MMS over API

Send and receive MMS using the Infobip MMS API. For more information about the MMS API, see the MMS API (opens in a new tab) reference.

Use this section for details about the standard recommendations and limitations for multimedia messages over API.

Recommendations

Make each piece of content available at its URL for at least three days after your last request. This ensures that Infobip can still access the content in the unlikely situation of a mobile operator or network disruption causing message retries and delays.

Use a unique URL for new content (for example, do not recycle the location). This ensures that we never use a previously cached version of content instead of new content.

The content ID is a unique identifier for the content part. When specifying each content ID in your requests, we recommend that you:

• Don't include any angle brackets around a content ID
• Don't include spaces or anything other than basic letters and numbers
• Keep the IDs shorter than 20 characters (Content-Id: example.png)

Images

Standard image formats of JPEG, GIF, and PNG are supported by the majority of handsets. We recommend using only these image formats.

Specify the following in the manifest:

Content-Type: image/(png, jpg, gif)

Content-Id: (.png, .jpg, .gif filename)

Content-Transfer-Encoding: (BASE64 or BINARY)

If you don’t specify the Content-Transfer-Encoding, then we assume that it is BINARY.

Here is a working example of a mime-part that sends a .png file.

--mimeboundary

Content-Type: image/png

Content-Id: example.png

Content-Transfer-Encoding: BASE64 

iVBORw0KGgoAA(...)

--mimeboundary

Formatting

Use specific image formats for more optimal results. It is advised to test the message before sending a campaign.

The image layout should be vertical (aspect ratio 9:16). Use JPEG for static or GIF for animated images and make sure image sizes respect limitations.

Keep the subject line short. We recommend you use less than 500 characters in text for better visibility of the full message. 1600 characters is a standard that operators support. It's important that the message does not exceed the 300 KB recommendation (or 1 MB for some operators).

Text

Text is almost universally supported by handsets. Specify the following in the manifest:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=(chosen character set)

Content-Id: (.txt filename)

Use UTF-8 character encoding (charset=utf-8). If no character set is defined, UTF-8 will be assumed. You can use other character encodings such as ASCII, ISO-8859-15, and ISO-8859-1.

Here is an example text mime part:

--mimeboundary

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

Content-Id: example.txt 

This is my text.

--mimeboundary

The text data and encoding information is passed to each mobile operator without modification. However, some mobile operators may transcode the text data before delivering it to handsets.

Video

Support for video varies between handsets. The most widely supported way to deliver video is using an MP4 container (video/mp4) with H264 video and AAC audio. This works on iPhones and the majority of Android phones. Specify the following in the manifest:

Content-Type: video/(mp4)

Content-Id: (.mp4 filename)

Content-Transfer-Encoding: (BASE64 or BINARY)

If you don’t specify the Content-Transfer-Encoding, then we assume that it is BINARY.

Here is an example mime part for a video file.

--mimeboundary

Content-Type: video/mp4

Content-Id: example-video.mp4

Content-Transfer-Encoding: BASE64 

iVBORw0KGgoAAAANS…

--mimeboundary

Group Messaging

When engaging with your customers, although SMS can provide you with a powerful, 2-way communication method, if you need to add multiple participants, you may need to consider moving the conversation to a messaging app or an email thread.

Group messaging differs from mass texts. It works similarly to group chats found on messaging apps, such as Slack, WhatsApp, or iMessage. Every recipient can read all the correspondence in the group, and when they respond, everyone sees it. Each participant has a unique, identifiable phone number, and they can read and reply to messages with the entire group.

Group MMS messaging is an extremely powerful tool for businesses to communicate across a wider audience, is easy to implement, supports additional images, and has become one of the most effective ways to communicate.

Group Messaging Use Cases

Group messaging allows businesses of any size to market to wider audiences with one simple click. It helps your business to create more efficient communication while connecting with employees or customers.

Group messaging can help your business compete in different ways:

• Universities/colleges - Educators in a higher education setting can create a communications MMS group to include the professor and students for setting deadlines and discussing related topics for their submissions.
• Insurance Agents - Insurance agents can communicate securely with a mortgage broker and a married couple on separate cell phones about their policy details, exchanging relevant documents in support of closing a mortgage application.
• IT Help Desk - Service desk personnel can have a conversation with a customer about an issue they are having, and they can include their supervisor for oversight or to troubleshoot the problem.

Benefits of MMS Group Texting For Your Business

Whether you create a managers-only group message, a larger group for the entire office, or a group for a particular project, you can craft your message and send it to a specific group.

MMS group messaging gives your business the following benefits:

1. Have a conversation with three or more participants: You can engage more people in a group conversation. This is especially helpful for real estate agents, wealth advisors, personal shopping aids, and others.
2. Keep people in the loop: You don't need to send multiple one-to-one texts but you can keep everyone connected and communicating in a single conversation.
3. Consolidate apps: You no longer need to move conversations over to Slack, Facebook Messenger, or communication apps with group texting for business. Your customers won't have to download any new applications and can communicate with the easy-to-use texting they know.
4. Engage audiences fast: You can send your messages in seconds, reaching your audience faster, and where they’re more likely to engage with you.

Using MMS Group Messaging

To use MMS group messaging, you need to use an MMS-capable 10DLC number. An A2P 10-digit long code – otherwise known as 10DLC – is a phone number approved for automated business messaging to send high volumes of both SMS and MMS messages.

To use MMS group messaging over API:

1. Use your MMS-capable 10DLC number or purchase a new number.
   1. To purchase a phone number, go to Channels and Numbers > Numbers  > REQUEST NUMBER.
   2. Search for and purchase an available MMS-capable number.
2. Send a message using the Send MMS Message endpoint (opens in a new tab).
3. Include the group or multiple group objects in the request to send the message to your groups.

SMIL files

SMIL files are optional XML markup files that tell a handset how to present the contents of an MMS message.

It pieces together the MMS files into the order that the end user sees and combines them into a single stream so that the message display is properly time coordinated and synchronized.

If you are using a SMIL file to describe how the MMS should flow, then the order does not matter.

Unfortunately, iPhones ignore SMIL files. Because of this, we recommend that you avoid using a SMIL file for presentation.

If you want to reference an attachment inside a SMIL file, refer to the attachment directly and without angle brackets (for example, img src="contentid" region="Image").

For anything more than plain ASCII characters, encode using UTF-8 and make sure that the content type is set to application/smil (for example, charset="UTF-8").