Campaigns Overview¶
Campaigns in Abelo are the primary mechanism through which messages are configured, targeted, personalized, and sent across Viber and SMS channels.
Whether you are sending a promotional sale to a segmented audience or triggering one-to-one transactional order updates from your backend API, Abelo provides unified campaign management, real-time delivery tracking, and revenue attribution.
1. Operating Modes: Standard vs. API Campaigns¶
When managing campaigns in Abelo, you work with two distinct operating modes accessible via the top navigation tabs in Campaigns:
| Feature | Standard Campaigns | API Campaigns |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Purpose | One-off marketing and scheduled promotions. | Programmatic, event-driven messaging triggered from code or webhooks. |
| Recipient Target | Multiple recipients: Dynamic Segments, Static Lists, or All Consented Subscribers. | Single individual recipient per API call (phone_number, email, or public_id). |
| Execution Trigger | Manual dispatch: Sent immediately or scheduled for a specific future date/time. | Automated dispatch: Triggered on-demand via POST /v1/messages/send. |
| Content Source | Composed directly in the campaign wizard or linked to dynamic variables. | Built upon a message template (Templates) with dynamic variables. |
| Consent & Opt-Out | Strictly enforces active promotional consent and filters suppressed contacts at send-time. | Governed by category (OTP and Transactional bypass marketing consent; Promotional strictly requires it). |
2. Supported Messaging Channels¶
Abelo supports two messaging channels, with the ability to combine them into an automated hybrid delivery pipeline:
Viber Business Messages¶
Viber provides high customer trust with verified business sender branding, checkmark badges, rich text formatting, multimedia banners, action buttons (Open URL, Call Phone), and multi-card carousels.
SMS Messaging¶
SMS offers universal global reach across carrier networks without requiring data connectivity or app installations on the recipient's device. SMS supports both standard GSM-7 and Unicode (UCS-2) character sets, automatic link shortening, and click tracking.
Automatic SMS Failover¶
When configuring Viber campaigns (both Standard and API), you can enable SMS Failover. If a recipient cannot be reached on Viber within a defined delivery window — or if the recipient does not have an active Viber account — Abelo automatically routes the message via SMS, ensuring high delivery rates.
3. Campaign Categories & Compliance Rules¶
Every message sent through Abelo belongs to one of three regulatory categories. For Standard Campaigns, messages are promotional marketing. For API Campaigns, the category is defined by the attached template:
| Category | Typical Use Cases | Consent Checked? | Profile Handling |
|---|---|---|---|
| OTP | One-time passwords, 2FA authentication, password resets. | No (Exempt) | Profile is automatically created if the recipient phone number is new. |
| Transactional | Order receipts, delivery updates, booking confirmations, account alerts. | No (Exempt) | Profile is automatically created if the recipient phone number is new. |
| Promotional | Marketing announcements, discounts, flash sales, re-engagement broadcasts. | Yes (Strictly enforced) | Recipient must exist and have active promotional consent for the channel. |
Regulatory Compliance
Promotional messages are automatically filtered against active suppression lists and recipient opt-out preferences. Service-critical OTP and Transactional notifications bypass promotional opt-outs to ensure security codes and delivery notifications reach customers reliably.
4. Standard Campaign Lifecycle & Statuses¶
Standard campaigns move through structured lifecycle stages displayed in the Campaigns > Standard directory:
| Status | Meaning | Allowed Actions |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | The campaign has been created and saved, but has not yet been scheduled or sent. | Edit campaign details, send test messages, schedule, send immediately, or delete. |
| Scheduled | The campaign is locked and queued for automatic dispatch at a specified future date and time. | Edit schedule or content, send test messages, or cancel/delete. |
| Sent | All messages have been processed and transmitted to networks. | Inspect real-time performance analytics, view delivery breakdowns, or duplicate campaign. |
| Failed | The campaign could not be dispatched due to a critical configuration or carrier error. | Inspect failure reason or duplicate into a new draft. |
Duplicating Sent Campaigns¶
To accelerate campaign creation, any previously sent campaign can be duplicated with a single click. Duplicating clones the audience selection, message copy, and sender settings into a fresh draft, ready for minor adjustments and re-sending.
5. API Campaign Lifecycle & Statuses¶
API campaigns serve as live endpoints that listen for incoming dispatch requests from your backend:
| Status | Meaning | API Execution |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | The campaign is being configured in the CMS and is not yet ready for production use. | ❌ Rejected (400 Bad Request) |
| Active | The campaign is live and actively accepting incoming message requests from your backend. | ✅ Accepted (200 OK) |
| Paused / Stopped | The campaign has been temporarily halted by your organization. Incoming API requests are rejected. | ❌ Rejected (400 Bad Request) |
You can toggle an API campaign between Active and Paused directly from the Campaigns > API overview table or the campaign details view.
6. Pre-Flight Estimation & Balance Deductions¶
To prevent unexpected billing overages, Abelo employs an automated pre-flight estimation workflow before any standard campaign is dispatched:
- Pre-Flight Calculation: Prior to confirming a broadcast, Abelo estimates the total messaging cost based on recipient count, message length, and destination carrier pricing.
- Balance Verification: The system checks your organization's available credit balance under Billing > Messaging Balance. If funds are insufficient, the campaign cannot be launched until a top-up is completed.
- Credit Reservation: Estimated funds are temporarily reserved when the campaign enters the sending queue.
- Final Reconciliation: Once delivery reports (DLRs) are finalized, exact costs are settled against delivered messages, and any unspent reserved balance is credited back to your account.
7. Performance Analytics & Revenue Attribution¶
Every campaign in Abelo includes built-in analytics to measure audience engagement and commercial return:
Delivery & Engagement Metrics¶
- Delivered: Percentage and count of messages successfully confirmed as delivered by carriers.
- Seen (Viber only): Percentage and count of recipients who opened and viewed the message.
- Clicks: Number of total and unique clicks on tracked links within the message.
- Delivery Failures: Detailed breakdown of undelivered or failed attempts (e.g., unreachable handset, expired TTL, invalid number).
E-Commerce Revenue Attribution¶
When your Shopify or WooCommerce store is connected:
- Attributed Revenue: Total sales revenue generated by recipients who clicked a campaign link and completed a purchase within the attribution window.
- Attributed Orders: Total count of completed orders linked directly to the campaign.
- Average Order Value (AOV): Average spend per attributed purchase.
- Return on Investment (ROI): Net revenue generated divided by total messaging spend (
Revenue / Cost).