SMS marketing is on Messages. There is no separate marketing screen for it. Mass Text sends one message to many pet owners, and Bulk Send filters the audience first and personalises each message. The Mass Text card on Marketing Hub opens Messages too, so you are in the right place either way.
Both need Communications Booster, an add-on for Business Pro, Flex and Max, with an active dedicated number.
Message types and who receives them
Every bulk message has a type, and the type decides who can receive it, because each type reads its own consent on each customer. Mass Text and Bulk Send name the same three types slightly differently.
| In Mass Text | In Bulk Send | Use it for | Who receives it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business Update | Announcements | Operational, non-promotional news: holiday hours, policy changes, weather closures, facility updates | Every customer who has not opted out of business updates |
| Promotion | Marketing | Seasonal promotions and discounts, new services, loyalty rewards and special offers, re-engaging inactive customers | Only customers who have opted in to marketing |
| Rebooking reminder | Rebooking reminders | Telling a customer their pet is due for a visit, with no offer | Customers who have not turned rebooking reminders off. Their marketing choice plays no part |
Business updates are things like "We're closed from 23 Dec to 2 Jan", "Updated vaccination requirements from 1 April", "Closed today due to extreme heat, all appointments rescheduled" or "Our second room opens Monday". A marketing opt-out does not stop them.
Trap
Never send promotional content as a business update to reach customers who have not opted in to marketing. Under the Spam Act 2003, a promotional message needs marketing consent, and Petboost checks every bulk message for it before it goes.
Send one message to many customers
Mass Text sends the same message to everyone you select.
- Open Messages, select the arrow beside New, then Mass Text. On a phone, select Actions on the bottom bar, then Mass Text.
- In Send Announcement SMS, choose Business Update, Promotion or Rebooking reminder.
- Optional: select Start from a template and choose one.
- Write the text under Message.
- Under Recipients, select Select all, or tick customers one at a time. To find one, search by name or phone number.
- Select Review Prior to Sending.
- Read the result of the content check and Message as received by customers, then select the Send to button, which counts the customers.
A message can be up to 480 characters. Petboost signs it off with your business name, adds Reply STOP to opt out as the footer, and counts the SMS segments the whole message makes. Recipients shows how many of the eligible customers are selected, and the line ending customers excluded lists who is left out: customers who opted out of that type, customers without an SMS-capable phone number, and archived customers.
If you do not have enough credits, the dialog reads Insufficient credits with a link to Purchase a credit pack, and Review Prior to Sending stays off.
After you send, the messages go out in the background and you can close the window. While they send, a bar at the top of the conversation list shows the progress, with View. When the send finishes, the dialog reads All messages sent, or how many sent, failed and were skipped, and its Retry button sends the failed ones again.
Check
Wait for one batch to finish before you send another. While one is still going, the dialog reads A batch is still sending, so customers are not messaged twice.
Send a personalised message to a segment
Bulk Send builds the audience from segments and filters, then sends each customer their own message with their name and pet details filled in. The dialog it opens is titled Mass Text, and its steps are Choose Audience, Review Audience, Compose Message and Review & Send.
- Open Messages, select the arrow beside New, then Bulk Send. On a phone, select Actions on the bottom bar, then Bulk Send.
- On Choose Audience, choose Announcements, Marketing or Rebooking reminders, and read how many customers can receive it.
- Pick the segments. Optional: narrow the list under Refine Your Audience.
- Select the Review Audience button, which counts the audience.
- Untick anyone to leave out, then select Compose Message.
- Write the message. Optional: select a chip after Insert:, such as First Name or Pet Name, to fill in each customer's details.
- Select Review Prior to Sending.
- On Review & Send, select Review my message to run the compliance check.
- Tick the declaration that you have consent to message these recipients.
- Select the Send to button, which counts the customers.
Refine Your Audience filters by Filter by service booked, Animal type, Breed, Tags, Pet age range, Total spend range, Last appointment date, Future booking status, Number of pets and Pet weight range. There is no suburb filter. The audience count updates as you change the selection.
Include "Reply STOP to opt out" footer is ticked by default. If you untick it, a Spam Act 2003 warning explains that a commercial message must carry a working way to unsubscribe. Leave it ticked unless the message is purely operational.
