SMS presets

SMS presets are reusable SMS messages you prepare once and send again in SMS campaigns and Customer Journeys. Personalize the text for each user, adapt it to different languages, or fill it with products and articles instead of writing everything by hand.

Create an SMS preset

1. Go to Content > Messenger presets.
2. Open the SMS tab.
3. Click Create SMS content.

4. Choose a content type:

   • Regular SMS: a message you write yourself, optionally personalized with tags.
   • Product Recommendations: a message built from your Product Catalog, with products picked by hand, pulled by a catalog rule (category and sort order), pulled by a recommendation strategy (for example, bestsellers or recently viewed), or fetched from the recipient’s abandoned cart.
   • News Feeds: a message built from a registered news feed with the latest or trending articles, optionally filtered to one feed and one category.

Important

The content type is fixed when you create the preset and can’t be changed afterward.

5. Enter a clear, descriptive name for the preset.

Continue with Add languages, then build content for the type you chose.

Add languages

You can create the same SMS preset in multiple languages.

1. Compose the default-language message first.
2. Click the + icon at the top of the editor.

3. Select the additional languages you need.

Note

The language selector here only counts devices on platforms that receive SMS. Language values set through user-level Tags aren’t tied to a device platform, so they don’t show up here.

4. Switch between languages in the dropdown and fill in the message for each one.

For example, if your default language is English and you add Spanish and German, users with Spanish or German phone settings receive the message in their language. Everyone else receives the English version.

Note

The default message goes to all users unless a version in their language is available. Add more languages to match users’ device language settings. For how multi-language messaging works across channels, see Multi-language messaging.

Build content by type

The editor fields depend on the content type you chose when creating the preset.

Tip

Don’t forget an opt-out line in marketing SMS, for example “Reply STOP to unsubscribe”. It’s required in many countries.

Regular SMS

Regular SMS is a plain-text message you type in the Message field. Personalize it with user data or add a tracked link if you need to.

1. In the Message field, type your SMS text.
2. Click Emoji above the field to insert an emoji.
3. To personalize the message, follow the steps in Personalize SMS content below.
4. To add a tracked, shortened link, paste the URL into Shorten a link and click Shorten & insert. To skip shortening and tracking, paste the URL directly into the Message field instead.

Below the Message field, the editor shows the character and segment count.

Personalize SMS content

Insert user data into the message so each recipient sees their own name, city, or other details you have stored.

1. Click Personalization above the message field.

2. Select a tag from the dropdown. Available tags depend on the user data you have collected. Learn more about tags

3. Select a format modifier for how the tag value appears:

   • CapitalizeFirst: the first letter is uppercase and the rest lowercase. For example, “john doe” becomes “John doe”.
   • CapitalizeAllFirst: the first letter of each word is uppercase. For example, “john doe” becomes “John Doe”.
   • UPPERCASE: all letters uppercase. For example, “john doe” becomes “JOHN DOE”.
   • Lowercase: all letters lowercase. For example, “JOHN DOE” becomes “john doe”.
   • Regular: keeps the original formatting from your data. For example, “john doe” stays “john doe”.

4. In Default Tag Value, enter the fallback text when the tag has no value for a user. For example, for {City}, enter “your city”.

5. Click Insert. The tag appears in the message as a placeholder. At send time, Pushwoosh replaces it with each user’s value. If a user has no value for that tag, the Default Tag Value from step 4 is used instead.

For example, you insert {City} with default value “your city” into the message “Explore, dine, and discover in {City}. Start now!”

• City has a value: “Explore, dine, and discover in Chicago. Start now!”
• City is empty: “Explore, dine, and discover in your city. Start now!”

Product Recommendations

Product Recommendations pulls product names, prices, and links from your Product Catalog into the SMS. Use it to promote a fixed set of products, highlight bestsellers or new arrivals, or remind users about items left in their cart.

Compose the message

Write the SMS text for the products your content source will return. Start with the single Message field (Items defaults to 1 on a new preset). To include two or more products, set Items in Content source, then fill Intro, Item template, and Outro.

One item

1. In the Message field, type your SMS text. Click Title, Price, Category, or Link to insert a product placeholder like {{product.title}} at the cursor.
2. To add a tracked, shortened link, paste the URL into Shorten a link and click Shorten & insert.

More than one item

Set Items to 2 or more in Content source below to split the message into three blocks around the repeated product list.

