Delivery reports tell the truth
A good bulk SMS platform shows delivered, failed, and pending. If you only celebrate “sent,” you miss the parents and members who never saw the message.
Common causes of failure
- Invalid numbers — typos, missing digits, landlines, old SIM numbers
- Formatting — mixed 07 / 256 / +256 in one file without normalisation
- Handset off or out of coverage — temporary; may retry depending on route
- Content risk — spam-like wording, misleading financial claims, excessive links
- Unregistered expectations — some traffic types need correct sender registration
What you can control today
- Clean lists quarterly; remove repeated failures
- Standardise phone format before upload
- Send a pilot to 50 numbers before 5,000
- Use a clear Sender ID when available
- Write plain, honest copy — school and SACCO tone beats “CONGRATULATIONS YOU WON”
- Check Yoola delivery reports after every campaign
What the provider controls
Gateway routing, network interconnects, and peak-time behaviour. Choose a provider that publishes reports and answers on WhatsApp when something looks wrong — silence during an outage destroys trust.
Yoola SMS approach
Real-time campaign analytics, duplicate removal on import, and local support. Test with the free SMS on signup, then scale.
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