Because it's been almost two weeks now, and the Apple iOS bug is still affecting text
message marketing campaigns.
So what am I talking about?
It's Apple iOS, so anybody that has an iPhone that has updated their operating system to
11.2 and now it's affecting 11.2.1.
So people that were on 11.2 and they upgraded the newest version, it's still affecting iPhone
users.
At least according to the data that's about 30% of all iPhone users.
So this is having a lot of impact across the entire industry.
So I wanted to do another video, since I've been two weeks, to go into depth as to why
this is happening and how you can avoid this in your own text message marketing campaigns.
So I made some nice little cards here for you.
So this is a web URL, comes in on a text message, it will be usually blue and people will be
able to click it.
So they can click this URL.
Now, what's happening, this bug is making web URLs look like this.
No line under it, it's not blue, and I can't click this.
So pretty much makes a text message, especially if it has a link in it, pretty much impossible
to use because I can't click on the link in the text message.
So what is causing this?
I have a few examples and things that you should not be putting in your text messages
right now while this bug is in place.
Now we have submitted a ticket to Apple to fix this bug so hopefully they're aware of
it, and they're fixing it, and we'll keep you updated obviously on our YouTube channel
and via email when it is resolved.
So, first thing, the big one that I think is causing the majority the issues is when
people put a dollar sign and a number.
So in a text message, most text messages are something like a 20% off or they're offering
some type of discount and usually that discount is in a dollar form.
So if they put, or if you put in your text message that you send to your consumers, a
dollar sign and then a number, what's gonna happen is the link you put in the text message
it will not look like this, it will not be clickable.
It will look like this.
And this is not clickable, this is what's causing all the issues.
So if in a your text message, you're saying, you know, save $5 off and you're putting a
dollar sign and five, now this can be 10, this can be 20, and really doesn't matter.
In all these things we've tested but also test on your own phone, test on other people's
devices in your office before you send a mass text message.
A way to make sure that whatever you're putting in the text message is not gonna cause major
issues.
This is how we discovered this issue, we were working with one of our clients here at Totango,
we sent a test message to a bunch of different phones running on different operating systems,
and we discovered that, "Man, one of these links was not clickable."
And that's when we discovered this issue and we were able to dive deeper into it, and we
avoided sending this link, that's unclickable to all of the...one of these brands' customers.
So $5, a dollar sign, and then you know five, do not put this in your message, it is going
to cause the message, the link in the message to not be clickable.
This is also affecting phone numbers so if you have a phone number like a 1-800 phone
number, usually it's clickable with the blue underneath it.
But if you put a dollar sign and a number...so that's the first one.
This is the one that's causing the majority of the issues because this is pretty standard,
you know, save $5, you know, when you spend $20.
That dollar and a number is going to cause the iPhone, and this is not the text message
marketing provider, this is not the SMS aggregator, this has nothing to do with a software, this
is the software on the phone that's causing this issue, the consumer's phone.
So this is causing an issue, so don't put this in.
I'm gonna go through a couple different examples.
The majority, though, is the dollar sign and then number.
So this will cause if choose as well, and again, if you put this in your message, and
put a link, they will not be able to click on that link.
This one's interesting, too.
So if you put a number and then you put dollars or dollar, so like $1 or $5, that's gonna
cause the issue as well.
Kind of a little different iteration compared to this one here.
This one is actually spelling out the number or dollars, both of these are causing issues
where you cannot click on the link so avoid putting this in your text message.
What's interesting is...and this one I do not know why this is happening but, you know,
it might be a bug but it also might be happening because of something else, maybe Apple Pay,
because I can understand if you put a dollar sign in your text message maybe something
is triggering it with encoding, but this is also causing an issue.
So if you put five, if you spell out the number, and then you put bucks in the United States,
if you're watching from the United States bucks is kind of like dollars for slang.
So if you put five bucks that is causing the link to look like this, not like that.
That's another one...oh, also, if you actually put the number and then you put bucks here,
that's also causing an issue.
So what can you do to avoid your links not being clickable?
There's a few options.
Right now, what we're advising our clients is to focus more on the 20% off type discounts
that don't actually have a dollar sign.
If your clients or if you need to put a dollar sign in or you need to have, you know, five
dollars off, here's some options.
Now again, this is what is working right now, iOS is always updating itself, so always test
on different versions with your own software.
Options, if you put a dash essentially between the $5, the five actually spelling it out
in dollars, it's essentially iOS can't tell that it looks like this.
So this is what...if you need to put a monetary value into your text messages and you have
a link, now, if somebody is doing a text messaging campaign where they're saying, you know, save
$5 when you show this in store, and there's no link in the text message, don't worry you
can put five bucks in there, you can put the dollar sign in, there's no issues whatsoever.
But if you have a link, so usually this is like online retailers, or if you have a link
to click on that goes to a more website that opens the mobile coupon, people will not be
able to click on that.
So in those cases, you wanna use something like this if you do need to put the monetary
value into the text message.
There are some different variations here but these are kind of standard ones that we're
seeing across the industry.
So hopefully that answers the question as to, what is happening?
The what is, when people are putting essentially a dollar sign, you know, and a number so they're
saying, you know, $5 into a text message and they have a link, when you open it on your
phone, when you grab your phone here, you cannot click on the text message which, you
know, if you have a link that is going to a mobile coupon, that is going to an online
store, those customers are not able to click on that link which could be disastrous for
your campaign.
It's gonna have significant impact in terms of the results of the campaign.
And right now we're seeing that about 30% of iPhone users have upgraded to 11.2 or 11.2.1,
and that's going to higher and higher every single day because if you grab a phone that
isn't on 11.2, it's gonna tell you, "Hey, you got to upgrade software."
So every day that percentage is getting higher and higher and it's affecting more and more
of your customers.
And then, we will keep you updated here at Totango on when this gets resolved.
Again, we've submitted a bug ticket to Apple.
Obviously they have to resolve it and then I think most likely they have to, you know,
include it in the next version.
So this is going to be around for quite a while I think and especially with the holidays,
everybody's sending text messages, it's a very high traffic time for text messages.
This is going to affect a lot of brands if they're not aware.
If you have any questions, comments, if something we've said here doesn't make sense, or you
want to test even your own campaign and have us look at it, be sure to leave us a comment
on YouTube.
We'll get back to you right away.
And everybody have a good night and we look forward to working with you in the future.