SMS is simple, but in Saudi Arabia it comes with rules. Companies that ignore them may see messages not delivered, or lose their customers' trust. Here is a short practical guide.
1. The sender name
Business messages are sent under a registered sender name (such as your brand) rather than a number. Registration goes through your SMS provider and usually needs company documents. Marketing messages use a sender name ending in -AD, while service and alert messages (appointment confirmation, verification codes) use a different one.
Need a sender name and an SMS package? Etisalna, a licensed telecom provider, can supply them.
2. Separate service from marketing
- Service/alerts: appointment reminders, order status, invoices, verification codes.
- Marketing: offers, discounts, new products.
Mixing them puts your sender name at risk and annoys customers.
3. Sending hours
Send marketing messages only at reasonable hours and avoid late night and early morning. Best practice: set a fixed sending window and let anything outside it wait until the window opens. Confirm the latest requirements of the Communications, Space and Technology Commission with your provider.
4. Respect opt-outs
- Include a clear way to opt out of marketing messages.
- Keep a do-not-SMS list and exclude it from every campaign.
- Never send marketing to numbers that did not agree or asked to stop.
5. Connect the message to the customer
The biggest mistake is sending from a separate portal nobody on the team sees. When the message sits on the customer record, the agent knows what was sent and replies come back to the same place.
Checklist before any campaign
- The right sender name (marketing or service).
- A clean list, with opt-outs excluded.
- Short text, with the customer's name where possible and the opt-out line.
- A known number of message parts (Arabic fits fewer characters per part than English).
- Sending scheduled inside the allowed hours at a sensible pace.
How Klamna helps
SMS and SMS campaigns in Klamna connect your own provider (Unifonic, Taqnyat, Msegat and others), respect allowed hours and the do-not-SMS list automatically, and send appointment reminders and campaigns from the same system with delivery reports.