BFCM glossary

Quick definitions for terms you'll see across these articles.

Peak week. Monday, November 23 through Giving Tuesday, December 1. The highest-volume stretch of the season, covering Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Campaign. A one-time send to a list or segment, scheduled by you.

Flow. An automated message series triggered by a customer action, like an abandoned cart or a first purchase.

Segment. A group of subscribers who share a trait, like VIPs, recent clickers, or first-time buyers. Not to be confused with a message segment below.

Message segment. The unit texts are billed in. A plain SMS is 160 characters. Emojis and special characters switch the message to a different encoding, so one emoji can double or triple the cost of a message.

MMS. A text with an image or GIF attached. Costs more per message than SMS.

Marketing text. A promotional message that requires marketing consent and must respect quiet hours.

Quiet hours. Times when marketing texts can't be sent. Federal law limits sends to 8 AM to 9 PM in the recipient's local time, and some states are stricter and have smaller windows.

Carrier filtering. Carriers scan messages and can block ones that look like spam, contain risky links, or come from numbers with sudden volume spikes.

SHAFT. Sex, hate, alcohol, firearms, and tobacco. Carriers restrict or require extra review for these categories. Carriers apply the same rules to related categories like CBD and vaping.

Opt-out rate. The share of recipients who reply STOP after a send. A normal campaign is well under 1%; peak week runs higher.

Revenue per message. Total attributed revenue divided by messages sent. The best single number for comparing sends.

Attribution window. How long after a text a purchase still counts as text revenue. OneText counts a purchase if it happens within 24 hours of the last text sent to that customer.

AI agent. OneText's conversational assistant that replies to customer texts, answers questions, and recommends products using your brand profile.

Brand profile. The information your AI agent works from: products, shipping and return policies, tone, current offers, and what to escalate to a human.