The Mobile Marketing Association has released the latest version of its “U.S Consumer Best Practices Guidelines for Cross-Carrier Mobile Content Services. More simply, its the latest iteration of guidelines in terms of cross-carrier mobile content services such as SMS, MMS, shortcode services, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and the mobile Web.
Dubbed version 4.0, the new guidelines represent the first time the individual mobile marketing guidelines and codes of conduct, known as “carrier playbooks,” of the four largest U.S. wireless service providers: Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile USA have been consolidated into one integrated “rule book” so to speak.
The new version is significant in the world of mobile marketing because it eliminates the need to refer to four different “carrier playbooks,” and instead brings them all together in one 100+ page manual. Like previous versions, the guidelines provide measures of acceptable and unacceptable practices for all players in the U.S. ecosystem.
Among many enhancements, the new guidelines also feature a new reference ID system designed to make it fast and easy to navigate the document and find information. The guidelines help standardize practices across the industry which provides a better experience for customers by ensuring the consistency of mobile marketing campaigns across the four major U.S. carriers. Other major revisions and key additions include:
- Standardizing the language “Msg & Data Rates May Apply”
- Allowing for more flexibility with PIN location in message-terminated (MT) messages
- Modifying the STOP requirement in Opt-in MT messages
