learn that they get help from genuine people who have experience in the sector. You don’t have to worry about sending an email and hoping for a templated response in 2-3 BDs.

Customers using sms with API or the marketing engagement platform at Raange are sending messaging through our sms gateway.

What else do you get with Raange?

• High throughputs
• Excellent system security
• Industry-leading pricing
• Minimal downtime
• Monitoring and reporting
• Simple compatibility
• Verified Toll-Free Numbers
• Short Codes

We make it simple and easy to get started with our SMS Gateway. Get in touch with a real

Using a text service is a fantastic method to interact with clients and increase revenue. Find out why they work so well.

These days, it’s impossible to imagine life without texting. You can use texting for everything from communicating with loved ones to making payments and placing food orders with an emoji. 

However, I wonder how many businesses make the most of texting. In 2020, only 39% of marketers overall used a text service for text messaging campaigns.

What are the advantages of text services?

Texting services are reasonably priced.

One of the most straightforward methods of reaching out to clients is via text message. A message sent at any time of day or night will arrive at the recipient promptly. As a result, you may serve customers at all hours of the day and night without having to close up shop and risk losing money.

Pricing to run sms marketing campaigns have become very competitive over the past few years. You can try certain services for free with a very limited number of message credits, or services, like Raange, offer very affordable pricing without any long-term commitments or prepaid credits. 

Blog: Top 5 Best SMS Marketing Software to Send Bulk SMS

In other words, they work.

Keeping in touch with your clientele via text messaging is a simple and effective marketing strategy. They provide an opportunity to engage with others at the times when they are most receptive, such as when they are hungry, bored and browsing the internet, or while watching binge-watching Netflix in the evening. 

Mobile text messages have a higher chance of being viewed than emails do since they are delivered straight to the recipient’s device, instantly. A recent G2 article, found that marketers find text marketing to be very effective with reaching consumers, with open rates as high as 98%.

According to a recent survey, texting has become a common means of communication in the United States. According to the data, nearly half of all consumers (48%) prefer direct communication from brands via SMS text message

While some may businesses maybe afraid to text because they view it as impersonal or illegal (which it is not if done compliantly and you can read about it here), others may find texting more convenient than in-person communication. The fact is it’s a lot quicker than sending an email.

Access Customers Anywhere

It’s no secret that texting is a major channel for reaching out to customers. As an added bonus, it’s a breeze to get in touch with clients whenever it’s convenient for you. You may SMS your consumers at any time, day or night, within or outside of normal business hours.

The true number is quite large. Nearly ninety percent of American adults have their own cell phones, according to research by the Pew Research Center. And while most of us are familiar with the basics of texting, we tend to be less versed in the more advanced forms of the medium. 

Because mobile phones are so ubiquitous, it’s the best medium to use to get a hold of your customers on the go or at home. Building your mobile audience can be lucrative if done correctly.

Blog: How to use text to join to grow your marketing lists or VIP program.

It takes little effort to get started and run sms campaigns

Setting up and managing text messages is simple. All you need is access to the web and a texting phone number. 

There are a few things you should know before sending your first few SMS if you want to get the most out of your experience. Getting an account and your own personal texting number set up is the first order of business. 

Starting and launching an sms marketing program can be overwhelming. That’s why at Raange, you can schedule one-on-one demos and account launch sessions with our team members.

You are ready to start sending messages once your account is set up.

Get Started with Raange’s Text Service

Here’s how you can start scheduling and sending SMS text messages with Raange:

• Schedule a Demo with Raange
• Set up your account and schedule a free one-on-one launch session
• Get your toll free number to send text messages
• Enable SMS Chat in your account
• Send your first campaign
• Talk to Our Team

The cost of our texting service depends on the volume of messages you plan to send. Our plans start at $24.99 (CAD or USD), plus SMS usage. We have no prepaid credits. Cancel anytime.

We make it super simple and easy to get started with our mass texting app. Get in touch!