"A picture is worth a thousand words". As we'll see over the next few lines, this adage applies to emojis in SMS campaigns in many different ways.

Long story short: Yes, you can add emojis to your SMS Campaigns.

According to many different studies, adding Emojis in Emails, SMS and Social media posts can increase the interaction rate by 17%.

Emojis are not encoded with GSM-7, which in human terms means that they are considered "special characters". Because of this SMS campaigns including at least one emoji have to be encoded in a different way (also known as "UCS-2 encoding").

Normal SMS messages encoded using the GSM-7, the regular encryption system, can include up to 160 characters.

SMS not encoded using GSM-7 such as SMS messages with an emoji, are limited to 70 characters.

As a result, if your SMS campaign includes an emoji and stays below the limit of 70 characters, your SMS campaign will not cost more than an SMS campaign that does not include an emoji and is 160 characters long.

However, if your SMS campaign includes an emoji and goes beyond the 70 characters limit, this SMS campaign will be "doubled" for every new 70 characters added in your content. For example, an SMS with an emoji and 100 characters will cost twice as much as an SMS with an emoji and 70 characters.