New TRAI guidelines 2024: Ensure SMS campaign compliance

New TRAI guidelines 2024: Ensure SMS campaign compliance

Hello there,

There's a big update from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) that could impact how you send SMS campaigns, especially if you're dealing with customers in India. Starting September 1, 2024, TRAI has made it mandatory for businesses to register or whitelist any URLs and callback numbers that are shared through text messages. This move aims to reduce spam messages and phishing attacks that have been on the rise.

Why is this important?

This mandate serves to protect users from clicking on harmful links and prevent fraudulent activity, which is a huge win for consumer safety. However, it might cause some temporary disruptions in service messages like OTPs (one-time passwords) from banks or ecommerce platforms if they aren't compliant by the deadline.

TRAI has also given telecom operators until the end of September to block any SMS messages containing unregistered URLs. If you're sending out SMS campaigns, it's crucial to make sure everything is registered properly. Telecom companies will now also require businesses to submit their entire message content for approval before sending—not just the headers and templates like before.

What you need to do

To make sure your SMS messages reach your audience without any problems, it's important to whitelist your URLs and callback numbers in your DLT portal. To whitelist your URLs and callback numbers, please refer to our detailed guide. By registering them ahead of time, you'll avoid any delivery failures caused by the new TRAI rules.

Once your details are registered, telecom operators will verify them, which ensures your messages are approved and sent without interruption. This step will keep your SMS campaigns running smoothly and help build trust with your audience by reducing the chances your messages will be blocked as spam.

Lastly, telecom operators were asked to implement traceability for all messages by October 31, so you can be sure there's extra security in tracking message flows.

This is a significant step toward reducing spam and fraud, and while there may be some bumps along the way, it's all for the greater good of maintaining trust and safety in SMS marketing. Make sure your campaigns comply with these new guidelines to keep things running smoothly!

Stay compliant and keep your campaigns effective!

Kind regards,
Zoho Campaigns

    • Sticky Posts

    • Tip of the week 03 - Sending emails in batches

      Today's marketers not only want their email marketing to be efficient, but also smart. For an email campaign, you may think you have all the essential elements for lead conversion—a big mailing list, an attractive template design, and the most-engaging message content, but after hitting the ‘send’ button, you may not get the expected conversions. Wondering why? Here’s one of the major reasons. Many marketers miss out on sending the email campaign the right way. Did you know that you should not be
    • Tip of the week 04 - Know about your recipients' 'prime open time.'

      In today's market, the importance of customer behavior is astounding, with a vast amount of research and resources going into finding how customers make decisions. The process of persuading your customers to open your email and click on your call-to-action becomes easy when you understand the psychology behind their behavioral traits. Time to turn into a psychologist! Let's get to the basics—you want your emails to resonate well with your recipients. So, what's the primary thing involved here? It's
    • Zoho Campaigns Expert Diaries on SoundCloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube

      Hi email champs,  As email marketers, we find great lessons in each other's works—be it the subject lines that worked good, the design that was received well, or the CTA that had the maximum clicks. Email marketing encompasses a wide variety of topics spanning everything from creation and design to development and deliverability.  Here's when we from the Zoho Campaigns team found the need to build an email marketing community comprising of seasoned marketers and email geeks who can help each other
    • Email Deliverability Tip #3: Seal the deal with the preheader

      In the last post, we learned about the subject line. Today we'll be learning about the preheader. A preheader is the short text that follows the subject line in an email. The preheader is designed to hint at what your email message is all about. A good preheader should act as a second subject line and convince your contacts to open the email. Now, let's learn the best way to craft a preheader. Your subject line and preheader should work together and accurately convey the gist of your email. Keep
    • Tip of the week 15 - Add subscription-preferences option. Drive more engagement.

      If crafting content for emails, getting creatives done, and running email campaigns is your love, then unsubscribes are the heartbreakers.  You can save your emails from being unsubscribed/trashed by adding a proper subscription-preferences option in your emails (works best at the time of signup). Giving subscribers the option to choose what they want to receive from you and decide how often (frequency of the emails) your emails should hit their inboxes will increase the reach of your campaigns manifolds. 
      • Recent Topics

      • Limit who can submit a support ticket to your site?

        Does anyone have a use case for needing to limit who can submit tickets via your help portal? Some of our customers want to have end-users view our knowledge base articles and see tickets their IT groups have submitted but they do not want end-users to
      • Is there a way to request a password?