1. Fill in Intro. This block is sent once, before the products.
2. Fill in Item template. This block is repeated for each product. Click Title, Price, Category, or Link to insert a product field. Each inserts a placeholder like {{product.title}} at the cursor.
3. Choose Separator between items: comma puts products on one line (Sneakers, Hoodie), new line puts each product on its own line.
4. Fill in Outro. This block is sent once, after the products. Click Title, Price, Category, or Link here too to insert a product placeholder. Intro, items, and outro are joined with a new line.
5. To add a tracked, shortened link, paste the URL into Shorten a link and click Shorten & insert.

Choose a content source

1. Scroll to Content source at the bottom of the editor.

2. Set Source to one of four options:

   • Manual: hand-pick up to 3 products.
   • Catalog rule: fetch products by category and sort order.
   • Recommendations: fetch products by a recommendation strategy.
   • Abandoned cart: fetch products from the recipient’s abandoned cart.

Configure the source you chose:

Manual

1. Click Add a product.
2. Search your catalog and select a product. Repeat to add up to 3 products.
3. To remove a product, click Remove next to it.
4. Before reusing an older preset, click Refresh from catalog. Prices and titles are frozen at pick time.

Catalog rule

1. Set Category and Sort by.
2. Set Items to how many products to include (up to 3 per message).
3. Optionally, under Pinned rows, hand-pick products to lead the message before the rule fills the remaining slots.
4. Optionally check Trim product title to a fixed character count to keep the message inside SMS length limits.
5. Set what happens if the feed returns nothing: skip sending to that recipient, or send a fallback text.

Recommendations

1. Set Strategy to how products are picked:

   • Bestsellers (7 or 30 days): products with the most units sold in the last 7 or 30 days. Needs PW_OrderCreated and PW_OrderUpdated events with an items array.
   • Newest: latest products added to the catalog. Ranks from catalog data only.
   • Back in stock: products that recently came back in stock. Ranks from catalog stock changes.
   • Price drop: products with a recent price decrease. Ranks from catalog price changes.
   • Bought together: products frequently purchased alongside an anchor product. Needs product activity events and a device tag that holds the anchor product ID.
   • Recently viewed: products the recipient recently browsed. Needs product activity events from your backend.

   Bestsellers, Bought together, and Recently viewed need events from your backend, the same ones that power the Products block in email. See How to set up product recommendations in email for what to send.

2. Set Category to filter which products the strategy can pick from, and Items to how many products to include (up to 3 per message). If the strategy returns nothing, the plain catalog rule fills the message instead of sending it empty.

3. Optionally, pin products under Pinned rows. Pinned rows count against Items: the Add a product picker blocks you from selecting more than Items to begin with, showing 0 slots left once you hit the cap. If you lower Items below the number of rows already pinned, the extra pinned rows don’t send. Pin a product the strategy would also return and the row repeats, since the rule can’t exclude a pinned product from its own results.

4. Optionally check Trim product title to a fixed character count.
5. Set what happens if the feed returns nothing: skip sending to that recipient, or send a fallback text.

Abandoned cart

Pushwoosh fetches each recipient’s own cart when the message goes out, not in advance. Set Items to how many products to fetch (up to 3). Because the products depend on who’s receiving the message, there’s no preview and Pinned rows aren’t available. Unlike Catalog rule and Recommendations, there’s no If the feed returns nothing option here — Abandoned cart has no fallback control for a recipient with an empty cart.

News Feeds

News Feeds pulls article titles, summaries, and links from an RSS or Atom feed into the SMS. Use it to share the latest news, trending stories, or updates from a specific category.

Compose the message

The message fields depend on Articles in Content source below. On a new preset, Articles defaults to 1, showing a single message field. Set it to 2 or more, and the field splits into Intro, Article template, and Outro blocks. Below the message fields, the editor shows an estimated character and segment count once at least one article matches the feed rule.

One article

1. In the Message field, type your SMS text. Click Title, Summary, Category, Author, or Link to insert an article field. Each inserts a placeholder like {{news.title}} at the cursor. There’s no publish-date field.
2. To add a tracked, shortened link, paste the URL into Shorten a link and click Shorten & insert.

More than one article

Set Articles to 2 or more in Content source below to split the message into Intro, Article template, and Outro blocks around the repeated article list.

1. Fill in Intro. This block is sent once, before the articles.
2. Fill in Article template. This block is repeated for each article. Click Title, Summary, Category, Author, or Link to insert an article field. Each inserts a placeholder like {{news.title}} at the cursor.
3. Set Separator between articles to comma or new line.
4. Fill in Outro. This block is sent once, after the articles. Click Title, Summary, Category, Author, or Link here too to insert an article field. Intro, articles, and outro are joined with a new line.
5. To add a tracked, shortened link, paste the URL into Shorten a link and click Shorten & insert.

