Good morning guys! First of all, since the update is coming in mid day - please refresh the current OnlySales tab to load in the latest version. You can use: Control+Shift+R, or Command+Shift+R to reload the page and force grab the latest update.

Even though it's past the 1st of the month, you can still text, even if you've not yet registered for 10DLC. I know there has been news by other apps, that September 1st was the deadline for registration, but this does not apply to OnlySales.

Although 10DLC has been an optional process for a while now - it wasn't a major cause of concern for any of our users, as it wasn't a requirement, or had any noticeable impact. However, this is changing with time, as carriers push towards the process eventually becoming mandatory for all.

This last month, we've been rushing as a company, to deal with the influx of users asking us for 10DLC features, and figuring out the best way to get campaigns approved for all.

With that out of the way - let's recap what 10DLC is, and why it might be important for you to register.

10DLC Recap:

What is 10DLC?

It was announced years ago, and it is this agreement by all of the major carriers that one central company called the Campaign Registry would be created to vet which companies are sending out texts and where messages are coming from so that they could track giant spam campaigns like tax fraud campaigns or your car's extended warranty campaigns and block them at an easier level.

It's been available as a feature for a year or two, but just lately it's become mandatory by a couple of companies.

Why should you register for 10DLC?

1. Delivery rates!

As time passes, we've noticed that accounts which send messages after they're fully vetted, deliver a staggeringly higher amount than before they were registered. Meaning that you can reach more leads, and get more responses - and so, more sales, with the same amount of leads, and the same amount of spend as before.

The images below are for a heavy user - both before, and after 10DLC vetting, without any changes to the lead sources, or message wording. Nearly a 33% jump in delivered messages!

2. Costs

While the cost to send messages for us as a company has stayed relatively consistenly - allowing us to offer the same low prices we always have, carriers that receive your messages (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile), have started charging a pass-through fee to us, for any messages that are not sent through a 10DLC registered number. These fees are extremely large, to the point where as a company, will be forced to eventually make a decision as to whether we raise costs, or force 10DLC registration for all users. We don't like to force any of our users to do anything - as we value everyone's freedom to use OnlySales as a tool for their own business, without any overly pushy rules or regulations (after all, OnlySales was made by a health insurance agent, for health insurance agents), but the cost increases will eventually force our hand. At the moment, there is no deadline announced.

3. It will be a requirement eventually...

Regardless of how long we as a company can offer the same rates for a service that now costs us way more to provide, OnlySales does not directly send messages to receiving numbers, but instead goes through partner sending carriers. One by one, these carriers have started to make it mandatory for anyone that uses their service, to force 10DLC registration for their app users. We've seen this with Bandwith, which powers TextDrip, forcing on registrations by May - and most recently, Twilio, which powers most CRM's on the web, including High Level, Agent CRM, Ringy, and hundreds of others (including some of our routes), making it a requirement as of September 1st.

While we still have a carrier partner that allows for this, it's the last major carrier that does as of the 1st of this month - and if the trend that's impacted all other carriers holds, it means that eventually, they too will make it a requirement. While at the moment, it isn't, which means we can allow unregistered texting, if we can bear the cost of the increased fees - once it is forced onto us, there will be no way that we could secure an exception for any user - or that we could find another partner to send unregistered messages, as there is only one left now.

If we get a date from them on when exactly it might be forced on, we'll immediately notify everyone (from our conversations, there is no date yet, or even a loose date, but it's likely it'll happen).

However, we recommend all users start the process as soon as possible - as Open Enrollment is right around the corner, and we wouldn't want to have it line up where OE starts, and our partners force it onto us, which means we wouldn't be able to send until accounts are registered - and messages would fail during one of the most crucial parts of your business for the year, until everyone is vetted, which can take a while. Better to start the registration process now, and still be able to normally send, while it's vetted and approved, than register last minute, and go through some time were your account cannot send (if it's forced on, there would be no way around it), until the registration comes online.

New Features:

- 10DLC Status Bar:

The status of your account, and whether or not it's already registered, or in process, is now displayed at the top bar, by your name, and balance.

- Revamped 10DLC Registration Page:

If you click on the new 10DLC status displayed at the top bar, or go to Settings > 10DLC, you can access the registration page, showing you the current status of your registration, if any, or allowing you to start one, if you haven't done so yet.

- Campaign Submission Help:

Since the Campaign Registry asks for very specific requirements on the website that is the source of your leads, when registering - to make things easier for all of our users, we'll help you complete your registration, by having a partner website company create you a site which matches all required parts for approval, free of charge!

This website we create for you, will be editable from within the OnlySales app on a later update as well, so you can not only use it to help your campaign get approved, but also to help you run your business.

- Statistics:

In the case that your account is getting a large number of messages caught as SPAM by receiving carriers, you'll now see a suggestion to register for 10DLC, as well as a likely delivery rate once your campaign is approved.

That's it for now!

Now that the 10DLC process is fully tested, and all features are in place to help anyone register, or keep up to date with any pending registration, we can get back to other updates. The next one will expand analytics to show which types of messages receive the most responses, and which types of messages get caught as spam more than others.

With this revamp in analytics, and the registration process in place, we should see delivery rates increase across the board for everyone that might have had an issue with that.

As always, if anyone has any suggestions, please send them our way. Looking forward to hearing from all of you - and thank you for using OnlySales!