SMS marketing works as an urgency layer on top of email, not a replacement: use it where immediacy wins — abandoned cart (98% open within 3 minutes vs 20% for email), order updates, flash sales, post-purchase — and leave long-form nurture to email. It's compliance-first: US marketing SMS requires express written consent with a clear opt-in disclosure (program name, frequency, 'Msg & data rates may apply,' STOP/HELP instructions, terms link), A2P 10DLC registration or your messages get filtered, and no sends outside 8am-9pm recipient-local (default 9am-8pm to be safe). Every message needs an inline sender ID, one CTA with one short link, and should fit 160 GSM-7 characters to stay a single billed segment — emojis force UCS-2 encoding and cut that to 70. The highest-ROI flow to build first is abandoned cart: a reminder at 30 minutes, soft urgency at 4 hours, and a discount reserved for a 24-hour third send.
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We're a Shopify DTC brand doing $5M/year in skincare. We have 80K email subscribers but no SMS program yet. Where do we start?
Send 1 — 30 min after abandon (no discount) "From Loomwear: Left something behind? Your cart's saved and ready → lmwr.co/cart. Reply STOP to opt out." (137 chars · 1 segment) Send 2 — 4 hours later (soft urgency, no discount) "From Loomwear: These sell out fast and your size is still in stock — grab it before it's gone: lmwr.co/cart" (108 chars · 1 segment) Send 3 — 24 hours later (discount now OK) "From Loomwear: Here's 10% to finish up — code CART10 at checkout: lmwr.co/cart" (78 chars · 1 segment) Exclusions: stop on purchase, opt-out, or after 48h. UTM-tag every link (utm_source=sms&utm_medium=sms&utm_campaign=cart-recovery).
FAQ
Can I send marketing SMS to customers who gave their phone number at checkout?
No. A phone number captured at checkout covers only that transaction's communications (order and shipping updates). Marketing SMS requires separate express written consent under TCPA — a clear opt-in disclosure adjacent to the phone field with frequency, 'Msg & data rates may apply,' STOP/HELP instructions, and a terms link, captured with a timestamp. Sending marketing texts without it exposes you to $500-$1,500 per message and class-action risk.
Should I use emojis in marketing text messages?
Sparingly. A single emoji forces the whole message into UCS-2 encoding, which drops the per-segment limit from 160 GSM-7 characters to 70 — so a short message can silently become two billed segments, doubling your cost. Cap it at one emoji when it genuinely earns the space. Watch out that curly quotes and em dashes pasted from Word or Google Docs also trigger UCS-2, and preview the segment count before scheduling.
How often should I send promotional SMS?
Keep opt-out rate under 2% per send (under 0.5% for promotional). Three promotional sends a week is on the high side and typically drives fatigue — a 4% opt-out rate signals over-sending and erodes the list fast. Dial back to one or two sends a week, segment by engagement and purchase recency instead of blasting the whole list, and run a re-engagement flow on cold subscribers before adding more promos.
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