North American Short Codes

Short codes are the carrier mandated mechanism for legitimizing SMS commercial traffic and are mostly used for media or premium SMS campaigns to protect end users against spam. They enhances consumer confidence by enabling opt-in programs approved by mobile carriers.

Short codes are facilitating everyday communication experiences; making them faster, easier and more interactive through their easy to remember feature where a short code often spells a word or a brand name. This ease of use has not only revolutionized the way businesses and organizations interact with key audiences, bat also enhanced user interaction with media outlets, companies, governments and other sources of information, products or services.

Examples of short code implementation:

• Contests and Promotions - Facilitate sweepstakes and instant win contests, voting, polling, trivia, sports pools.



• Mobile Commerce - Using premium SMS, enable a payment method for products and services that leverages the billing systems of wireless operators.



• Community Applications - Develop and deploy innovative custom applications that build and grow a community of mobile users.



• Mobile Coupons - Create turn-key incentive and loyalty programs through the mobile phone.



• Event Solutions - Sporting and events become more interactive with their audiences with mobile event solutions.

How can Upside Help?

Upside Wireless is participating in all aspects of Short Code management in both USA and Canada. We are able to provide you with both technical and professional services to optimize the process of applying for, provisioning and operating short code campaigns, both premium and non-premium. We also offer media management campaigns that allow you to create and manage any number of mobile campaigns from an easy to use web interface. Please Contact Us for more information.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Short Code Campaigns

While tremendously beneficial, short codes are sometimes seen as main barriers to further adoption and growth of text messaging campaigns in North America. The main reasons are time of implementation (usually 3-4 months) and cost. Upside has several options to offer and we would be happy to discuss them with you. One of them is to base your campaigns on a dedicated MSISDN that we have available in many countries. You can get your campaigns started within days (often hours) at a fraction of the cost of Short Code based campaigns.