An abandoned-cart message must carry an opt-out notice
The requirementstatement
Every abandoned-cart reminder must tell the recipient how to stop receiving them.
- Severityseverity
- BlockingBLOCKINGBreaking this rule gets the submission rejected. There is no partial credit.
- When it bitesphase
- Gates approvalapprovalGet this wrong and the brand or campaign is refused at registration.
- What is checkedobject
- cart-reminder message body
- Where it liveslayer
- Message contentMESSAGE_CONTENT
- How Ekas settles itdetectability
- AI · formAI_FORM
- A semantic question about what you wrote: whether a description matches a use case, whether a name looks like a filed entity. Judged by a model against written criteria.
- What the fix involvesfailureClass
- Fix the fieldRETRY_FIELD
- A better value in the form fixes it. Ekas can rewrite it and re-check.
- Who requires itauthorities
- CTIA
- When it appliesapplicabilityText
- Applies to every 10DLC registration.
Why this rule existsrationale
The cart reminder is the message most likely to feel like surveillance: it arrives because the recipient looked at something and did not buy it, and it is the one people most want to stop on the spot. CTIA singles it out for a per-message opt-out notice for that reason, rather than letting it rely on the notice in some earlier message of the programme. Retailers omit it in good faith because the reminder is short by design and every character is fighting for the click — which is exactly the pressure the rule exists to overrule.
How to fix itremediation
Add "Reply STOP to opt out" to the cart-reminder template itself, not only to the welcome message. Done when the reminder carries it on its own, read in isolation, with no earlier message in the thread.
A compliant exampleexample
Acme Coffee: you left the Ethiopia Guji in your basket. Finish up at https://acmecoffee.com/cart Reply STOP to opt out.
Notesnotes
Universal rather than tagged, because TCR has no use case for abandoned-cart messaging — it is a shape a MARKETING or MIXED campaign takes, and no fact on the registration declares it. The condition is carried in the criteria, which open with a PASS boundary for every campaign that sends no cart reminders.
Rules you will hit next
One other rule reads cart-reminder message body. Fixing one field to satisfy a single rule is how a resubmission trades one rejection for another, so read these before you change anything.
MSG-264An abandoned-cart message must not complete the purchase in the threadBlockingBLOCKINGMSG-008Opt-in confirmation must be 20–255 charactersBlockingBLOCKINGMSG-009HELP reply must be 20–255 charactersBlockingBLOCKINGMSG-011Opt-out confirmation must be 20–255 charactersBlockingBLOCKINGMSG-018An MMS campaign must attach at least one sample media fileBlockingBLOCKINGMSG-019Each MMS sample file must sit under its per-type size ceilingBlockingBLOCKING
MSG-263 is one of 122 message content rules in the 915-rule 10DLC registry. Free to cite under CC BY 4.0.