How to Use Custom Triggers

Learn how to personalize & send text messages using a webhook

David Stupek avatar
Written by David Stupek
Updated over a week ago

Custom Triggers

Donโ€™t see your CRM or marketing automation software integrated with Salesmsg?

Not to worry. With Salesmsg Custom Triggers, if your CRM has the ability to fire a webhook then you can easily send texts with Salesmsg.

You'll only use Custom Triggers when you have your own application and want to fire texts from a webhook or integrate Salesmsg into your CRM that doesn't natively integrate with Salesmsg, like Ontraport.

How to Create Your Custom SMS Trigger

Step 1: Create a Trigger

From the triggers page, click Create Trigger and this modal will appear.

Name
This is the internal name for your Trigger.

Integration
This is the list of integrated platforms with Salesmsg. For this example, you can select Custom.

Send As

This is the phone number that the text message will be sent as.

Tags

Add an existing tag in this field. When the contact is sent the Trigger message the tag will automatically be applied to the contact.

Step 2: Create Your SMS

With Salesmsg, you can insert custom merge fields by wrapping them in a bracket like { date }. As long as you wrap the word in a bracket, then Salesmsg will recognize it as a dynamic merge field and add it to the webhook URL. You can also add media files to make your message more creative. Click a ๐Ÿ“Ž button and you'll see a media library where you can choose, upload or even register your media files.

For example, your text could be...

Hi { first_name }, your appointment is on { date } at { time }?

Where { date } and { time } are custom merge fields.

How to Create Fallbacks

When creating your SMS Trigger, you can add fallback merge fields if the data isn't available.

To create a fallback, use the following syntax...

{ data | 'replace' }

For example, if the first name wasn't available you wanted to fallback and insert something else. It would look like this...

Hi { first_name | 'there' }, how are you?

So if the first name was Mike it would show as "Hi Mike, how are you?", but if there wasn't a first name, then it would show as "Hi there, how are you?"

Step 3: Copy Your Trigger URL

After you create your Custom Trigger, copy the Trigger URL and it will display something like this...

https://app.salesmessage.com/webhook/salesmessage/20862555cf7a41e87a764c4b8a?phone=&first=&last=&email=&date=&time=

Now from your CRM or other software, you can insert the proper merge fields into this URL to send the text message.

  • phone - *required

  • first - optional

  • last - optional

  • email - optional

  • variable - optional

From your application, you would insert the fields you want into the URL like so...

https://app.salesmessage.com/webhook/salesmessage/20862555cf7a41e87a764c4b8a?phone=(561) 778-7787&first=Mike&last=Jones&[email protected]&date=December 5&time=12:00pm

Who Would Use Custom Triggers?

Custom Triggers are built for users that have other CRM or marketing automation tools that can send outbound Webhooks. For example, Ontraport is a CRM that Salesmsg doesn't directly integrate with, but Ontraport does provide their users with a way to ping a webhook.

If you were an Ontraport user, you would use Custom Triggers to send SMS texts.


Frequently Asked Questions

My merge field or fall back is not working?

Double-check the property your pointing to "&email={email} " does in fact have a value.

Everything seemed to work, only the message was never sent?

This is a strong indication that the phone property is not working. Be sure to use a valid US/CA number & that there is a number in the property your targeting.


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