Text, SMS, and RCS
Sam Hollis
Text messaging has become customers’ preferred way to hear from businesses. When you survey customers about how they want brands to communicate with them, texting consistently wins out–whether it’s for updates, promotions, or customer service.
This is a goldmine for marketers. When customers actively choose to hear from you and actually engage with those messages, you’ve got one of the most direct marketing channels available. But here’s the thing: it only works if you don’t mess it up.
SMS marketing has some fundamental rules to follow. Ignore them, and you’ll turn this powerful tool into a customer relationship killer. Follow best practices, though, and you’ll build stronger connections while seeing real results.
SMS marketing strategy best practices
Building an effective campaign comes down to understanding these core SMS marketing best practices:
1. Understand and follow SMS compliance rules
Before you even start putting together an SMS campaign, there are a few things you need to understand to build your SMS marketing lists effectively. Failing to comply with these rules and regulations can lead to fines and damage your reputation in the eyes of consumers and SMS carriers.
Get explicit consent before texting
The potential for spam via text is higher than in other channels, and most jurisdictions require companies to obtain explicit, opt-in consent before sending any SMS messages.
Don’t assume someone wants texts just because they gave you their phone number. Use specific language when collecting opt-ins: “Sign up to receive text alerts and offers.” Confirm subscriptions with a double opt-in and always include an unsubscribe option.
Know the regional regulations for your audience
Work with your legal team to ensure your SMS software complies with regulations in every country where you send messages. These may include:
- TCPA (US): Requires prior express written consent for marketing texts
- GDPR (EU): Demands transparency, purpose limitation, and data minimization
Adhering to local laws is essential. Otherwise, you may face fines and other significant penalties.
Maintain clean subscriber lists
When it comes to SMS marketing lists, quality beats quantity. Subscribers who actively opt in engage more and report spam less.
Use website pop-ups, checkout pages, or social media to gather opt-ins with clear value propositions, such as discounts or early access. Remove inactive subscribers regularly—a smaller, engaged list outperforms a large, uninterested one.
2. Calibrate message timing & frequency
Timing is everything in SMS marketing. People open text messages almost instantly—90% of recipients react within just three minutes. That immediacy is a double-edged sword: it can lead to higher engagement or feel disruptive if the timing is off.
Well-timed SMS messages can significantly enhance open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. However, sending messages at the wrong time will lead to frustrated recipients, lower engagement, and even spam complaints, which can damage deliverability and undermine future SMS efforts altogether.
Best practices for timing your SMS marketing:
- Send during regular business hours: 10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m.
- Leverage analytics to localize send times in your SMS subscribers’ time zone and country.
- Consider different weekday and weekend patterns.
- Avoid sending multiple SMS messages on the same day unless you have set that expectation with subscribers in advance.
Once you’ve determined the best time to send SMS marketing to your audience, it’s time to think about what kind of message content will resonate.
3. Craft engaging SMS content
You only have 160 characters to make an impression, so every word counts. Make your messages clear, direct, and action-oriented:
- Lead with value: “Flash Sale: 20% off sitewide today only!”
- Be direct: “Tap to learn more.”
- Create urgency: “Ends at midnight!”
Every message needs a strong call to action–otherwise, even perfectly written content won’t get results. Use action words that tell people exactly what to do: “Shop now,” “Get your code,” or “Claim your offer.”
Push people to act immediately with urgency language. “Today only” or “Hurry, ends soon” gives them a reason to act right now instead of putting it off. And make it easy–one click should do it. If people have to hunt for links or navigate multiple steps, they won’t bother.
4. Segment your audience for better personalization
SMS is personal, which means you can customize messages for different groups of customers instead of blasting everyone with the same generic text. This kind of targeting makes your campaigns way more effective.
Start by segmenting your audience. Most SMS platforms have built-in tools for this, but you can also use other services to get better customer data. For example, Rebrandly tracks things like location and device type when people click your SMS links so that you can send the right message in the right format to each person.
The more you know about your audience, the better you can predict what motivates different types of customers. Use that insight to create targeted campaigns with offers that matter to each group.
5. Continuously monitor and improve your campaigns
To improve your SMS marketing campaigns, you need to understand what works and what doesn’t. Start by tracking key performance metrics:
- Delivery rate tells you how many messages reached inboxes.
- Click-through rate (CTR) shows how many recipients engaged with your link, and
- Conversion rate reveals how many took the desired action.
You should also monitor increases in unsubscribes or opt-outs; it’s a sign your content isn’t engaging enough, or that you’re sending too many messages.
A/B testing shows you precisely what works with your audience. Test one thing at a time–send time, link text, message length, or CTA wording–so you can pinpoint what drives results and use that insight in future campaigns.
6. Incorporate link management tools with your SMS campaigns
Links in your SMS messages are crucial–they’re how you turn texts into actual conversions, purchases, and signups. But messy links can kill your results. Long, generic URLs look sketchy and might even get your messages flagged as spam.
Branded short links solve this problem. They look professional, build trust, and improve deliverability. Tools like Rebrandly let you create custom links that match your brand, send people to different pages based on their location or device, and track every click. That data helps you fine-tune your SMS strategy over time.
Common pitfalls to avoid with SMS marketing
Even smart marketers make mistakes that hurt their SMS results. Here are the biggest ones to avoid:
- Over-messaging. Blast people with too many texts, and they’ll unsubscribe or report you as spam. Nobody wants their phone buzzing constantly.
- Poor targeting. Sending the same generic message to everyone wastes the personal nature of SMS. Use what you know about your customers to make messages relevant.
- Ignoring your data. Your analytics show exactly what’s working and what isn’t. If you’re not looking at this data, you’re missing easy wins to improve your campaigns.
- Bad mobile experience. Your SMS might be perfect, but if your landing page is slow, hard to use on mobile, or doesn’t deliver what you promised, people won’t convert.
Find the right infrastructure for SMS marketing success
SMS marketing can build real connections with your audience at scale–but you need to get the basics right first. Focus on staying compliant, writing messages people actually want to read, using quality tools, and learning from your results. Do this well, and SMS will give you something email and social media can’t: direct access to customers who chose to hear from you.
Tools like Rebrandly make your SMS campaigns smarter by turning ugly links into branded ones that people trust and click. Plus, you get detailed analytics on every click so you know what’s working. When every character counts in SMS, every detail matters.