Outbound Message Intercept stops messages containing words or phrases you have blocked before they are sent. It applies everywhere your team sends, including chats, broadcasts, campaigns, automations, scheduled messages, and your AI agent, so a rule added today also covers work that was set up earlier.
How it works
When someone on your team (or your AI agent) tries to send a message that contains a blocked word or phrase, the send is stopped and the sender sees which rule caused the block.
Matching respects word and phrase boundaries and is punctuation tolerant. For example, blocking "risk free" also catches "risk-free" but will not catch "riskless." Word order matters, so a rule for "risk free" will not match "risk of free shipping."
Why this exists
Outbound Message Intercept is a compliance safeguard, not a style suggestion. Rules are typically set by an admin to meet regulatory or legal requirements (for example, in insurance, financial services, or other regulated industries). If a message is blocked, do not try to reword it just to slip past the rule. Instead:
- Confirm the accurate, compliant information with the relevant team or admin, and send that instead.
- If you believe the rule is blocking something it shouldn't, contact an admin so the rule itself can be reviewed and adjusted.
Attempting to work around a compliance rule defeats its purpose and can create legal or regulatory risk for your organization.
Example: a blocked message
A team member tries to reply to a customer asking about returns. Because the reply contains a blocked phrase, the message cannot be sent.
Heymarket blocks the message from sending and shows a "Message Not Allowed" dialog naming the rule that stopped it, so the sender can revise the message before trying again.
Setting up rules
Rules live under Admin > Compliance > Outbound Message Intercept.
Each rule has:
- Name - shown to the sender when a message is blocked, so choose something descriptive (e.g. "Financial guarantees").
- Words or phrases - up to 5 terms per rule. A message is blocked if it contains any of them.
- Case sensitive - when off, "Guarantee" and "guarantee" both match.
- Status - toggle a rule on or off without deleting it.
Your team can have up to 500 active rules at a time.
Creating a new rule
- Go to Admin > Compliance > Outbound Message Intercept.
- Click New Rule.
- Enter a name and add up to 5 words or phrases (press Enter or type a comma after each one).
- Choose whether the rule should be case sensitive.
- Click Create Rule.
Editing an existing rule
Click Edit next to any rule to update its name, words or phrases, or case sensitivity, then click Save Rule.
Blocked messages and conversations
When a message is blocked, it is not sent and does not appear in the conversation view. Depending on where the message came from, Heymarket surfaces the block differently:
- Chats - the sender sees a "Message Not Allowed" dialog naming the rule that stopped it, so they can edit and resend.
- Automations, campaigns, and scheduled messages - since these can be created before a rule exists or changes, a blocked send instead generates a system message noting that the message was blocked, without exposing the message body.
Tips
- Keep rule names clear and specific. The name is what your team sees when a message is blocked, so it should tell them exactly what the issue is.
- Use the Status toggle to temporarily disable a rule instead of deleting it, in case you need it again later.
- Since Outbound Message Intercept applies to AI Agent responses as well, review your rules periodically as your agent's use cases expand.
- Rules apply the same way across every channel, not just SMS, so a rule created for one channel automatically protects the rest.
If you believe a message was blocked in error, do not attempt to reword it to bypass the rule. Contact your Heymarket admin to review the rule instead.