How to set up an SMS keyword campaign in DailyStory: A feature walkthrough

SMS keyword campaigns are the fastest way for enterprise marketing teams to capture opt-ins outside the website — at the register, on a printed receipt, on signage, in a stadium concourse, or inside a partner’s app. A customer texts a single word like JOIN or VIP to your number, and within seconds they are an opted-in subscriber in your SMS marketing database with a logged consent record and a triggered welcome flow already in motion.

This walkthrough covers how to set up an SMS keyword campaign in DailyStory end to end, including the email follow-up that makes the opt-in part of a real omnichannel sequence rather than a standalone text-back. The whole build takes most teams under an hour the first time, and minutes after that.

What an SMS keyword campaign does

A keyword campaign assigns a word (or short phrase) to your dedicated SMS number or short code. When a customer texts that word, three things happen in the same transaction: the contact is created or matched in DailyStory, the opt-in is timestamped and stored as an auditable consent event, and an automation fires that can send messages, update fields, or branch into any other workflow you have already built. The keyword is the trigger; everything downstream is normal DailyStory marketing automation.

Before you build

You will need three things in place. First, a DailyStory account with SMS marketing enabled and your sending number provisioned and 10DLC-registered. Second, the keyword itself — short, unambiguous, and not already in use by another active campaign on the same number. Third, the opt-in language you plan to display on the call-to-action (poster, receipt, web page, signage), confirming that customers texting the keyword consent to receive marketing messages. If you are unfamiliar with the consent posture required, our double opt-in guide covers when single versus double opt-in is appropriate.

Step 1 — Reserve the keyword

Inside DailyStory, open the SMS section and create a new keyword. Type the word exactly as customers will text it — DailyStory matches case-insensitively, but enter it the way you intend to advertise it. Attach the keyword to your sending number, and add a short description so other team members understand the campaign without opening it. Save and verify the keyword shows as active on the number.

Step 2 — Build the opt-in confirmation reply

The first message a customer receives after texting your keyword is the confirmation. It should do three things in about 160 characters: confirm the opt-in, set expectations on send frequency, and provide the required HELP and STOP instructions. A typical confirmation reads: “Welcome to [Brand]! You’ll get 4-6 texts a month. Reply HELP for help, STOP to unsubscribe. Msg & data rates may apply.” Save this as the keyword’s auto-reply.

Step 3 — Connect the keyword to an automation

This is where the keyword stops being a one-off response and becomes the front door to a lifecycle program. In DailyStory’s automation designer, create a new automation with a Triggered by SMS keyword entry point and select the keyword you just reserved. From the entry point, drag in the actions that should fire on opt-in: tag the contact with the source (e.g., opted in at storefront), update a CRM field via integration, add the contact to a dynamic segment, or branch based on whether the contact already exists in your database. Every action you would normally chain in an automation is available from this trigger.

Step 4 — Add the email follow-up

The reason to run keyword opt-ins inside an omnichannel platform rather than a standalone SMS tool is what comes next. Add a Send Email action to the same automation, gated by a short wait step (typically 5 to 15 minutes) and a condition that checks whether the contact has an email on file. If yes, send a welcome email that introduces the brand, sets the value proposition, and offers a one-click way to update channel preferences. If no, branch to an SMS asking for the email address, or to a workflow that captures it on the next site visit. One keyword text now feeds both email marketing and SMS from a single record — which is the difference between an opt-in and an omnichannel program.

Step 5 — Test, publish, and monitor

Before going live, send the keyword from a personal phone and verify the full chain: the confirmation reply lands, the automation fires, the contact appears with the correct tags and segment membership, and the email follow-up sends on schedule. Publish the automation, then track first-week performance in the keyword’s reporting view — opt-ins per day, email open rate of the follow-up, and the percentage of new contacts that convert in the first 30 days. Those three numbers tell you whether the keyword is doing real work for the program.

Why this matters for enterprise teams

The reason keyword campaigns belong inside DailyStory rather than a point SMS tool is the rest of the stack. A keyword that feeds a contact straight into your CRM or ERP, triggers an email follow-up, and is suppressed when the customer purchases through any channel is a different mechanism than a keyword that drops a row into an exportable list. Enterprise teams that have outgrown e-commerce-first messaging platforms — the architecture our Klaviyo comparison walks through in detail — usually find keyword campaigns are the place that gap becomes most visible, because the opt-in is the first event in the customer record and everything downstream depends on it being captured cleanly.

For a deeper read on how SMS fits into the broader messaging program, our SMS marketing strategies guide and the SMS marketing pillar are the next two pages worth your team’s time.