Integrating Zoho CRM with Africa’s Talking for Scalable SMS Campaigns

Introduction

When managing campaigns across thousands of contacts, email often falls short. SMS offers faster delivery and higher open rates — but integrating it into a CRM like Zoho can be tricky. In this post, we break down how we integrated Africa’s Talking with Zoho CRM to deliver scalable, trackable SMS campaigns with approval flows, scheduling, and fallback logic.

Why SMS Still Matters in Marketing

In an age of information overload, SMS continues to outperform email when it comes to open and response rates. Particularly in African markets, mobile penetration is high, and SMS remains a primary communication channel. Africa’s Talking is a reliable SMS gateway tailored for this region, making it a perfect choice for our needs.

Setting Up the Integration

We started by mapping our CRM modules: Contacts, Facilitators, and Deals. Then, using Zoho's Connections feature, we created a secure connection to Africa’s Talking’s API. API credentials were encrypted and stored within Zoho CRM to maintain security. The integration was built using Deluge, Zoho’s native scripting language.

Building the Campaign Engine

Users can filter recipients by module (e.g., Contacts or Facilitators), individual or organization, and 'Move Type' from the Deal module. SMS templates are dynamically chosen based on the campaign. The system automatically excludes blocked numbers known to Africa’s Talking and defaults to sending an email instead.

Approvals and Scheduling

To ensure compliance and quality, campaigns require approval before sending. Once approved, users can either send messages immediately or schedule them for later. The scheduling feature uses Zoho’s built-in task scheduler and Deluge scripts to execute on time.

Delivery Logs & Monitoring

Each campaign’s delivery status — success or failure — is logged within a custom Campaigns module. We store timestamps, delivery feedback from Africa’s Talking, and any fallback email notifications that were triggered.

Scalability Considerations

For large campaigns, we built in logic to throttle messages, respect rate limits from Africa’s Talking, and batch messages when needed. This ensures delivery remains stable even at scale.

Conclusion

Integrating SMS into your CRM doesn't have to be complicated. With Zoho CRM and Africa’s Talking, we created a scalable and reliable communication tool. Future enhancements may include multilingual messaging, WhatsApp integration, or AI-generated messaging suggestions.