# Your first campaign, step by step

> From an empty account to a delivered campaign in under an hour: the file, the text, the cost preview, the schedule and the first report.

Updated 2026-09-21. Level: Beginner. By SMSMeteor.

## Key takeaways

- Let the importer clean the file; read its report instead.
- The longest rendered row decides the segment count.
- Schedule promotions by local time, not by yours.
- The first report is mostly about cleaning the list.

## Before you start

You need an account, a balance and a list. The account is an email address. The balance is a deposit in one of seven coins; a modest first top-up is enough for a first campaign to a few hundred people. The list is a file with one phone number per row, ideally with a name column so the message can greet people.

## Prepare the file

CSV, TXT or XLSX. Put numbers in international format if you can; if not, tell the importer the default country and it converts them. Keep the columns you will use in the text and drop the rest. Do not clean duplicates by hand: the importer merges them and tells you how many.

## Compose

Write the message as you would say it. Put your brand in the first words, because some countries show a number rather than your name. Use `{first_name}` or any other column in braces. Watch the counter: it shows the encoding, the segment count and the longest rendered row, which is the one that decides the cost.

## Read the cost preview

The preview splits the campaign per destination at the public rate. Check three things: that the countries are the ones you expect, that invalid rows were removed for a reason you understand, and that the segment count is one unless you meant otherwise. Nothing has been charged at this point.

## Send or schedule

Send now for transactional notices. For anything promotional, schedule by local time: choose a window, for example 10:00 to 18:00, and the campaign opens in each country when its clock gets there. Add a pace if replies land on a small team.

## The first report

Statuses arrive live. Give it an hour, then read the report in this order: rejected, failed by reason, pending, delivered per destination. Remove unknown numbers with one click. You now have a cleaner list than the one you uploaded, which is the real result of a first campaign.

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Source: https://smsmeteor.com/guides/first-campaign-step-by-step (HTML). Generated by SMSMeteor from the same data as the page. Summary of the whole site: https://smsmeteor.com/llms.txt