Birthday texts

What it does

A birthday text goes to a contact on their birthday, from your business phone number, at the time you choose in your business's local time. Each person gets at most one birthday text a year.

Owners and admins set it up in Contacts, on the Automations tab. The words live on the Templates tab next to it.

The one you already have

If your business has a phone number connected, Marketli created an automation called Birthday text, switched off, with this message:

Happy birthday {{first_name}}! Wishing you a great day from all of us at {{company_name}}.

Open it to change the send time, then switch it on. Nothing is sent until you do.

Who gets it

• Every contact whose birthday is today and who has a mobile number: clients, leads and everyone else you hold, including people you imported. There is no list of kinds of contact to tick any more.
• Not a contact this automation has been turned off for (see below).
• Never archived contacts, and never anyone who has replied STOP to your number.

Switching automations off for one person

Automations are turned off for one person one automation at a time. The single Automations for this contact switch that used to be on the contact page has been retired. Instead, open the contact's Automations tab and switch On for this contact off beside the birthday automation (see The Automations tab on a contact, lead or workspace). When the birthday text is turned off for someone, they get no birthday text and anything still to come for them stops; turned back on, it runs from then, so a birthday that passed while it was off is not caught up. Each change shows in the contact's history.

This is your team's setting. It is not something the contact chose and it doesn't unsubscribe them from anything else you send.

• Birthdays come from each contact's record. Add them on the contact, in the edit window on the Contacts list, or with an import that has a date of birth column. An import fills in missing birthdays without changing anything else.

When it sends

• On the day, at the time you pick (7:00 am to 7:00 pm), in your business's timezone. The automation shows which timezone it is using; change it in Company settings.
• Anything not sent by 8:00 pm is skipped, so nobody gets a birthday text the next morning.
• A birthday on 29 February is wished on 28 February in other years.
• Switching it on only affects today's and future birthdays. It never catches up on past ones.
• Switching it on first shows who it would text: today, in the next 7 days and on the busiest day coming up. From now on is the default. If today's send time has already passed, you can also choose to text the contacts with a birthday today straight away; the number is shown, and Cancel leaves it off.
• On one that is already on, changing the send time, or changing Your team sends it to Send it automatically, tells you how many contacts with a birthday today would be texted straight away and asks you to confirm.

The message

• {{first_name}} is the person's preferred name when they have one, otherwise the first word of their name. You can also use {{name}}, {{company_name}} and {{sender_name}} (the sign-off name you type on the step).
• What the text says is up to you. We suggest saying who it's from, with {{company_name}}, and replying STOP always opts someone out.
• Only one birthday automation can be on at a time, so nobody gets two.

Let AI write each one

On the text step, switch on AI writes each one to send a short, personal message instead of the same words to everyone. Add a tone note if you like (for example warm, short, no exclamation marks).

• The AI only sees the person's first name, your business name, the sign-off name and your tone note. Nothing else about the person is used.
• Every message is checked before it goes: one standard text, plain characters, the word birthday, their first name and your business name included, no links, numbers or opt-out wording.
• If a message fails a check, or the AI can't be reached, your template is sent instead, and the run log says why.
• Up to 1,000 AI-written texts a month are included. After that your template is sent until the next month.

Seeing what happened

The run log under your automations lists each birthday text: who it went to, and whether it was sent or skipped and why (for example opted out or no phone). The text itself appears in the conversation for that person's number.