What are fake DLRs and how can Testelium help prevent them?

What are fake DLRs and how could you avoid them for better SMS delivery?

What is a fake DLR?

People use SMS texting pretty much on a daily basis.

Sending an SMS is a great way of communication not only with your friends and family but also to keep in touch with your business partners and customers.

Since everyone is able to send SMS, this means everyone can also check their SMS delivery report and see if all their messages were delivered. Whether it is just one message or a bunch of them, you still can see if it was able to reach the recipient.

But there is one major issue. You may receive a fake delivery report with incorrect information about the delivery. It may state that the message was already delivered when in reality it is still pending or even bounced back.

As a result, you will not see the real issues with your SMS campaign and make the same mistakes over and over again. To avoid that, you should use reliable SMS testing platforms like Testelium.

What are the main reasons for fake DLRs?

There are a few reasons why you may get fake DLRs. First and foremost, there are some mobile network operators that want to hide unsuccessful deliveries and thus, send false reports. The reason for that is that these companies may be afraid of losing their clients due to a bad delivery rate. But as a result, they only lose their customer’s trust and eventually lose a customer. No one really wants to use a network supplier that is unable to help establish communication via SMS.

What is more, some aggregators may generate fake DLR. They do it solely for the desire of profit. But unfortunately, it is really hard to track what the initial source of your fake report is. So you may start blaming your network provider when it is really a third-party aggregator that sent you false data.

That’s why you need to use a special platform and run real SMS gateway testing to obtain relevant results.

What are the consequences of fake DLR for the bulk SMS industry?

There are a few issues that come out from getting false results. As we mentioned before, one of the main consequences of fake DLR is that the customers start losing trust in their providers. So in the future, such companies will struggle to build trustworthy relationships between themselves and users.

For you, as for an SMS marketing agent, constantly getting fake results makes it impossible to run a successful campaign. If you see that all the messages found their recipients, but there is no increase in sales or customer engagement, you simply can’t find out what the real issue is.

In order to keep track of your SMS campaigns and mitigate fake DLRs, there are a few tips that we would like to share with you.

Firstly, don’t forget to run tests as often as possible. Ideally, you should test each and every SMS campaign you send out in order to check its effectiveness.

Secondly, make sure to include your own number in the mailing list. That way, you can only check not only if the message is really delivered but also how it looks on your phone screen.

However, never mark this number with words like “test”, this makes the chance of getting a false report much higher.

How can Testelium prevent fake DLRs?

Testelium is one of the most trustworthy and efficient platforms for automated SMS testing. It is one of the most effective solutions to fight against fake DLR.

When you run the test on this platform, first and foremost you can see the time when the message was delivered, stated by the general delivery report, and double-check on fake DLRs by seeing the exact time when the user got it in this SMS route testing report.

Thanks to that, you will be able to calculate the percentage of your messages that didn’t reach the recipient. On top of that, you can find out the number of fake delivery reports you are getting from providers or aggregators.

Apart from providing real data about the delivery time and date, SMS status, and fake DLR, Testelium offers a few more useful features. For example, the report from this platform shows you whether the content of your messages is approved and changes it if needed.

Plus, you can see if the recipient is a real active person that can get interested in your offers by checking the verification of the person’s ID. If it is not a real person, there is no reason to keep them on your mailing list. Thus, you will be able to always keep your database updated.

Wrapping up

In the end, if you see that your SMS marketing campaigns have low efficiency, but the fake DLR reports show that there are no issues, there is no way you will be able to improve and get rid of the past mistakes in the next campaign.

So it is very important to use a valid and reliable SMS route testing platform that can provide only real data about the delivery and recipients.

If you want to boost your marketing strategies, consider using Testelium in your practice.

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