Image Gallery Text Message Triggers

Studios now have the ability to send event-driven text messages to customers whose mobile phone numbers are associated with image galleries.

Examples of notifications include:

  • “Yearbook pose deadline is tomorrow. Make your selection now!” sent to all customers one day before yearbook pose deadline to customers who have not made a yearbook selection.
  • “Picture retake day is tomorrow. Log in to view your images now!” sent one day before retake day to customers who have not purchased.
Pricing for Triggered Text Messages
  • Premium SimplePhoto members will not be charged for the first 5000 triggered text messages sent each month. Each additional text message will be billed at the rate of 1 cent per text message.
  • Lite or Pro SimplePhoto members will not be charged for the first 1000 triggered text messages sent each month. Each additional text message will be billed at the rate of 1 cent per text message.
  • Before billing for triggered text messages starts, the SimplePhoto Dashboard will show the current number of text messages sent in a month.
  • An email notification will be sent to your account's billing email address the day when the free allotment of triggered text messages has been exceeded and you will begin being billed for triggered text messages.
  • All triggered text message fees will be included in your monthly bill as an individual line item.
  • There is no charge for text messages sent for import gallery notifications or digital download orders.

Restrictions: 

  • A maximum of 10 triggered texts can be set up within a single SimplePhoto account. This restriction is subject to change.
  • A text trigger will only run once per day. For example, you set up a text trigger to run at 10am. At 11am, you decide that you want to change the time for the text trigger to 3pm. Since the text trigger already ran at 10am, the text trigger will not run at 3pm.

Mobile phone numbers can be stored using the following three methods for image galleries:

  • Import mobile numbers when uploading your job with PhotoLynx Flow, ImageMatch, DP2 Bridge, DRUMS, and SPOTS.
  • Checkout: Click Marketing at the top of your dashboard and then click General Marketing Settings. Check the box next to Enable email address and phone number collection during checkout. If a customer checks the box next to "Notify me about gallery updates and sales," their email and phone number will be stored and can be used later for notification purposes. Place an order for a gallery or prepay event and make sure the opt-in checkbox is checked when you enter the email and phone number on the checkout screen.
  • Guestbook: Click Marketing at the top of your dashboard and then click General Marketing Settings. From the drop-down menu next to Image Gallery Guestbook, select either Enable - Email Optional and Phone Optional or Enable - Email Required and Phone Optional. The Guestbook form will appear on the gallery homepage. If the guestbook is required, customers must provide an email address to view a gallery. To test, enter the phone number in an image gallery's guestbook. You can either access a gallery where you have not yet entered the guestbook or you can open the gallery link using your web browser’s incognito or private browsing mode (so the fact that you already entered the guestbook is not remembered).

How to Set up Text Triggers:

There is one pre-built text trigger in your account that is disabled by default. Feel free to modify and enable this trigger or delete and build your own triggers from scratch.

  1. From your SimplePhoto Dashboard, click on Marketing at the top of your dashboard and then click Text Triggers.
  2. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the Add button to create a new text trigger.
  3. Enter an identifiable name in the Label field for the new trigger such as “Yearbook Pose Deadline.”
  4. In the Days field, enter a number of days that you would like the text to be sent before or after the Trigger Date.
  5. Select the Before or After  checkbox . If Before is selected, then texts will be sent X days before the trigger date. If After is selected, then texts will be sent X days after the trigger date.
  6. Choose the Trigger Date, which will trigger the text to be sent. Applicable triggers for image galleries include:
    • Creation: This is the date the image gallery is created.
    • Folder Trigger 1: Yearbook pose deadline: This date can be set inside a folder's control panel. This date field will appear inside a folder's control panel only after an image gallery has been added to that folder. (Note - does not have to actually be the yearbook pose deadline. Can be thought of as a more generic "Date 1" and we're giving you the example to use it for Yearbook Pose deadline)
    • Folder Trigger 2: Free shipping cutoff date/Late fee date: This date can be set inside a folder's control panel. This date field will appear inside a folder's control panel only after an image gallery has been added to that folder. (Note - does not have to actually be the free shipping deadline. Can be thought of as a more generic "Date 2" and we're giving you the example to use it for free shipping cutoff)
  7. Enter a message to your customers in the Template field such as “Yearbook Pose deadline is tomorrow. Make your selection now!”. Refer to the examples of notifications above. The Template field is restricted to 78 characters. Click Here for details about using parameters in your template, which can be used to pull in information from each of your image galleries or folders such as the gallery name, yearbook pose deadline date, etc.
  8. Check the box next to Gallery/Event Link if you would like to include a direct link to the image gallery in the text message.
  9. Select the Event Type from the drop-down menu.
  10. Under Phone Source, select the source where mobile numbers will be pulled from for the triggered text.
    • All: All mobile phone numbers that you import, are pulled from your guestbook, or are submitted by a customer for an order at checkout, will be included in the triggered text.
    • Imported: The triggered texts will be sent only to mobile phone numbers that you import for your image gallery or prepay event.
    • Guestbook: The triggered text will be sent only to mobile numbers added through your Guestbook feature. Verify that the “Collect mobile phone in Guestbook” setting is enabled inside Text Message   Notification   Settings.
    • Checkout: The triggered text will be sent only to mobile phone numbers collected at customer checkout.
  11. Under Gallery/Event Filter, select the type of customer who will receive the triggered text based on their order status.
    • All: All customers will be targeted by this triggered text.
    • No order placed in SimplePhoto: Only customers who have not placed an order in your SimplePhoto account will be targeted by this triggered   text  .
    • Order placed in SimplePhoto: Only customers who have placed an order in your SimplePhoto account will be targeted by this triggered text.
    • No yearbook pose selection: Only customers who have not selected a yearbook pose will be targeted by this triggered text. Applies to Image Gallery Text Triggers ONLY.
  12. Select the Delivery Time that you would like your text to be sent. Text triggers will only be sent during the hour of day they're set to send. The timezone for the delivery time can be updated inside the Photographer Information screen. Visit the Timezone help page for more information.
  13. If you would like this text to be enabled immediately, check the Enabled checkbox.
  14. Click Save when finished.