What is Contact Card?

A contact card — technically a vCard (.vcf file) — is a standardized digital format for sharing contact information. In the context of SMS marketing, a contact card is a file a brand sends to subscribers so they can save the brand's phone number, name, and logo directly to their phone's address book.

When a customer saves your contact card, your messages start showing up with your brand name and logo instead of a random phone number. This is the difference between a text from "15551234567" and a text from "Fellow Coffee" with the Fellow logo next to it.

The vCard format (Virtual Contact File) has been around since the mid-1990s and is supported by every smartphone platform — iOS, Android, and beyond. It's the same format your phone uses when you share a contact with someone. In SMS commerce, brands use contact cards as a trust and deliverability tool, typically sending them as part of a welcome flow when a new subscriber joins their list.

A brand creates a contact card inside their SMS platform by entering their business name, phone number, and uploading a logo or brand image. The platform generates a .vcf file containing this information.

The contact card is sent to subscribers as an MMS attachment — usually within the first few messages of a welcome flow automation. The subscriber receives the card, taps it, and their phone prompts them to "Add to Contacts" or "Create New Contact." One tap, and the brand is saved to their address book.

Once saved, two things happen. First, all future messages from that number display the brand name and logo instead of a raw phone number. Second, messages from saved contacts bypass several layers of filtering. On Apple iOS, messages from unknown senders are separated into a dedicated "Unknown Senders" tab and include a "Report Junk" prompt — saving the contact prevents both. Android handles unknown numbers similarly with its own spam detection.

Brands typically send contact cards early in their welcome flow so every new subscriber starts with the branded experience from day one. Some brands also re-send the card before major campaigns like product drops or flash sales, and target it to VIP segments as part of winback flows.

Contact cards solve three problems at once: recognition, trust, and deliverability.

Recognition: When a customer receives a text from an unknown number, their first instinct is to ignore or delete it. A message from a saved contact with a familiar logo gets opened and read. This is especially important for text-to-buy programs where the customer needs to trust the sender enough to reply with a purchase confirmation.

Trust: Saving a brand as a contact creates a psychological commitment. The customer has explicitly chosen to keep this brand in their phone. It moves the relationship from "I signed up for texts" to "this brand is in my contacts." That subtle shift increases engagement with every subsequent message.

Deliverability: Carrier filtering algorithms are more aggressive than ever. Messages from numbers the recipient hasn't saved are more likely to be flagged or filtered. When a subscriber saves your contact card, your messages bypass many of these filters because the phone recognizes the sender as a known contact. For brands sending time-sensitive messages — product drops, flash sales, replenishment prompts — the difference between landing in the main inbox and getting filtered can mean thousands of dollars in lost revenue.