Notice of Potential MMS Messaging Delays During Peak Campaign Periods

[Keenon_House]

With 2024 being a pivotal election year, many brands are leveraging A2P (Application-to-Person) MMS messaging to engage voters, disseminate critical updates, and share key information, leading to an increase in messaging volumes. In addition to the surge driven by political messaging, the upcoming holiday shopping events of Black Friday and Cyber Monday will further contribute to the overall rise in messaging. The spike in message volume from political outreach and holiday retail campaigns will lead to increased demand on carrier networks, potentially resulting in message delivery delays.

To help you prepare for these peak messaging periods, we've outlined important tips and guidance below on what to expect and how to optimize your messaging campaigns for best results.

Why Delays Happen

• Increased Messaging Volume: During these peak periods, millions of businesses and organizations use SMS and MMS messaging to communicate with their customers and audiences. With 2024 being a pivotal election year, many clients are leveraging MMS messaging for voter engagement and information dissemination. This sudden surge in activity can cause temporary congestion in carrier networks, affecting message delivery times.
• Internal Queuing: The messaging capacity to carriers is a shared resource among all customers and operates on a best-effort basis. The committed throughput rate at which we accept messages does not always translate to the rate at which they are transmitted to carriers. Factors such as network conditions, MMS content type, size of MMS payload, and multiple customers sending at the same time can affect the actual delivery rate to carriers. These factors may result in messages being queued internally during periods of high demand.
• Carrier Network Capacity: The messaging capacity available to carriers is a shared resource among all aggregator partners. While carriers strive to handle high volumes effectively, there is a slight chance that simultaneous high-volume campaigns across different aggregators could potentially lead to temporary congestion, which may affect message delivery times.
  
  

What to Expect

• Potential Delays: Some messages may take longer to deliver, particularly during high-traffic hours. In the event of severe degradation or significant delays, please check our status page for updates.
  
  

Actions We're Taking

• System Optimization: We’ve increased our system capacity to handle higher traffic loads and are working closely with carriers to maintain adequate throughput during peak times.
  
  

Recommendations for Customers

• Plan Ahead: If possible, schedule your messages to go out earlier in the day or ahead of peak dates to reduce the likelihood of delays.
• Stagger Campaign Messaging: For large campaigns, especially political messaging and during holiday shopping events of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, stagger the messages throughout the day to avoid late arrivals.
• Optimize MMS Content: Larger MMS content, such as high-resolution images or videos, can require more processing time, contributing to longer queues. We recommend keeping MMS content optimized in size to help mitigate delays, ideally below 100KB. This helps in reducing transmission time and avoids network congestion.
• Avoid Large Files: Limit the use of large video files and opt for smaller images or GIFs. By working together, we can ensure a smooth and successful holiday season for our MMS services.
• Use JSON MMS API for Efficiency: For large MMS campaigns, consider utilizing the saveMMS API followed by the sendSavedMMS API for efficient delivery. This approach allows for preloading content, ensuring faster and more reliable sending to multiple recipients.
• API Limitations: You may have a throughput limit set on the number of API requests allowed per second. While we will accept messages at the rate configured on your account, exceeding these limits will cause your messages to be rejected and you will be required to retry the request. For high-volume campaigns, we recommend adding a buffer and planning sends according to the total volume and max throughput limit. Proper planning will help mitigate delays.
• Retrying Messages with Backoff: Use a retry strategy with an exponential backoff for failed messages. This approach helps prevent overwhelming carrier networks by spacing out retries progressively over time, which reduces the likelihood of contributing to congestion.
  
  

Our Commitment

We remain committed to providing the highest possible service during these peak seasons and will keep you updated on any issues or disruptions. Our team is continuously monitoring the situation to ensure timely delivery to the greatest extent possible. In the event of severe degradation or significant delays, please check our status page for updates.

Contact Us

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your messaging campaigns during peak seasons, please feel free to contact our support team at support@sinch.com for more information.