Send SMS from email (email-to-SMS)

How email-to-SMS works

Send an email to the recipient's mobile number at sms.delivery. Enfonica sends the body of the email to that number as an SMS from your project. Any system that can send email can send SMS this way, including survey platforms such as Forsta. Every message appears in Cloud SMS > Messages, like a message sent with the API.

Only email from the addresses or domains approved for your project is accepted. Each email is also checked against your domain's SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records, so only authorized senders can use the service.

Ask us to set it up

Our support team sets up email-to-SMS for your project and makes any later changes. Send us these details:

• The Enfonica project to send from, for example projects/my-project.
• The email addresses allowed to send, or whole domains, such as surveys.example.com.au.
• The default sender. It can be one of your SMS-enabled numbers, a group of numbers, or a sender ID that's registered and Active in the project. With a group of numbers, each recipient keeps hearing from the same number.
• Whether you want to choose the sender for each email in the subject line.
• Any options you want: short links (on our domain or your own), or replies forwarded to an email address. Both are covered later in this article.

To add a sending address or change the default sender later, contact us with the project and the change.

Send a message

1. Address the email to the recipient's mobile number followed by @sms.delivery, for example 0491570006@sms.delivery or +61491570006@sms.delivery. Spaces, brackets, dashes, and dots in the number are ignored. A 10-digit number that starts with 0 is read as Australian. Any other number needs its country code.
2. Write the message in the body of the email. Everything in the body is sent, including any signature or disclaimer that your mail system adds, so send from an address that doesn't add one.
3. To send from your default sender, leave the subject blank. To send from another sender, enter it in the subject. See Choose the sender in the subject.
4. Send the email.

An HTML email is converted to plain text. Curly quotes, long dashes, and the ellipsis character are changed to their plain versions. This keeps messages in standard characters and in fewer segments. Emoji are kept, but they switch the whole message to the larger character set. For more information, see Why is my SMS billed as more than one message?

Choose the sender in the subject

If sender selection is turned on for your project, the subject line decides who each message comes from. The whole subject must be the sender, with nothing else in it. A leading Re: or Fw: is ignored.

A sender ID in the subject is used only after it's registered and shows Active under Cloud SMS > Sender IDs in the same project. Until then, the message is still sent, from your default sender, and no error tells you. To register a sender ID, see Register an alphanumeric sender ID for SMS in Australia.

Mark a message as transactional

To send a message as transactional, add [transactional] anywhere in the subject, in any capitals. The tag is removed before the subject is read for a sender, so you can use both, for example EXAMPLECO [transactional].

Transactional messages aren't checked against your opt-out list. Use the tag only for messages that aren't marketing, such as an appointment confirmation. For more information, see How SMS opt-outs (STOP) work.

Opt-outs and replies

Email-to-SMS is one-way. Replies to a number arrive in Cloud SMS > Messages, but they don't come back to you as email. Nobody can reply to a sender ID.

Here's how email-to-SMS handles replies:

• STOP replies. When someone replies STOP to a message from one of your numbers, they're opted out of your project. Later messages to them that aren't transactional aren't sent.
• Replies by email. On request, we can forward replies by email when the original email's Reply-To address matches an address we've set up for you. Forwarded replies come from noreply@sms.delivery, with the subject "SMS Received from" and the two numbers.
• Automatic replies. Out-of-office and other automatic emails sent to an sms.delivery address are ignored, so they never become SMS.

Shorten links

On request, we can replace each link in your messages that starts with http:// or https:// with a short link, on Enfonica's short-link domain or on your own. Short links from email-to-SMS work for 30 days after the message is sent. For more information, see How SMS short links and link tracking work.

Check that it worked

1. From an approved address, send an email with a blank subject to your own mobile number, for example 0491570006@sms.delivery. The SMS arrives from your default sender.
2. In the Enfonica Console, go to Cloud SMS > Messages. The message is listed with the status Delivered.
3. If you use sender selection, send a second email with your sender in the subject. It arrives from that sender.

If no SMS arrives and nothing new appears in Cloud SMS > Messages, the email was set aside before an SMS was created. You might not get a bounce message about it. Check these things:

• You sent from an approved address.
• The number before @sms.delivery is the full mobile number.
• The recipient hasn't opted out.

If a message is listed but wasn't delivered, see An SMS wasn't delivered, or arrived late. If you're still stuck, send us the details in What to send us, with the sending email address.