        We add customers info into the vaults and I wanted to see if we could do some sort of "file request" like how dropbox offers with files. It would be awesome if a customer could go to a link and input a "title, username, password, url" all securely and it then shows up in our team vault or something. Not sure if that is safe, but it's the best I can think of to be semi scalable and obviously better than sending emails. I am open to another idea, just thought this would be a great feature.  Thanks,
      • Allow us to disable the Reopen Ticket button after a ticket is closed

        Disabling the Reopen Ticket will allow us to have more control over the ticket's flow. According to support, this is currently not possible. Please add this to let us, the customers, mold the ticketing system into something that we can use for our business
      • How to Enforce Mandatory Fields (Category/Sub-category) Before Closing a Ticket?

        Hi, I'm currently using Zoho Desk and encountering an issue where agents are able to close tickets without filling out mandatory fields, specifically Category and Sub-category. I’ve already set them both as a mandatory field, but it can still be bypassed
      • Admin Control for Default Email Templates in Zoho Desk

        Hi Zoho Desk Team, We would like to request a feature enhancement related to default email templates. Currently, agents can select and set their own default email templates when replying to tickets. However, we believe this setting should be managed centrally
      • Lock out of account after password update

        This is a bit of a catch 22 situation. I updated my account password using password generator in ZohoValut. Now I am locked out of everything, as I cannot get into OneAuth for 2FA, as the password is randomly generated, without getting into ZohoValut,
      • Guidance on Making Zoho Desk Connections Available for All Data Centers

        Hi Team, I’m currently developing an application using Zoho Desk connections to manage OAuth for my third-party products. Could you please advise on the steps required to make it available across all data centers? Looking forward to your thoughts on
      • Multibrand Help Center - Share knowledge base catgories between multiple departments

        Hello, I would like to know if it is possible to share categories between multiple departments when the multi brand feature is enabled. So that then one portal exists per department, but certain categories are visible in multiple portals. After all, we
      • Unable to upload document error on zoho sign

        i am creating a document using laravel php and here is my code and i get this reponse {"code":2005,"message":"Unable to upload the document","status":"failure"} $path = storage_path($file); $ch = curl_init(); curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://sign.zoho.com/api/v1/requests');
      • Cloud to cloud folder migration from Sharepoint to Workdrive

        I am aware of OneDrive migration: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/workdrive/migrations/microsoft/articles/migrate-from-onedrive-to-zoho-workdrive#Whats_migrated would this cover a Sharepoint migration meaning I can move a whole Sharepoint (team) folder
      • Zoho Sign / Prefill By You - Editable by Them!

        Zoho Sign seems to have two field options available - an empty field for signer(s) to complete or a field that has been prefilled by you, that becomes read only once sent.  What I would like is an option on the pre-filled by you fields, to leave them
      • How to sort a data in summary report with Monthly ?

        Hi Team, Can any one help me out how to sort a data based on monthly, Month was shuffled based on aliphatic order. i want to sort the below data monthy?
      • Is this link the transparent pixel used to track opens?

        Could someone please help me identify this highlighted link? It is automatically created by Zoho and a lot of contacts receiving campaigns will click on this link. I don't believe that it is the "update your preferences link" because on the Link Clicks
      • Kiosk Studio wrap-up | How our community used kiosks in 2024

        Hello, everyone! Happy new year! The end of 2024 has been busy, and 2025 promises to be bigger and better. As we ring in the new year, let's rewind and look at Kiosk Studio, our no-code customization tool. The past 300 days have seen the CRM community
      • Zoho Crm - Inventory Integration

        Hello, I need help about Map Fields between CRM and Inventory. For Example, I can't match amount of stock between these 2. I can put opening stock number  in Inventory but I can't see it on CRM. Also I want to see categories and parent categories on Inventory, in CRM too. Best Regards.
      • Inventory Valuation Method Feature

        Zoho added another feature so called Inventory Valuation Method of each Item. This is actually good to see and it will benefit us so much but I have a question on this. For Existing Items that already have transactions, Zoho made it a default and assumed
      • Where is the customization and extendibility of zoho inventory?

        After delving into zoho one subscription to test out systems we need for our business, I'm really disappointed after working in Zoho Inventory. Its features and customizability are extremely lacking compared to the other tools like CRM. In our case we
      • Organization Variables - Restrict Access

        Currently, there is no way to restrict the access to organization variables. This leads to a problem when storing API related values that should be kept secret as anyone with access to create and edit email templates, workflow rules, or inventory templates
      • Values in multi pick list are not copied to copied deal

        Hi, After a deal is completed in our sales funnel we copy the deal to an automatically created new deal in our project funnel. All fields are copied properly, but only a Multi Pick List is not copied. How can we copy the selected values in this field
      • Zoho takes too long to load...

