Welcome Messages

Telerivet can automatically send a welcome message to each contact the first time your project sends them a text message — for example, to introduce your organization or to provide opt-out or compliance instructions.

Each contact only receives the welcome message once, the first time a text message is sent to them, whether the message is sent manually, via a broadcast, by an automated service, or via the API.

Enabling a Welcome Message for Your Project

To enable a welcome message for all messages sent from your project, open the Messaging Settings page and find the Welcome Message section.

Check the box "Automatically send a welcome message the first time each contact is messaged", then enter the text of your welcome message.

The welcome message can include template variables, such as the contact's name or a short link to an opt-out page. Click "Variables" to select a variable, or type it directly, e.g. [[contact.name]] or [[link.optout]]. Template variables are replaced with the actual values for each contact when the welcome message is sent.

By default, the welcome message is sent as a separate message, immediately after the first message to that contact is sent.

Appending the Welcome Message to the First Message

Instead of sending the welcome message as a separate message, you can check the box "Append the welcome message to the end of the first message". In this case, the welcome message text is added to the end of the contact's first message, rather than being sent separately. This may reduce messaging costs by reducing the total number of messages sent, although the combined text will make the first message longer (for SMS, it may be sent as a multipart message).

Route-Specific Welcome Messages

Each basic route can also be configured with its own welcome message, which overrides the project's welcome message for messages sent via that route. This is useful when different routes need different welcome messages — for example, routes for different countries, languages, or messaging channels.

To configure a welcome message for a particular route, open the Routes page, click on the route, and find the Welcome Message section in the route's settings.

A route's welcome message is sent the first time that route sends a text message to a contact — even if the contact was previously sent messages via other routes in your project. Routes that don't have their own welcome message enabled will use the project's welcome message from the Messaging Settings page (if enabled).

If you send messages via a custom route that contains multiple basic routes, the welcome message settings of the basic route that actually sends each message will apply.

When Welcome Messages Are Sent

Welcome messages are designed to avoid sending unnecessary or duplicate messages:

• The welcome message is only sent after the contact's first message has actually been sent. If the first message fails or is cancelled, no welcome message is sent.
• Contacts who were already sent text messages before the welcome message was enabled will not receive a welcome message.
• Welcome messages are only triggered by text messages, not by voice calls.
• Replies to a message received from a contact do not trigger a welcome message.
• When sending a broadcast to a large group, each contact's welcome message is sent immediately after that contact's own message, rather than after the entire broadcast.

Viewing Welcome Messages

Welcome messages that are sent as a separate message are tagged with the source "Welcome Message". The message time-series charts can show the total number of welcome messages sent in an interval when filtering by source.  When exporting messages to CSV, the Source column allows you to filter welcome messages. In the REST API, welcome messages have the source value welcome.