Twilio Text to Web sends each uploaded contact a personalized SMS invitation containing their browser-survey link. Respondents open the link and answer the survey on the web. For a survey answered entirely by SMS, use interactive Twilio Text.
Before you start
Your account needs advanced respondent sources enabled. Prepare a Twilio Account SID and Auth Token, plus either an SMS-enabled phone number or a Messaging Service SID. Use contacts authorized to receive the invitation and follow your project's consent and privacy requirements.
Phone identifiers must use E.164 format, such as +15551234567. Upload each number once.
Create the source and configure Twilio
- On the survey's Summary tab, choose Add respondent source, then Twilio Text to Web.
- Set the source name, target, market and language. Enter the Twilio credentials and either the From number or Messaging Service SID.
- Set Identity column to the uploaded column containing phone numbers; the default is
Identifier. - Save the source so its Twilio setup panel has the final source-specific URLs.
Follow the Twilio webhook setup to configure the inbound webhook and SMS status callback. The webhook handles STOP replies; the callback updates invitation delivery progress.
Upload contacts and write the invitation
Use Upload file to provide .csv, .csv.gz or .xlsx contacts. For Excel, the active sheet is read; it does not need to be formatted as an Excel table. Include your phone-identifier column and the fields used in the invitation, such as name.
Enter a template in SMS invitation, for example:
Hello {name}, take our survey: {link}
Available placeholders lists the uploaded columns and built-in {link}. Each recipient gets their own column values and survey link. Use the placeholder spelling shown in the form, and include a value for every field the template requires.
Preview and validate every invitation
Review Rendered invitations and validation and Longest invitation after uploading contacts and editing the template. Check the fully rendered wording, actual link, character count, encoding and segment count.
The preview shows the first 100 contacts; launch validation checks every contact. The longest invitation is calculated across the uploaded contact list. A message that looks short can still use a different encoding because of a name, symbol or other substituted value, so use the reported segment count.
Every invitation must fit one SMS segment. Correct unknown placeholders, missing values, expired links or oversized messages before launch. If draft links have expired, re-upload the contacts to generate fresh links and check the previews again.
Send a safe phone test
- Open a survey test link and select this Text to Web source if prompted.
- Choose Phone, enter an authorized test number that is outside the uploaded campaign contacts, and supply values for the invitation placeholders.
- Start the test and confirm the received SMS matches the rendered invitation.
- Open its link, complete the browser survey, and verify the test identity and answers.
The phone test sends a browser test link and leaves the campaign contact list unchanged. See Testing and reviewing your survey for the phone-test controls.
Go live
Complete the survey's review requirements, fix every invitation-validation problem, and use Go Live when ready to send. Uploads and invitation settings lock after dispatch is queued, including while the source is paused. Sender identity fields also lock, so check the contact file, copy and Twilio sender before launch.
Recipients use their own link to enter the browser survey. Finishing the SMS dispatch does not close the web survey: the source remains live so recipients can respond later. Normal pause, completion and link-expiry controls still apply. Keep the inbound webhook configured so opt-out messages reach the existing STOP workflow.
Monitor invitations and web responses
Use the source's progress bar to follow invitation delivery through Planned, Scheduled, Starting, Delivered or Failed. Delivered confirms the SMS delivery milestone; it does not mean the recipient completed the survey.
Open the source's field report to review browser-survey outcomes. Users with export permission can choose Download → Dispatch CSV for destination-level delivery statuses, attempts, sender details and failures. See Dispatch CSV for voice and text sources.