10DLC Ecosystem Explained: Streamline SMS Compliance with Telgorithm

What is an independent software vendor or provider (ISV)?

An ISV means that your company is a software provider offering text messaging capabilities to your customers. In order to equip your software with the ability to send texts, you’d likely partner with a messaging API provider to enable 10DLC messaging.

What is The Campaign Registry (TCR)?

The Campaign Registry, known as TCR, is an independent entity responsible for validating businesses and their messaging use cases to limit spam texts in the A2P messaging industry. TCR vets ISV’s registered as Campaign Service Providers as well as their customers, known as Brands, to ensure all parties are legitimate.

What is being registered as a Campaign Service Provider (CSP) vs. a Reseller with TCR?

If you are a software provider offering texting to your customers, the intended path on A2P 10DLC is for you to register as a Campaign Service Provider (CSP) with TCR in order to maintain ownership of all of your customers' Brand and Campaign registrations. This means your company would be the primary user of TCR and have full access to the portal and insight into all registrations.
Alternatively, some legacy API providers promote a Reseller registration for ISVs, which requires your provider to register your customer’s Brands and Campaigns for you. If your legacy API provider registers your customers Brands and Campaigns for you then they own your customer information and you have no access or insight into your TCR portal and customer registrations.

What is the role of a Connectivity Partner (CNP) AKA messaging API provider?

As a software provider, you partner with a Connectivity Partner (CNP), otherwise known as your messaging API provider, to enable 10DLC. Your CNP is responsible for sending your Campaigns upstream to their partnered DCA to vet and/or approve or reject. It is your CNP that manages all the technical intricacies of the 10DLC ecosystem and partners needed to send an A2P message so that your team does not need to dedicate the time and resources needed to execute at the carrier level.
Telgorithm works with multiple DCAs to get your Campaigns approved in 48 hours or less. Other CNPs/messaging API providers typically work with only one DCA. Telgorithm has a 95% Campaign approval on the first attempt.

What is a Direct Connect Aggregator (DCA)?

Direct Connect Aggregators, known as DCAs, are the last approval stop before your customer’s messages can be sent to the carriers for delivery. DCAs are responsible for vetting and reviewing your customer’s Campaigns and can either approve or reject them based on compliance standards. It is important to note that, TCR does not vet and approve Campaigns, it is the DCAs that have control over 10DLC Campaign vetting.

Should I just work directly with a DCA as an ISV?

Many ISVs that are frustrated with their current messaging API provider believe that going directly to a DCA will solve their issues. The reason this does not typically work positively is because of the increased technical intricacies and partnerships needed with multiple registrars to send A2P messages. Also DCAs operate on volume so as a single software provider, your Campaign volume is likely going to be a small percentage of their overall volume and you may not get the level of support you require to quickly update your rejected Campaigns.
Partnering with a CNP/messaging API provider takes care of all of the intricacies associated with the 10DLC ecosystem and saves your team time and resources.
Telgorithm is multithreaded and connected to multiple DCAs in the industry so you don’t have to go through the complexity of integrating with one DCA, let alone 3. This saves you team time and overhead, not to mention, leveraging multiple DCAs allows us multiple pathways to get your Campaigns approved quickly speeding up the vetting process and avoiding secondary vetting.

What is secondary vetting/DCA2?

How can I avoid 10DLC rejections?

In order to avoid 10DLC Campaign rejections, your team needs to stay current on the newest 10DLC compliance standards. It’s the job of your CNP/message API provider to keep you up-to-date on all changes in order to avoid 10DLC rejections. Make sure to partner with a provider who is giving you proactive guidance on all things A2P 10DLC in order to avoid 10DLC registration delays.
There can be many reasons why Campaigns are rejected; the three most common reasons are that your customers' websites are missing privacy policies, vague calls to action, and missing message disclosures. Learn more about the most common 10DLC rejections and how to avoid them here.

10DLC Ecosystem Overview

The Main Players in the 10DLC Ecosystem

How Legacy SMS API Providers Leverage the 10DLC Ecosystem

Telgorithm Advantage: CSP Support & Relationships with Multiple DCAs

FAQs