SMS Geographic Permissions

SMS Geographic Permissions enhance security and protect against fraudulent SMS traffic by enforcing controls on the countries to which you can send SMS messages. You can specify an allowlist of countries to make sure that SMS messages are only sent to approved regions. Only admins can make changes to the country allowlist. Non-admin users have access to a read-only version of the allowlist that indicates which countries a subscription group is able to send to.

Configuring your SMS country allowlist

If you’re an admin, you can configure the countries that are on the allowlist. The country allowlist is configured at the subscription group level. You can access it by going to Audience > Subscriptions and selecting an SMS subscription group. The allowlist is under SMS Geographic Permissions.

Selecting countries

Add countries to the allowlist with the dropdown. The most common SMS countries are shown at the top, with others shown below. You can also search for countries by typing in the text field.

Remove previously selected countries by clearing the respective boxes next to them.

Saving your changes

Changes will take effect after you select Save. Removing countries from your allowlist will prevent all SMS and MMS messages from sending to numbers in those countries.

High-risk countries

Certain countries have a higher risk of SMS traffic pumping. These countries are indicated by a High Risk tag in the country dropdown.

If you allow sending in these countries, you must first acknowledge the risk of doing so before the country is added to your allowlist.

Visibility of blocked sends

Attempted sends to countries that aren’t on your allowlist will be aborted. Aborted messages will be logged to the Message Activity Log and within the SMS abort message engagement event.

Aborted messages caused by blocked sends will show as Abort_Type = "blocked_recipient_country" with the abort log detailing the blocked country.