        I am based in Europe and in the last couple of weeks, Zoho CRM takes minutes even to load modules. Is there a specific reason this is happening? Is this happening to other people?
      • Modules are continuously loading

        Hi! We are not able to open the task modules, it keeps continuously loading
      • Execution failure when fetching a Name field from another app

        In creator I have one app [Employee Directory] with a form [Employees]. One of the fields is a name field called [Name]. Here is a sample that works, if executed from the Employees app: test_Employee = Employees[Name.first_name == "Alex"]; info test_Employee.Name;
      • Accessing Subform Data using getRecordByID

        I am getting data from Zoho Creator using deluge zoho.creator.getRecordByID task, from another application. The report contains a subform, and that subform is in the detail view of the report. I do not appear to have any subform data in the JSON response,
      • Allow customer to select meeting duration

        I would love to see a feature where I can give the customer the option to select the meeting duration they require based on a dropdown list which I have predefined in the service settings. For example: 15, 30, 45, 60, 90 minutes.
      • Can you internally tag/categorize posts for campaigns?

        Would love to easily sort through posts by tags or categories (i.e. we have multiple memberships and share studies from each. It would be nice to pull reports in a second for "membership A studies" for a campaign etc.).
      • Function 56: Automatically enable the option for customers to pay via bank account

        Hello everyone and welcome back to our series! One of the key features of Zoho Books is its integration with multiple payment gateways, allowing you to receive online payments for your invoices. This ensures faster payments, automates payment tracking
      • Connect multiple Facebook ad accounts to Zoho Social

        Hi there. I'm doing the Facebook Ads and Zoho Social integration to automate the leads that come from Potential Customer campaigns on Facebook to Zoho CRM. I have a company (1 fanpage, 1 brand), but within the business or brand on Facebook, I manage several
      • Custom service report or Zoho forms integration

        Hello, So far the experience with Zoho FSM and the integration with Books has been good, however there are limitations with service reports. As with my business, many organisations send technicians to different types of jobs that call for a different
      • Creation of Path and subpath

        In order to improve the structure of the website for better organization, I would like to consider that when publishing a page, it can be within a section and sub-section. For example, if I have an events option in the menu, I can put past events and
      • Assign task owner using Deluge

        Use Case: Each task is a document development task wherein once the developer has completed the first draft, the next step in the process is for the document to be QA-ed by the project's assigned auditor. Thus, I am currently working out a blueprint where
      • Using AVG in SQL Query

        My current SQL Query is: SELECT "Client Info", avg("Revenue") FROM "Funded Deals" GROUP BY "Client Info" The current table that this is creating: Client Info avg(Revenue) Previous 4175 1st - New 3411 1st - Old 3013 Renew 3069 While this works as I had
      • Meta and Facebook data report discrepancy

        I have been currently gathering manually facebook follower data thru meta. In zoho marketing plus the social media reporting only allows for page likes, and so there is a discrepancy with the data. please the difference in files attached. Is there way
      • Links in Instagram

        Hi there, I have been using Later for a while now but keen to come back to Zoho Social as Later doesn't offer tagging of pages on Facebook but they offer something Zoho doesn't. You can add a link to your bio which opens up your profile feed where images
      • If I turn off the Task Prefix & ID in the Portal Configuration section, will it remove the dependencies in my projects?

        Hi all, basically the title, I am new to zoho projects and trying to get my head around some basic principles. Unfortunately I have not found this information via the search option and after deleting yesterday some Phases I had created in the Phases tab,
      • Enter dates in tasks with just "tue" or "+10" or "5d" ???

        Is there any way to enter due dates in tasks without typing the whole date or making time consuming clicks in the calendar? I don't see anything online in the help or third party videos.
      • Multiple time zones in zoho projects

        We are working in an international team. We need to set up different time zones in the organizational settings or at least for one project within zoho projects. Any ideas or help? Thx in advance
      • Zoho Desk : Field for 'Layout'

        I have many different layouts on my helpdesks and I want to be able to identify the stats for each one, however I can not find the field in the raw data from the Zoho Desk datasource. I thought it might be in the "Tickets" table but there is nothing.
      • Customize Zoho One Dashboard and URL?

        Hi everyone, Is there a way to customize my Zoho One URL to be different from the default portal URL? The current portal URL is: one.zoho.com/zohoone/[organization] I want to map it to its own standalone domain that we own. eg) domain.com instead of one.zoho.com/zohoone/[organization]
      • Enable Sending Direct Messages to Self in Zoho Cliq

        Hi, I would like to request a feature enhancement for Zoho Cliq to allow users to send direct messages to themselves. Currently, Zoho Cliq does not have the option to send a direct message to oneself. While creating a channel with just one member (the
      • JOB Sheet can not send PDF as service rapports and more info needed other topic

        Goedendag, - Jullie hebben nu job sheet erin gedaan en dar is echt super goed, enkel kunnen we de werkbon ( JOB sheet) nu niet verzenden als PDF als een service rapport naar onze hoofdaannemer hoe we dat nu doen als bewijs van de levering van het werk
      • Next Page