Who gets this? Shops on Postscript's Professional and Enterprise plans have access to this beta. Learn more about Postscript Plans.
Transactional messaging allows you to send order-related, non-marketing texts through Postscript to a unique category of subscriber: a transactional-only subscriber. Before setting up transactional messaging, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager to enable the feature in your Postscript account.
By sending transactional messages to non-marketing subscribers, you can:
Give your customers a one-to-one relationship with your brand via SMS.
Get ahead of order-related inquiries using the responses tab and sentiment tags or your shop's help desk to respond directly and promptly to transactional-only subscribers based in the United States or Canada.
Reduce order-related inquiries by proactively providing customers with timely order updates.
Comparing Marketing and Transactional Subscribers
Because marketing subscribers have consented to receive marketing or promotional messaging from your brand, you can send your marketing subscribers promotional automations using transactional triggers (e.g. Order in Transit, Attempted Delivery, Order Created, etc.).
On the other hand, when transactional subscribers opt-in by placing an order, they agree to receive only order-related, non-marketing text messages from your brand.
Because these subscribers do not agree to receive marketing messaging, the content and tone of transactional text messages are different than the marketing messaging your brand might be used to sending.
View the information below to get a better understanding of the differences and similarities between transactional and marketing subscribers and how you can communicate with both types of subscribers.
If a transactional-only subscriber opts in via a regular marketing process (e.g. keyword or checkout), Postscript will upgrade them from a transactional-only subscriber to a marketing subscriber so they can begin receiving both your promotional and transactional messages.
If a subscriber opts out of your SMS marketing, they can still opt into transactional-only SMS when they enter their shipping phone number at checkout the next time they place an order. They are able to opt-out of transactional messaging at any time by replying STOP.
To see if a specific subscriber is transactional, you can check their subscriber profile by entering their phone number using the search icon in the upper left corner of the navigation bar.
If someone is a transactional-only subscriber, this will also be denoted on any responses you receive from them within the responses tab.
Configuring transactional messaging is two-parted: the first part is in Shopify and the second part is in your Postscript account.
In this article, we'll guide you through how to set up transactional messaging in Shopify. Then, we'll instruct you on how to set up the feature in your Postscript account. You can set up transactional messaging with either legacy automations or flow builder. We cover both below.
Set up Transactional Messaging in Shopify
To begin, you’ll set up transactional messaging in Shopify. To ensure subscribers do not get multiple transactional text messages from both Postscript and Shopify—and to avoid having transactional messages come from two different phone numbers (a Shopify number and your Postscript number)—you will disable Shopify’s transactional text messaging using the following steps.
Within your Shopify admin, head to Settings, then Checkout
Under the header Customer contact method, beneath The contact method customers enter at checkout will receive order and shipping notifications, select Email. This will disable Shopify’s one-way only transactional SMS messages.
On the same page, under the header Customer information, locate the sub-header Shipping address phone number. Select Optional. This allows shoppers to enter a phone number at checkout that can be used for transactional messages only.
Save your changes in the bottom right-hand corner. Then scroll up to the Checkout Language section and select Edit checkout content.
Search for "tooltip" and select the Phone tooltip field under Checkout contact.
Enter the compliance language below, replacing each URL placeholder with the URLs for your shop’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
Send me updates about my order! Message and data rates apply. View our Terms of Service [mystore.com/policies/terms-of-service] and Privacy Policy [mystore.com/polices/privacy-policy].
Note: If you are unsure of your shop’s terms of service and privacy policy URLs, check with your CSMs. We recommend testing each URL before entering them into the phone tool tip to ensure you’ve entered the correct URLs.
Select Save in the upper right-hand corner.
Set up Transactional Messaging in Postscript with Legacy Automations
Once you’ve set up transactional messaging in Shopify, you’ll have the option to add transactional messages to your shop’s legacy automations and submit them for approval to the Postscript Compliance team.
Navigate to Messaging on the left-side navigation bar, then select Automations.
Select Create Automation in the upper right corner. Select Create Legacy Automation.
Search transactional in the upper-right corner search bar, then choose your transactional template.
Once your template is selected from the Automations Library, select Edit in the upper right corner, then select Edit Automation Properties in the lower right corner.
In the Automation Properties editor, select the dropdown under Transactional and select Yes - Requested, then save the changes by selecting Save & Continue to Messages.
Save the automation by selecting Save Automation in the lower-right corner of the automation Messages page. Once the automation is saved, it is automatically sent to our Compliance Team for review.
If you select a template and modify the language in the pre-approved message, this could result in the message being denied. If your message is denied, your CSM will notify you and work with you on crafting a compliant message. Until your message has been approved, the automation's Transactional Message Approval status will remain Requested under Automation Properties.
Once the automation is approved, you will see the approval denoted under the Automation Properties, and customers who enter their shipping phone number at checkout will begin receiving approved transactional messages from your brand.
Note: Unmodified templates located within our Automations Library will receive approval quicker than custom messages or templated messages that have been modified. Any modifications to the templated message can cause delays in the approval process.
Set up Transactional Messaging in Postscript with Automation Flows
Once you’ve set up transactional messaging in Shopify, you also have the option to add transactional messages to your shop’s automation flows in Flow Builder.
Navigate to Messaging on the left-side navigation bar, then select Automations.
Select Create Automation in the upper right corner. Select Create Automation Flow.
Choose Create a new automation and select Continue.
Select your transactional trigger (Transactional triggers include: Fulfillment Created, Order Created, Order Delivered, Order Fulfilled, and Order in Transit).
Once you've selected your trigger, a transactional checkbox will appear below. Check this box to confirm this automation flow is transactional in nature.
A confirmation popup will appear after you check the transactional box. Once you confirm this flow is transactional, you will not be able to change the flow back to promotional. Note: Transactional messaging cannot include any promotional language.
Save your changes by selecting Save in the lower-right corner of the automation properties card.
Continue editing your flow by dragging and dropping the Send Message, Delay, or A/B Test actions into your flow.
Once the flow is crafted, select the Schedule or Activate button in the upper right corner. As soon as the flow is scheduled or activated, it is automatically sent to our Compliance Team for review.
By selecting the Schedule or Activate button, your flow will move into an Approval Pending status.
Once your flow is approved, it will be automatically activated.
If your message is denied, your CSM will notify you and work with you on crafting a compliant message.
Once the flow is approved, customers who enter their shipping phone number at checkout will begin receiving approved transactional messages from your brand.
Transactional Analytics
If you would like to see how many of your subscribers are transactional, you can navigate to Subscriber Analytics on the left navigation bar (nested under Analytics) within the Postscript app. Transactional subscribers will show under the opt-in source Checkout.
It is important to note that at this time, the subscriber count on the left-side navigation panel reflects promotional subscribers only.
Before You Go
To send marketing messages using transactional triggers to your marketing subscribers only, will just need to mark the automation as Transactional - No under your Legacy Automation Properties.
For Automation Flows, do not mark the Mark as a transactional message checkbox if you'd like to send marketing messages to your marketing subscribers only.
Additional Resources
Interested in setting up transactional messaging, but not on the Professional or Enterprise plan? Get started here with Malomo.
Interested in setting up transactional messaging with AfterShip? Get started here.
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