Ladders and rungs

A ladder texts people on its own when something happens, like a first visit or a review. Each rung of a ladder is one text: an offer, a trigger that decides who gets it and when, and a send window. Nothing sends until you turn a ladder on.

Start a ladderCopy Anchor Link

Open Coupons > Ladders and press Start a ladder. You can start from scratch, with an empty ladder you add rungs to, or from a starter:

• the Everyday ladder, five rungs for the usual path through your door: a welcome, a nudge to come back, a thank you for regulars, a we miss you, and one after a review;
• the Event ladder, one offer a day for five days after someone enters, for a date window you choose.

A starter makes its offers as drafts, so you can change any of them before the ladder goes on. You can run several ladders at once, and two ladders can both text the same person.

Who a ladder textsCopy Anchor Link

Every ladder texts one group, chosen under Who it texts:

• A list or a Square customer group. The ladder texts only the people on the list or Square customer group you pick. It cannot turn on until you pick one.
• People who redeemed an offer. Anyone who redeems the offer you pick enters on the day they redeem it. It cannot turn on until you pick the offer.
• One of your smart lists. People join and leave by themselves, from what they buy at your register.

There is no option for everyone who has ever paid at your register, and a ladder cannot be turned on until it has a group. You can also give a ladder a start and an end date, so it only brings people in between them.

Rungs and their triggersCopy Anchor Link

Press + Add rung, give the rung an offer (a new one, or one you already have), and choose its trigger:

A few of them need a word more:

• After a review counts a review from a customer you texted a review request to. The switch Reviews we match by name, in that rung's editor, also counts a review whose reviewer's full name matches exactly one of your customers. It is one setting for your whole account, and it is off until you turn it on, because a wrong match sends a coupon to the wrong person.
• After they redeem another rung's coupon follows another rung on the same ladder: when someone redeems that rung's coupon at your counter, this rung texts them next.
• Days after they enter this ladder counts from the day someone joins the ladder's group.
• When someone joins a smart list fires on the move into a list, never for people already in it. Smart lists explains how a join is decided.

A rung texts a person once for each time its trigger happens, never twice for the same event. You can switch a rung off without touching the rest of the ladder.

When each text goes outCopy Anchor Link

After its trigger, a rung waits for one of these windows:

• As soon as it happens. Sent within about fifteen minutes of the visit we read from Square.
• At the next lunch push · 11:00am
• At the next dinner push · 4:30pm. Lands about 90 minutes before your dinner rush.
• At the next directory sync · about 8:40am. Your Square customer directory is mirrored once a day, so a number typed in at dinner reaches us the next morning. This is as soon as we can honestly send it.

Each trigger offers the windows that suit it. Quiet hours still apply on top: We only text between 9:00am and 8:00pm on your storefront's clock, and from noon on Sundays. That is not a setting.

Turn it onCopy Anchor Link

You can build a whole ladder while your texting registration is still with the carriers. Turning it on is a separate step, and you choose under When you turn it on:

• Catch up anyone who already qualifies, over 7 days: people in your group who qualify today are texted a few each day, so your first week is not one big send;
• Only fire on what happens from here on: nobody who already qualifies gets a text, and the ladder starts fresh today.

Turn on this ladder then asks you to confirm. It says who the ladder will text, how many people qualify today out of the people in the group you can text, and about how many text segments the first week takes. Nothing is texted until you press Turn it on.

An offer's redeemers or a smart list can start empty, and the ladder texts people as they arrive. A ladder on a list needs at least one person on that list you can text before it can be turned on.

Pause, resume and archiveCopy Anchor Link

Pause a ladder for 3 days, for a week, until a date you pick, or until you turn it back on. Nothing fires while it is paused: anyone who reaches a rung during the pause is queued, not skipped. You can also hold the expiry reminders for the coupons it already sent. Offers you send yourself are not affected.

When you resume it, if people were queued while it was paused, you choose whether they are texted over the next week or all at once.

To stop one rung, switch it off instead of pausing the ladder. To retire a ladder, archive it: every rung switches off and nothing it has queued goes out. A ladder is never deleted, and its results stay.

The message budgetCopy Anchor Link

Everyone on your list can get 30 texts from you in any 30 days, across every ladder and every send. You made that promise when they gave you their number, so it blocks the next text rather than warning you. That holds even though no rung has a daily limit of its own: two rungs that both want the same person can both text them, as long as they are under the cap.

Each ladder's Message budget page shows where your list stands today, what this ladder, the expiry reminders and your one-time sends have used this month, and who is at the cap. When someone is at the cap, a one-time send to them is dropped first, then a ladder rung, then an expiry reminder.

Each rung has a Results tab showing what it sent and what was redeemed, and Coupons > Results shows the whole program.

Why someone did not get a textCopy Anchor Link

Check these. A rung's Results tab shows what it sent, and the ladder's Message budget page shows who is at the cap.

• They are not in the ladder's group, or they have left it. A smart list is checked every hour. See Who a ladder texts.
• The ladder has a start or end date, and it only brings people in between them. See Who a ladder texts.
• The rung is switched off, or the ladder is paused. Nothing fires while a ladder is paused, and it never starts again by itself: anyone who reached a rung meanwhile is queued until you press Resume this ladder. See Pause, resume and archive.
• The rung's offer has ended. A rung stops sending when its offer ends, until you give it another one. See Offer status.
• You turned the ladder on with Only fire on what happens from here on, so nobody who already qualified was texted. See Turn it on.
• It is an After a review rung, and we could not tie the review to them. See Rungs and their triggers.
• They have had 30 texts from you in the last 30 days, the most anyone can get. At the cap a ladder's text is dropped, not saved for later. See The message budget.
• It is still waiting for the rung's send window, or for quiet hours to end. We only text between 9:00am and 8:00pm on your storefront's clock, and from noon on Sundays. That is not a setting. See When each text goes out.
• They opted out, or their number cannot be texted. See Who you can text.
• It was a smart list join that is never texted (they were in the list when we first checked it, it rested on old orders, or it was part of a sudden jump in the list), or a join held back for more than seven days. See When someone joins a smart list.