Choose a content source

Feeds must be registered under Content > News Feeds for your application. This panel only picks a feed. It doesn’t register one. If none exist yet, a warning banner appears — register a feed on that page first, using Add feed.

1. Scroll to Content source at the bottom of the editor.

2. Set Feed to one registered feed, or All feeds to pull from every feed in the project.

3. Set Rubric to one category of the selected feed, or leave it as Any rubric. Switching the feed resets this field, since categories belong to the feed they came from.

4. Set Ranking:

   • Newest: the latest articles by publish date from the feed.
   • Trending: the articles with the most recent opens on your site and clicks in your emails.

How Trending works

Trending picks articles that people are reading right now. Pushwoosh counts two signals:

• Site opens: PW_SiteOpened fires when someone opens a page on your site. Install the Pushwoosh Web SDK on your site to collect this signal.
• Email clicks: PW_EmailLinkClicked fires when someone clicks an article link in your email. No extra setup beyond sending emails through Pushwoosh.

You don’t send these events yourself. Without the Web SDK on your site, ranking uses email clicks only, which gives a weaker signal. When there isn’t enough recent activity yet, Trending falls back to Newest.

5. Set Articles to how many articles to include (up to 3 per message).

6. Under Pinned articles, click Add an article to hand-pick articles that lead the message. A pinned article is excluded from what the feed fetches, so it’s never repeated. Titles are frozen at pick time. The send doesn’t re-read them.

7. Optionally check Trim article title to a fixed character count.

8. Under If the feed returns nothing, choose what happens when the rule finds no articles:

   • Do not send to this recipient: skip the send for that user.
   • Send this text instead: send a fallback message you type in the field that appears. If you leave that field blank, Pushwoosh skips the send to that recipient instead of sending an empty SMS — fill in real fallback text if you want a message to go out.

   To check the fallback text and content source settings you saved, see Review what’s saved into the preset.

Review what’s saved into the preset

For Product Recommendations and News Feeds presets, Pushwoosh saves your Content source settings as a Liquid template that fetches products or articles at send time. Reviewing it helps you check your filters, fallback text, and pinned items, especially when the preview is empty. The panel is read-only — change settings through Content source instead.

Note

The template runs only if Liquid content templates are enabled for your account. If they aren’t, recipients get the raw template text instead of a rendered message. Contact Pushwoosh Support if you’re unsure whether your account has this enabled.

1. Scroll to Content source and click Show what is saved into the preset.
2. Review the Liquid block Pushwoosh stores for this preset. It includes the request that fetches your products or articles, your content source settings, and any fallback message text.
3. Click Hide what is saved into the preset to collapse the panel.

Add MMS attachments

On the same editor page, attach up to 3 images to turn the message into an MMS. Attachments are set per language, the same as the message text.

1. Scroll to MMS attachments — below Content source, or below the message fields for Regular SMS.
2. Optionally enter a Subject. A subject requires at least one image. A subject without an attachment is rejected. Up to 40 characters if the subject is plain ASCII, or 13 characters if it contains any non-ASCII character (for example Cyrillic, CJK, or most emoji).
3. Click Add image to pick a file from your project’s media library. You can attach up to 3 images. Use JPG or GIF files under 200 KB each — AbleMobile, the only MMS-capable provider, rejects the whole send otherwise.
4. Once you’ve added a second image, set Show text after to choose which image the message text should appear after (Image 1, Image 2, and so on). With a single image, the text is shown after it automatically.

Note

MMS is delivered only when your SMS provider supports it: currently AbleMobile. With any other provider, the subject and images are dropped and the plain-text message is sent instead. Learn more

Leaving the attachments empty sends a regular SMS. There’s no separate MMS toggle.

Preview and save

The preview panel on the right side of the editor shows how the message looks as an SMS bubble. It updates as you edit.

1. Check the preview on the right to see the message text and segment count.

2. Click Save at the top of the editor.

Once saved, use the preset in SMS campaigns and Customer Journeys.

Manage SMS presets

Saved presets appear under Content > Messenger presets on the SMS tab. The list shows each preset’s title, category, and last updated date. Use the search bars at the top to find content by name or category. From this page, you can edit, delete, or create new SMS content.

SMS categories

Each SMS message has a category shown in the Category column.

1. Click the current category next to the SMS title.
2. Select a different category from the dropdown, or create a new one.

Note

Content categories apply to all types of content within a single project, except push.