Brand identity rejections
About a 2-3 minute read.
Carriers want to know who is actually sending the messages. If your registered brand doesn't line up with the sender a recipient would perceive, you'll get a brand-identity rejection. This comes up most for agencies, platforms, and anyone who builds agents that message on behalf of other businesses. For how the reason reaches you, see How rejections work.
You registered the platform, not the actual sender
What the reason sounds like: the brand isn't the real sender, or the brand doesn't match the message context.
What's happening: you run a platform or agency and registered your own business as the brand, but the samples clearly come from a different business. The reviewer reads "Reminder from Example Co," sees the brand registered as "Your Platform LLC," and rejects the mismatch.
The carrier's view: the brand has to be whoever the recipient perceives the message as coming from. If someone gets a text from Example Co, then Example Co is the brand, not the tool Example Co uses to send it. The EIN, legal name, support email, support phone, and website all have to belong to Example Co.
The fix
Register the actual sender as the brand:
- Have the end business provide its EIN, legal name, address, website, and support contact, its details, not yours.
- Register a new brand under that business at Campaigns → Brands.
- Register the campaign under that brand.
You can still manage everything on the business's behalf inside your AgentMessage account, that's expected, but the registered details must be theirs. If you build agents for many businesses, that means one brand per business. (This is the "reseller" setup, and it requires the appropriate plan; contact support if you're not sure yours is enabled.)
"But they don't even know about the registry"
That's fine, they don't have to. You handle all the registration logistics through your account. But the brand details have to be theirs. In practice, most platforms collect the business's EIN and IRS CP-575 letter during onboarding and register on their behalf.
The same EIN is on multiple distinct brands
What the reason sounds like: one EIN is registered to multiple distinct brands.
What's happening: you registered several brands that all share an EIN. The registry treats one EIN as one business, so multiple distinct brands under it look like an attempt to game the system.
The fix
- If they're really the same business with slightly different names: consolidate into one brand and use the DBA field for the consumer-facing name.
- If they're separate subsidiaries sharing a parent EIN: each subsidiary needs its own EIN. Your accountant can usually file this quickly.
- If you created duplicates by accident: keep one and have the extras removed.
The brand, website, and samples don't match
What the reason sounds like: the brand, website, and samples describe different businesses.
What's happening: the brand says one thing, the website is for something else, and the samples are about a third activity. The three should tell one story about one business; if they don't, the reviewer can't verify what's going on.
The fix
Make all three consistent, the brand name, the website, and the samples should describe the same business doing the same kind of messaging. This often slips after a rebrand, a website migration, or when a platform accidentally lists its own website on a client's brand. If the wrong website is on the brand, that's a brand edit, AgentMessage handles edits, so contact support.
The support email doesn't fit the brand
What the reason sounds like: the brand's email domain is inconsistent with its identity.
What's happening: the brand is registered as an established business, but the support email is a free webmail address. Reviewers treat that as a possible fraud signal, established businesses usually have email on their own domain.
The fix
Use a support email on the business's own domain. If the brand is Example Co at example.com, the support email should be something like support@example.com. A very small business that genuinely runs on webmail is a yellow flag rather than a hard block, especially alongside a complete, authentic website, but email on your own domain is the safer choice.
The website looks inauthentic
What the reason sounds like: the website appears inauthentic or doesn't match the claimed brand.
What's happening: the site is a parked domain, a placeholder, a stock-photo landing page, or a generic template with no real content, nothing that clearly belongs to the registered business. Reviewers reject brands without a credible online presence.
The fix
Publish a real site that describes the actual business, shows the business name, lists contact information matching the brand record, and looks like a genuine business rather than a placeholder. Even a single honest landing page beats a parked domain.
Brand-identity principles to internalize
- Brand equals the actual sender. If a recipient would say "I got a text from Example Co," Example Co is the brand, not the platform, agency, or parent company.
- One brand per business. Each business you message for gets its own brand.
- The registered details belong to the brand. EIN, name, address, website, support email and phone, all the business's, not the platform's.
- One consistent story across the brand, the website, and the samples.
When you can't get the business's details
If you build agents for other businesses and can't obtain an EIN and CP-575, you can't register them, carriers won't accept "we manage their messaging" as a substitute. Build the EIN-collection step into onboarding; most businesses provide it once they understand why it's needed. For verification mechanics, see Brand verification statuses.