Why text a lead from the same number?
Because on the lead’s phone, each number is a separate conversation. A follow-up from a second number arrives as a message from a stranger.
When every text comes from one number, the lead sees your first message, your follow-ups and their own replies in one thread, and knows who you are. They answer the number in front of them, so their reply comes back to the conversation your team is already in.
A lead who sees your earlier texts above a new one already knows who is writing, so the conversation can pick up where it left off.
It helps your team too. The shared inbox shows the same thread the lead sees, with the campaign’s texts and the replies in order, so whoever picks it up has the full history.
How does it work with several numbers?
New leads take turns across the campaign’s numbers, and each one keeps the number it started on for every step after that.
Say a campaign has two numbers and you launch 100 new leads. The first lead’s text goes from the first number, which makes that number the busier one, so the next lead’s text goes from the second, and so on down the list. About half the leads start on each number.
From then on, nothing moves. A lead’s follow-up three days later comes from the number that sent its first text, and so does the answer a teammate sends from the inbox when the lead writes back. Adding a third number later changes only where new leads start.
How is a lead’s first number chosen?
From the numbers you add to the campaign. A lead’s first text goes from the campaign number that has sent the fewest texts in the last 24 hours.
You pick a campaign’s numbers in its settings. When two numbers are level, the one listed first sends. New conversations spread across your numbers this way, and each lead keeps the number it started on.
Each extra number is $10 a month, or $12 for toll-free, and 10DLC registration explains how we register your numbers. See pricing for the rest.
Which number do later steps and manual replies use?
The same one. The number is saved on the lead after the first text, and every later step in the campaign goes out from it.
Replies from your team follow the same rule. When someone answers in the shared inbox, Textually sends from the number the lead’s message arrived on. If that number is no longer active, it falls back to the number that last texted the lead, then to the campaign’s numbers.
The opt-out line works with the thread too. Until the lead replies by text, each campaign text carries it. Once they write back, later texts in the campaign drop it, so a long conversation stays short. The texting rules page covers opt-outs in full.
What if a number is removed from a campaign?
Only then does a lead move. Its next text goes from another of the campaign’s numbers, picked the same way as a first text, and it stays on that one.
So keep a number on a campaign while its leads are mid-sequence. If you need to retire one, its leads carry on from another number, and the change shows as a new thread on their phones.
What if the same person is in two campaigns?
Each campaign keeps its own number for that person, and a reply is matched to the campaign whose number they answered.
When a reply arrives, Textually looks for the lead whose latest text went out from the number the reply was sent to. If that doesn’t settle it, the reply goes to the lead whose sequence is still running, then to the one texted most recently. The reply ends that lead’s sequence and lands in the inbox under the right campaign.
If you want one person to hear from a single number across several campaigns, give those campaigns the same one number.