Each Bulk Send message goes out as its own text and lands in the customer's thread on Messages. While they send, Stop Sending stops the rest, and closing the dialog stops them too.
Tip
Send the message to yourself or a team member before your full list, and avoid early mornings, late evenings and public holidays. A message for a group that needs it tends to land better than a blanket send.
Check the content before sending
Before a bulk message goes, Petboost's AI compliance check reads it. In Mass Text it runs when you select Review Prior to Sending. In Bulk Send it runs when you select Review my message, and nothing can be sent until it has. It looks for two things: promotional content in a business update, and signs of spam such as link shorteners, words in capitals, pressure language, phishing phrases or a message that is mostly links.
| What the check shows | What it means | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| Reviewed and approved | Nothing found | Send |
| Content concerns detected | The message may be filtered as spam. The issues and suggestions are listed | Change the wording, or send it with Send Anyway |
| Promotional content detected | A business update reads as promotional | Switch it to a promotion, which only reaches customers who opted in to marketing, or tick the confirmation that it is a factual business update |
| Review unavailable | The check could not run | Read the message carefully before you send |
In Mass Text the switch button is Switch to Promotion. In Bulk Send it is Switch to Promotion segment, under Or send as a Promotion instead, and Bulk Send also offers Use our compliant rewrite: select Use rewrite & review to take a rewritten message back to Compose Message.
Resume an interrupted Mass Text
A Mass Text keeps its own record in Announcement History, with its status, results, message and who sent it.
- Open Messages, select the arrow beside New, then Send History. On a phone, select History on the bottom bar.
- In Announcement History, select the send.
- If it reads Send interrupted or Send still running, select the Resume remaining button, which counts the messages still to go.
A send's details show its status, Completed, Partial, Failed, Sending, Queued or Interrupted, and list its recipients under Failed, Skipped and Delivered.
Opt-outs and consent
- A customer who replies STOP, or another opt-out word such as UNSUBSCRIBE, is opted out of business updates, marketing and rebooking reminders straight away, and every later send skips them
- A customer who has only turned marketing off still receives business updates
- Consent changes when the customer replies STOP, when your team changes it under Communication Preferences on the Settings & Overrides tab of the customer's profile, or when the customer changes their own communication preferences
For more detail, see Communication Preferences and Consent.
Skipped recipients
A send can skip a selected customer at the moment their message is due: when their consent changed after you selected them, when they have already had five texts that day, when their account cannot be found, or when your monthly SMS limit is reached.
Credit usage
A bulk message uses one credit per segment for each recipient. A segment is up to 160 characters, or 70 when the message holds an emoji, and the sign-off and footer count towards it. Credits are drawn in this order:
- Monthly plan allocation: the credits your plan includes (Business Pro: 500/month, Business Max: 1,000/month), plus the extra Communications Booster credits
- SMS credit packs, bought separately, which never expire
Both dialogs compare the send with the credits you have before you confirm. For full details on credits, see SMS Credits and Usage.
Compliance
Petboost builds Australian Spam Act 2003 requirements into bulk sending:
- A promotion only reaches customers who have opted in to marketing
- Mass Text always adds Reply STOP to opt out, and Bulk Send adds it unless you untick it
- Opt-out replies are processed automatically and immediately
- Every bulk message is signed off with your business name
Troubleshooting
Messages not sending
- Check your credit balance. Without enough credits, Review Prior to Sending stays off. Buy a credit pack, or wait for your monthly allocation to reset.
- Check recipient phone numbers. Invalid or missing mobile numbers cause delivery failures.
- Review the content check. Your message may have been flagged. Adjust the content and try again.
Recipients being skipped or excluded
- Promotions: customers without marketing consent are left out. If the message is genuinely operational, send it as a business update instead.
- Missing phone number: pet owners without a mobile number on file cannot receive SMS.
- Invalid number format: numbers must be valid Australian mobile numbers.
- Archived customers are always left out.
The content check is blocking your message
- Read the specific issues the check lists
- Change the wording to deal with them, or in Bulk Send use the compliant rewrite
- If you believe the flag is wrong, rephrase the message and review it again