During the initial sign up process for your SMS program, you can collect information from your new subscribers in a variety of ways, including:

However, over time you may find that you want to ask a contact for information they did not originally provide or identify new information that would be helpful to collect. The strategies below outline some of the common use cases for collecting additional profile data.

In the Keyword Campaign sign-up experience the system can collect data in a single system field, but you may find you would like to collect additional information shortly after sign-up so that contacts can immediately receive tailored messages that nurture their specific experience with your brand.

Utilizing the data acquisition feature in a broadcast message allows you to fill in a contact's system field or custom profile field in their SMS profile. Data acquisition messages can collect text responses, date responses or check a checkbox.

When creating a data acquisition message all contacts will receive the same response regardless of the specific details of their response. This type of message is often used when you are expecting a specific response and can guide the contact to the specific format they should use. In the examples below you can see that contacts are being asked to text a specific response format. The reply Y response is used when collecting data stored as a checkbox. A response of Y (or yes) will check the checkbox in a contact's profile.

Data acquisition messages are automatically filtered to only send to contacts who do not already have data in a system or profile custom field. This prevents contacts who have already responded with receiving a message asking them for the same information a second time.

In addition to the filter to ensure the profile field is empty, you can add additional filters based on the available SMS filters. For example, a common addition when extending your welcome series is the use of an SMS subscribe date filter. A filter of SMS Subscribe Date is exactly 5 days ago will only send a message to a contact who subscribed exactly 5 days ago and has already received the initial keyword or list subscription messages and may have received additional messages from your SMS List Subscription Journey.

Data acquisition messages can be scheduled one time, for example, when you identify a new field you would like to collect. This one-time message would allow you to target your existing subscribers. They can also be scheduled on a recurring basis. For example, when using the filter for subscribe date above a recurring message could be sent every day.

Example Daily Recurring Schedule:

📌 You can have multiple recurring data acquisition campaigns to extend your welcome series, but be sure to space them out enough so that contacts don't feel like you are constantly requiring them to do something.

When creating a data acquisition campaign, here are a few things to keep in mind:

Info campaigns allow a contact to respond with a specific response based on a list of options. Based on the specific response contacts can then receive different replies. Info campaigns can help keep your data clean because only the specified responses are accepted.

Info campaigns are a great tool to use when you have a set of options a contact should select from. Info campaigns can collect information such as preferred category, favorite product option (e.g. scent, color, flavor etc.), and more.

Learn more about setting up info campaign keywords and journeys.

Info campaigns can be advertised in many different ways, including in a message as part of your existing SMS welcome series. This layer of interactivity in your welcome series allows you to collect information about your contacts, while still sending them additional welcome messages, such as coupon reminders.

Below is an example campaign for a coffee brewing company that is advertising their info campaign in the second message of their List Subscription Welcome Journey. Contacts can then receive a specific response in the info campaign with a link to the type of products most relevant to them based on the response.

After a contact responds to an info campaign the responses are stored in Listrak and can be accessed when creating a broadcast SMS or MMS message. Info campaign data can be used as a filter for a one-time message, recurring message, or split test.

When using a response in a filter the option to target people whose response equals a value or does not equal a value. In the filter for either option you can select a single value or multiple values.

Example Multi-value Filter

In the filter all info campaign keywords will be available to filter on and may represent more than one campaign. A contact can only have a single response per keyword campaign, but can respond to more than one campaign.

When creating an info campaign, here are a few things to keep in mind: