William Dudley DeMystifying Messaging Series, MMS, SMS

Demystifying the US Messaging Ecosystem: Part 3: The Rise of The Campaign Registry

This post is the third installment in our Demystifying the US Messaging Ecosystem series.  We previously covered:

In this post as we peer into the intricate and ever-evolving landscape of US business messaging, one organization stands as the central pillar of trust and order for Application-to-Person (A2P) traffic: The Campaign Registry (TCR). TCR’s creation was a direct response to a fragmented market. Without it, the widespread adoption of 10-Digit Long Code (10DLC) messaging—sending business texts from standard 10-digit phone numbers—would have spiraled into a chaos of spam and fraud. This installment will delve into the motivations behind TCR’s creation, its critical role today managing over 2.8 million active 10DLC campaigns and over 4 million registered brands, and its vision for the future.

A New Chapter for Business Messaging

For years, the A2P messaging ecosystem in the US was a wild west of sorts. Businesses were either constrained by expensive, slow-to-provision short codes or forced to use unauthorized long codes, which led to a surge in unwanted messages and a breakdown of consumer trust. The major US mobile carriers—including AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon—recognized that a new approach was needed to preserve the integrity of the messaging channel. Their collaborative solution was TCR.

The core motivation was clear: to protect consumers from fraudulent activity while also creating a secure, sanctioned channel for legitimate businesses. TCR was built as a neutral, third-party entity to vet and register messaging campaigns. This not only improved the consumer experience by reducing spam but also provided a clear, reliable path for businesses to engage with their customers. By creating a centralized hub, TCR became the reputation authority for 10DLC, giving carriers the visibility they needed to filter out bad actors without blocking legitimate traffic.

I had the unique opportunity to watch some of this unfold firsthand, and I remember thinking that a centralized vetting body for SMS/MMS was a long time coming. The transparent and collaborative approach has proven to be a resounding success, and I’m happy to share my  perspective of TCR in this post.

Inside the Registry: How Brands and Campaigns are Vetted

For a business to use 10DLC messaging, it must be registered with TCR. This process has two main components: Brand Registration and Campaign Registration.

  • Brand Registration: This is the initial step where a business—or “Brand”—is verified as a legitimate entity. A Campaign Service Provider (CSP) submits the brand’s legal name, business address, and Tax Identification Number (such as an EIN) to TCR. TCR then passes along that information to Aegis Mobile, who actually performs the standard vetting step, by validating this information against third-party independent sources. This “basic verification” is a binary check—it confirms the business exists but does not result in a score.

    One thing I want to make clear is that it is not TCR themselves that do any brand vetting. For all standard Brand Vetting, that is all done automatically by Aegis Mobile, who are specialist in comprehensive brand vetting and protection. Their comprehensive methods ensure that the company exists and is who they say they are. This crucial step is paramount in identifying any threat actors trying to gain a foothold into the 10DLC ecosystem.
  • Expanded Vetting: To achieve a brand vetting score (which can range from 0-100), a business must request and pay for an optional, “expanded” vetting service from a TCR-approved third-party provider that include both Aegis Mobile and WMC Global. The CSP or brand has a choice as to which one to choose. Both provide a score. The score is based on a deeper review of a brand’s reputation and compliance history. A higher score directly impacts the messaging throughput and deliverability a brand can achieve. For instance, a higher score on a carrier’s network can enable a business to send more messages per second, which is essential for high-volume campaigns. Some carriers offer different benefits for higher scores.

The Role of Vetting in Throughput and Deliverability

The vetting score is crucial because it helps mobile carriers prioritize messaging. Brands with high scores are seen as more trustworthy and are less likely to have their messages filtered or blocked as spam. This is a key incentive for businesses to go through expanded vetting.

  • Carrier-Specific Benefits: Different carriers have their own tiers based on a brand’s vetting score. For example, AT&T and T-Mobile have specific classes (e.g., A-F) that determine a brand’s messaging limits.
  • Special Use Cases: Some “special use cases,” such as nonprofit or political messaging, require additional vetting to gain access to reduced carrier fees or higher throughput.

    Political messaging campaigns are required to obtain a secure token from Campaign Verify, a nonprofit, nonpartisan vetting organization created to validate the identify of political parties, candidates and PACs. Campaign Verify Authorization Tokens are a credential that protects political campaigns from spoofing and disinformation, thereby increasing the campaigns’ ability to reach voters and supporters, and helps ensure trust in U.S. political discourse and election. We will dedicate an entire post to political text messaging in the future as part of this series.
  • Higher Message Volume: A high score can grant access to significantly higher daily or hourly messaging volumes.

This tiered system ensures that the most credible businesses receive the best network performance, creating a self-regulating ecosystem that rewards legitimacy and protects consumers from bad actors.

The Vetting and Approval Process for Campaigns

While TCR manages brand and campaign registration, it does not review, approve, or reject campaigns itself. That critical function is performed by Direct Connect Aggregators (DCAs). DCAs are companies that have a direct connection to a Mobile Network Operator (MNO) gateway and transmit messages on behalf of their customers.

The DCA’s role is to act as a gatekeeper, manually reviewing each campaign to ensure its details—including the opt-in process, sample messages, and privacy policy—are compliant with CTIA guidelines. If a campaign submission is not compliant, a DCA can reject it, causing delays for the customer. A key aspect of this vetting is ensuring that the information provided in the campaign registration matches what is on the brand’s website and that a clear, compliant call-to-action is in place.

Content Restrictions and the Nuance of “Prohibited” Content

TCR and the mobile carriers have strict rules on the content that can be sent over 10DLC. Certain content is always prohibited and will result in campaign rejection with no path forward for approval. This includes:

  • High-risk financial services such as payday loans, short-term high-interest loans, and debt collection or forgiveness.
  • “Get rich quick” schemes and multi-level marketing (MLM).
  • Illegal substances, including marijuana, cannabis, and illegal prescriptions, even in jurisdictions where they are legalized for recreational or medical use. CBD and vaping content are also generally prohibited.
  • Phishing, fraud, and deceptive marketing.
  • Lead generation that involves buying, selling, or sharing consumer information. The business that obtained the consent is the only one authorized to send messages.
  • Content that is illegal in the recipient’s jurisdiction, or is considered hate speech, harassment, or depicts violence.

The rules are more nuanced for what is often referred to as S.H.A.F.T. content (Sex, Hate, Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco). While general promotional messaging for these categories is often restricted, brands can, in some cases, send compliant messages if they implement strict age-gating and age verification procedures. A business must have a robust age verification process on its website and within the messaging campaign itself.

Messages that are not compliant with these rules or are flagged for spam can face severe consequences, including message filtering, higher costs, or the complete suspension or termination of messaging services. Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), such as T-Mobile and AT&T, and other carriers are the entities that levy fines for non-compliant traffic. These fines can be substantial, with some content violations costing as much as $10,000 per violation. In many cases, these fines are passed down the chain from the carrier to the brand’s Direct Connect Aggregator (DCA) and ultimately to the brand or customer who sent the message. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) is a federal law that also carries its own penalties, which can be as high as $1,500 per unauthorized text message.

Centralized Enforcement for a Safer Ecosystem

When a messaging campaign or brand is found to be in violation of messaging rules, TCR acts as a centralized hub for enforcement. If a mobile network operator (MNO) or Direct Connect Aggregator (DCA) suspends a campaign for violations—such as spam, fraud, or abuse—TCR is immediately notified.

TCR’s registry provides a central platform that links service providers, brands, MNOs, and DCAs to enable greater transparency and raise the overall trust in a message’s origins. This allows MNOs to quickly suspend problematic messaging campaigns via a web portal or API. More importantly, when one carrier or DCA suspends a campaign, all other aggregators and MNOs are immediately notified through suspension events. This ensures that bad actors cannot simply switch to a different provider to continue sending malicious or non-compliant traffic. The DCA is then responsible for honoring the suspension by stopping the traffic. In this way, TCR’s registry acts as a crucial collaborative tool to ensure the integrity of the ecosystem and prevent bad actors from continuing their activities across different networks.

This centralized approach is a powerful tool against large-scale fraudulent operations like SIM farms, which use numerous SIM cards to send bulk messages. By centralizing information about campaign suspensions and violations, TCR makes it far more difficult for bad actors to gain a foothold and operate across different networks, effectively shutting down their ability to commit fraud.

Collaboration with NetNumber

TCR’s registry is an integral part of the messaging ecosystem and leverages other key industry platforms to function effectively. One of these is the NetNumber Services Registry (nnSR), an authoritative industry database for managing and distributing routing information for the messaging industry. The nnSR is a key part of the US messaging ecosystem and is essential for accurate message routing.

TCR approves a brand and its associated campaigns and then sends the approved campaign IDs to the NetNumber Services Registry. This is a crucial link, as it allows the DCA to register a brand’s phone numbers as being approved for specific campaigns. This partnership helps to combat fraud by providing a centralized source of phone number and fraud information. The nnSR can identify all other phone numbers belonging to the same entity once a few numbers are flagged for fraudulent messages, allowing for expanded, fast, and effective traffic blocking. This collaboration helps deny fraudsters access to messaging entry points and protects the messaging ecosystem. This strategic partnership between different registry services and intelligence providers is a key part of the industry’s evolving effort to build a safer mobile landscape and protect against fraud attempts.

A Collaborative Philosophy

From my experience working with TCR as a Connectivity Partner (CNP) and later with a Direct Connect Aggregator (DCA), I always found them to be responsive and collaborative. The different roles of these industry partners required a nuanced understanding of their collaboration with TCR.

As a CNP, my team’s role was to provide the technical infrastructure and messaging APIs for our customers, a key part of the supply chain that connects businesses to the mobile ecosystem. A DCA, on the other hand, is a company that has a direct connection to a Mobile Network Operator’s (MNO) gateway and acts as a gatekeeper. Their critical function is to manually review and approve campaigns before messages are sent to the carriers.

In my experience, my team at the CNP would conduct the initial vetting of campaigns before submitting them to the DCA for final vetting. This was the case with both the DCA we originally worked with and the acquiring company that later became our DCA. This tiered approach, where vetting is done by both the CNP and then again by the DCA, is a common practice in the industry. It’s important to note that the DCA always had the final authority to approve or reject a campaign, a responsibility they took very seriously. I can’t speak for all DCAs, but this was my experience.

I would often collaborate with TCR independently of which DCA we were working with, and at times, I would collaborate with both. This was necessary because a DCA’s specific requirements for vetting and approving campaigns might differ from what the overarching TCR registry required.

This collaborative approach is a core part of TCR’s success. They recognize that their small team needs to rely on their industry partners to do some of the heavy lifting. I spent many hours per day working through the TCR portal, personally vetting many thousands of campaigns. I also advised CSPs and brands on how to get their campaigns approved and even trained vetting teams at the CNP I worked for at the time.

In my experience, TCR understood that effective customer service is about more than just resolving issues; it’s about building trust and fostering a productive dialogue. I routinely was on periodic—at least monthly—calls with their team. TCR team members were always very responsive to our concerns, which was a crucial part of the partnership. I recall suggesting quite a few improvements, which in many cases were implemented very quickly. This demonstrated their commitment to listening to feedback from frontline partners and continuously improving the registry for the entire ecosystem.

The Road Ahead: From 10DLC to the Broader Ecosystem

TCR’s success in the US has naturally led to questions about its role in the wider messaging landscape. With their model for centralized vetting now proven, it’s worth exploring how this philosophy could be applied to other, legacy messaging channels, such as short codes. Short codes have long been a trusted channel, but the vetting and provisioning process has traditionally been slow and handled on a carrier-by-carrier basis. A centralized registry for short codes could bring the same level of transparency and efficiency that TCR has brought to 10DLC, potentially reducing friction and increasing trust.

The future of TCR is not just about expanding to other channels in the US; it’s also about its potential global footprint. TCR’s model of a neutral, centralized registry is a compelling solution to a global problem. The company has been actively promoting what it has accomplished in the US to other markets, demonstrating how a centralized system can make messaging ecosystems safer and more reliable everywhere. This organization is more than just a set of APIs and a database; it’s a team of dedicated individuals with a clear vision. They strike a difficult but necessary balance between enforcing strict rules and supporting the partners they work with, a philosophy that is key to their success. This collaborative spirit is what makes TCR a blueprint for the future of business messaging.

Final Thoughts

TCR’s success in establishing a functional and trusted ecosystem for 10DLC messaging is a testament to the power of a centralized registry can have for one of the largest carrier messaging ecosystems in the world. The sheer volume of over 4 million registered brands compared to approximately 2.8 million active campaigns underscores the significant potential for growth in the 10DLC messaging market. This speaks directly to the enduring utility of SMS/MMS as a key channel for businesses, even with the rise of newer technologies like RCS. The US A2P messaging market is expected to continue growing. While other channels and technologies are certainly emerging as well, the foundation of trust, transparency, and collaboration laid by TCR ensures that text messaging will remain a crucial part of the business communication landscape for years to come.

Looking Ahead

In the next installment, we’ll go beyond the fundamentals to bring you a truly unique perspective on The Campaign Registry. I’ve gone straight to the source, asking the tough questions about the past, present, and future of TCR. What was the true catalyst for its creation? How does its culture foster collaboration with a diverse ecosystem of partners? And what does their global roadmap look like? Don’t miss this exclusive Q&A, where I share honest, unfiltered answers from the people behind the registry. Look for it around the middle of October 2025.