10DLC campaign registration walkthrough

A lot has changed recently when it comes to business text messaging, especially if you use local numbers. A business line with a local area code can now be considered a carrier-sanctioned messaging channel called 10 digit long code, or 10DLC.

With the new status, though, comes a process for registering brand and campaign information to the carriers so they can be sure you or your customers are sending wanted messages. 

The carriers have designated a third party company, The Campaign Registry, to handle the registration of brands and campaigns via campaign service providers. The Campaign Registry, or TCR, is the organization that will assess the trust score assigned to each brand and pass along that information to the carriers to assign their limitations according to each carrier’s system. 

To understand how this applies to you, we first have to identify your role. You are either a Brand or a Reseller (also called a Campaign Service Provider or CSP). 

If you are a single, consumer-facing brand sending messages on behalf of yourself only, like a large retailer, you do not qualify as a reseller or campaign service provider, meaning you must rely on your messaging vendor to either register for you or give you an interface to register yourself via their own portal. 

If you are a reseller representing multiple brands, you do qualify to be a campaign service provider with TCR directly. (HINT: if you are reading this post, you’re more likely to be a reseller). 

Registration via TCR will need to be undertaken for all brands utilizing local numbers through your service. Because only one brand can be associated with each campaign, software companies that send messages on behalf of multiple brands would also be considered resellers. 

During the registration process, TCR will ask for information related to three things: the brand itself, the reseller representing the brand, and the campaign. For the brand, basic identifying information is required: legal name, industry, contact information, and more. For the reseller, TCR presents an even simpler contact information request. Finally, for the campaign itself, TCR asks you to provide things like the general use case, such as notifications or marketing, as well as a description and example message content. 

Once registered, a campaign ID will be generated immediately that will need to be associated with your numbers in order to be recognized by the carriers. 

You might be asking, do I really have to do this? If you want to send from a local number then yes, yes you do. AT&T has indicated that filtering for unregistered traffic will start on June 1st, 2021, and T-Mobile also plans to make registration a requirement.