# Sender Identity

## Sender Identity <a href="#sender-identities" id="sender-identities"></a>

When sending iMessages, you will use a dedicated **Sender Identity** to identify your brand when communicating with your subscribers.

### What is a Sender Identity?

A Sender Identity is the set of characters shown at the top of an iMessage conversation for iMessage-enabled recipients. This is the contact information your recipients will see when interacting with your brand via iMessage.

A Sender Identity looks like an email address and consists of a sending name and a domain. You can use one or more Sender Identities when sending iMessages via Mobile Text Alerts. You can select which one to use, just like when selecting an outbound longcode for SMS.

### Get a registered Sender Identity

[**Contact us**](https://mobile-text-alerts.com/contact) and ask about getting an iMessage Sender Identity. Include the name of your brand in your request so that we can get a Sender Identity setup that closely corresponds to your business.

{% hint style="info" %}
*Mobile Text Alerts cannot guarantee access to everyone who requests a Sender Identity.*
{% endhint %}

### Provisioning and Use of Sender Identities

Upon enrollment in the iMessage sending program, a Sender Identity will be provisioned for your account. You can supply a desired name for your Sender Identity, but it will come with a pre-configured domain that is verified for iMessage sending.

Mobile Text Alerts also provides support for [Custom Domains](#custom-domains) for Sender Identities. You can request additional Sender Identities to be provisioned for your account. Depending on the number of identities requested, it may take up to three days to complete the provisioning process. Once provisioned, each Sender Identity will be attached to an outbound longcode on your account. When sending messages, selecting a specific longcode will correspond to a specific Sender Identity. If Mobile Text Alerts detects that a recipient is iMessage-enabled, it will use the Sender Identity associated with the outbound longcode and send via iMessage instead of SMS.

#### Custom Domains

Custom domains are supported, but require additional configuration and setup before use. After submitting a request for a custom domain, Mobile Text Alerts will identify the domain to use and may purchase and maintain it on your behalf, depending on your use case. Domains provisioned and managed by Mobile Text Alerts have an additional cost, or you can purchase and provide your own.

Finally, DNS entries will need to be configured to properly set up the custom domain. After this initial configuration, all future Sender Identities can be provisioned using this domain.


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://developers.mobile-text-alerts.com/tutorials/message-sending/send-an-imessage/sender-identity.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.