Basics: SMS best practices

You will learn

Learn 9 SMS best practices to implement when you’re first getting started.

This article highlights the dos and don’ts of SMS marketing, helping you avoid common pitfalls and learn the answers to common questions.

What are the SMS best practices? 

Here are the general best practices: 

1. Get permission before sending.
2. Make your content: 
   • Relevant 
   • Valuable
   • Unique
3. Keep SMS messages short.
4. Send SMS regularly and add variety
5. Show off your brand.
6. Avoid text-speak.
7. Include a link as a CTA.
8. Make it easy to opt out.
9. Test using MMS and emojis
10. Stay compliant.

Get permission before sending

For SMS, you must always get permission for SMS before you send. If you don’t, it could mean thousands of dollars in fines. 

You always want to make sure someone has agreed to get marketing text messages from your brand. Simply agreeing to email, general marketing, or even one-time transactional SMS isn’t enough. To learn more, see this article on collecting SMS subscribers and what counts as consent. 

Make your content relevant, valuable, and unique

This is easy to say, but what does it mean? Open each section for details.

Keep SMS messages short

Have you ever gotten a novel disguising itself as a text? It can feel overwhelming, even if it’s from a close friend or family member. 

Data backs this up, showing that shorter messages (i.e., under 160 characters) tend to perform better than longer-form messages. Keep SMS messages short and concise. If you want to send a lot of information, we recommend using another channel, such as email. 

Send SMS regularly and add variety

As a best practice, send SMS 1 to 2 times a week. You want to build a relationship with your subscribers so that they know what or when to expect messages from you. 

That send, the ideal sending frequency may be different depending on your brand or industry. For example, if your customers sign up to get reminders to take their medication, sending daily is acceptable. On the other hand, if your business specializes in luxury items (e.g., jewelry or furniture), you may want to send less frequently or to a more targeted segment, such as your VIPs.  

In addition, vary the type of messages you send so that you continue to provide value to subscribers. For instance, the table breaks down the types of messages you may send, how many, and who the audience should be over 1 month. 

Show off your brand

When people don’t know who’s texting them, they’re more wary about the messages and less likely to click on any links. Further, many countries require you to indicate your brand in SMS so that customers know who you are. 

Mentioning your company or organization in every text is also a part of SMS compliance. 

There are several options for indicating your brand: 

• Organizational prefix, which puts the name of your company or organization at the beginning of the text message.
• Branded sender ID, which is a sending number that can include the name of your brand (only available in the UK and Australia).
• Company info link, which is a link people can click on to get more information about your brand, although it doesn’t show the name of your company in the actual message (only available in Canada and New Zealand).

To make it easy for recipients, we also recommend sending anyone in the US or Canada a virtual contact card, which allows them to easily save your number. 

In addition, you can add to your brand recognition with custom keywords. For instance, if your company is “New York Pizza Pies,” you can have people opt in by texting the keyword “NYpizza.”

Avoid text-speak

While this may seem contradictory to the previous section, this is simply to make sure your audience still understands your message. 

Unless you know your audience will understand, try to avoid using too many abbreviations. 

Also, even if you know your audience will understand, it’s a best practice to not overdo it. Using 1 (or maybe 2) is fine, but any more than that and it can make your message hard to understand. 

Include a link as a CTA

SMS is immediate, direct, and almost always has a higher click and conversion rate than email. 

It never hurts to include a link in your text messages. Not only does this make it easier for interested recipients to reach your site, but tracking your click rate is a key step to evaluating your SMS performance. Without it, you won’t know which messages your audience responds well to or how to improve your SMS marketing efforts going forward. 

Some tips are to:

• Do not place the link at the beginning of the message. 
• Only include 1 link as the CTA.
• Make sure know where the CTA is leading them. 

Make it easy to opt out

Another SMS best practice (and also compliance rule) is allowing recipients to unsubscribe at any time. 

You don’t want to waste sends on someone who doesn’t want to hear from you. Further, if you send to someone who wants to opt out but can’t, they may report you. 

There are a couple of ways to allow customers to opt out: 

• Include an opt-out keyword (e.g., STOP)
• Add an unsubscribe link 

In most cases, having an unsubscribe keyword is the best option. However, branded sender IDs (only available in the UK and Australia) cannot receive messages, making the keyword impossible to use. In that case, you can add an opt-out link to allow your customers to unsubscribe. 

Test using MMS and emojis

It's important to test how MMS and emojis perform for your audience. Generally, these messages cost more to send, but don't yield significantly better results. In fact, text messages that don't contain media or emojis tend to perform just as well, or even better, than messages that do. 

However, this may not be true across all brands and industries, so try testing MMS and emojis to see if they work for your audience. 

Stay compliant

There are more laws regulating what businesses can and cannot do with SMS. While this can seem intimidating at first, it’s simple to obey these rules. 

Note that we don’t go into detail about each rule mentioned here; for more, check out the Basics of SMS compliance. 

We already went over 3 foundational rules over SMS compliance: 

1. Always get consent.
2. Indicate your brand.
3. Make it easy to unsubscribe.

Other compliance rules include:

1. Don’t include SHAFT and prohibited content. 
   1. Note: alcohol may be allowed with age-gating in certain countries. 
2. Don't send before 9 a.m. or after 8 p.m. in the recipient’s local time.
3. Follow rules for cart abandonment flows (e.g., abandoned cart) in the US
   • Use double opt-in 
   • Only send 1 SMS per recipient
     Note: there can be more than 1 SMS or MMS in the flow, such as if you have splits, but each subscriber can only receive 1 text
   • Send the SMS within 48 hours
4. Add other message requirements (Canada only)
   • Program name (e.g., for Klaviyo, it might be “Klaviyo SMS”)
   • A call to action
   • A way to get help, such as "Text HELP for help"
   • A way to opt out, such as "Reply STOP to opt out"
   • “Std. Msg&Data rates may apply” (if you include a link)

Additional resources

• Learn more about SMS: 
  • Basics: SMS compliance 
  • Guide to collecting SMS consent
• Find 13 tips for SMS marketing on the Klaviyo blog