Understanding A2P 10DLC Campaign Vetting

Written by: Aaron Alter 

How 10DLC Campaign Vetting Originally Worked

When Application-to-Person (A2P) 10-digit long code (10DLC) was first launched, The Campaign Registry (TCR) wanted to make it extremely easy for legitimate, compliant businesses to quickly and easily become registered. They enabled this by creating restful APIs – the entire process was fully automated from the registrant level all the way up to the Direct Connect Aggregator (DCA) level. 

10DLC Campaign Vetting Becomes a Manual Process

In January 2022, however, T-Mobile started receiving complaints from end users receiving cannabis-related messages from registered 10DLC numbers. Even though several states either have or plan to legalize cannabis and/or CBD, Federal Law still prohibits usage. The mobile Carriers are federally licensed and must abide by Federal Law, so therefore sending text messages with cannabis or CBD-related content is a SHAFT violation. 

For context, SHAFT regulations are industry-wide and aim to protect end users from content sent by businesses containing sex, hate, alcohol, firearms, or tobacco (cannabis being the main category, CBD being a sub) to inappropriate audiences. 

T-Mobile reviewed the messages and wanted to understand how they were coming through from registered numbers and DCA-approved Campaigns. They eventually discovered that the bulk of this traffic was coming from one DCA in particular – one of the largest in North America. In order to amend this, that specific DCA was required to manually vet and approve every 10DLC Campaign submitted beginning in June 2022. 

Instating the $15 Campaign Vetting Fee 

In light of 10DLC Campaign vetting becoming a manual process, the DCA needed to hire a team of people to see this through. In order to mitigate these expenses, they established a one-time Campaign vetting fee of $15 per Campaign. Because the concept of 10DLC registration was still fairly new at the time and Campaigns were being approved within a couple of days, businesses weren’t all too concerned with the vetting fees. 

The Push to Register Results in Major Delays for 10DLC Campaign Approvals

Fast forward to early 2023, many major messaging API providers started announcing deadlines for their customers to get all 10DLC traffic registered with TCR or face having unregistered traffic blocked by Carriers. OUCH! The race to register was officially on.

Suddenly for the first time, hundreds of thousands of Brands and Campaigns were being submitted through TCR every day. Businesses were frantically trying to avoid disruptions or blockages for their customers, and it’s unlikely that any of them really knew the ins and outs of the now manual Campaign vetting process and mandatory $15 fee. The DCA was getting inundated with 10DLC vetting requests, and Campaign approvals jumped from taking just a couple of days to weeks at a time (the highest we’ve heard from frustrated businesses is six weeks so far).

So What’s Next?

In the world of 10DLC messaging, this year has been off to a pretty hectic start, but the insane Campaign vetting approval delays should eventually subside. The push for 10DLC registration has had some negative side effects, but overall businesses will be much happier with their SMS & MMS messaging as they’ll unlock higher throughput (or rate limits), zero filtering, and much lower pass-through fees (which are going up across multiple Carriers starting June 1, 2023). 

Need Support with 10DLC Registration and Campaign Vetting Approvals? 

While the entire industry has unfortunately been impacted by these events, Telgorithm is still able to offer more streamlined solutions to help you out of this bind. 

We offer Automated Registration, which means we’ve partnered with TCR for an API-based 10DLC registration process that will save you time, money, and unnecessary overhead. 

Additionally, we can expedite Campaign vetting approvals in days versus weeks due to our trusted relationships with DCAs. We’ve always gone by the book, so our 10DLC Campaign registration goes through a dedicated path to help speed up approval times. We like to think of it as using TSA pre-check at the airport. If you’re interested in testing this out for yourself, follow these instructions to demo the process – we’d be glad to help you “cut the line”.  

If you have any questions about TCR registration, Campaign vetting approvals, or how Telgorithm can support you through these crazy times, don’t hesitate to reach out.