SMS marketing best practices start with consent you can prove: a separate, unchecked box with clear wording, a confirmation text before anything else, and a STOP that works. Then send only between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. in the recipient's time zone, keep to the frequency you promised, and register your number with the carriers.
For a seller who buys traffic, the texts that pay are the triggered ones: the abandoned checkout reminder, the order update, the reorder nudge. Broadcasts come after, and fewer than you think.
If I could only set up one text, it would be the abandoned checkout reminder, sent within the hour.
A phone number is the most expensive thing a paid-traffic funnel collects. Somebody saw an ad, clicked, read the page and typed their number into a checkout. Text is also the channel with the least patience: a bad email gets ignored, while a bad text gets a STOP, and sometimes a complaint to the carrier.
On our about page I wrote that in my years as CTO of a direct-response company I watched "recovery calls that didn't fire". Recovery texts fail the same quiet way. Most of this post is about the rules that keep the channel open, and the rest is about sending the few texts worth the cost.
Where SMS marketing rules come from
Three layers decide what you can text and when. They overlap, so in practice you follow the strictest one on each point.
| Source of the rule | Who enforces it | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Federal law: the TCPA rules, 47 CFR 64.1200 | FCC, and consumers through lawsuits | Written consent for marketing texts, sending hours, opt-out deadlines |
| State laws | State attorneys general and consumers | Their own telemarketing rules; Florida's, for example, counts a text message as a telephonic sales call |
| Carrier rules: A2P 10DLC registration and the CTIA messaging principles | Carriers and your SMS provider | Registration, opt-in and confirmation wording, HELP and STOP, filtering |
The law can cost you a lawsuit. The carriers can cost you the number, and filtering can start long before anyone files anything. I'm not a lawyer, and your consent wording is worth an hour of a lawyer's time before the first send.
1. Get consent you can prove
Marketing texts sent with automated tools need the recipient's prior express written consent under 64.1200(a)(2). The FCC defines a marketing message broadly: anything advertising goods or services, or encouraging a purchase. An order update with a discount code added to it counts.
- Its own checkbox, unchecked. The written consent can't be a condition of purchase (64.1200(f)(9)), so the box sits next to the phone field and the order goes through without it.
- Wording that names you. Say who will text, what about, roughly how often, that message and data rates may apply, and that STOP ends it.
- A record per person. CTIA lists what to keep: the timestamp, where it happened (checkout, form, keyword), the wording shown, the campaign, the IP address, the phone number and who consented.
- One campaign per consent. Consent given to one brand doesn't carry over to a sister brand or a list you bought (CTIA 5.1.2.2).
On a checkout, put the box under the phone field, where a buyer reads it, rather than in the fine print under the pay button. A smaller list of people who ticked the box on purpose is worth more than a big one that might not survive a complaint.
2. Send a confirmation text first
Before any marketing goes out, CTIA asks for one confirmation message that tells the person they are enrolled. It should carry five things: the program or brand name, a way to get help, how to opt out, that the messages repeat and how often, and any fees.
Northwind Supplements: you're in. Up to 4 msgs/month with offers and order news. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply HELP for help, STOP to cancel.
That example is illustrative, for a made-up brand, and it fits in one segment. Whatever number you write there becomes the promise the rest of your plan has to keep.
3. Make STOP work, however people say it
The FCC rule says a person can revoke consent "using any reasonable method". A reply of stop, quit, end, revoke, opt out, cancel or unsubscribe counts, and the request has to be honored within 10 business days (64.1200(a)(10)).
- Treat "please take me off this" as a STOP too. CTIA asks senders to act on plain-language opt-outs, whatever the capitalization.
- Send one final confirmation that they are out, then nothing more for that campaign.
- Feed the opt-out back into every tool that can text. A STOP that reaches your SMS provider but not the automation that sends reorder reminders is an easy way to keep texting someone who left.
- Answer HELP with your brand name and a support contact.
4. Register your number for A2P 10DLC
If you text US numbers from a normal 10-digit business number, carriers want to know who you are. Twilio's guide says anyone sending from an application over a 10DLC number to the US must register.
- Brand: the business behind the messages.
- Campaign: what you send, how people opt in, opt out and get help, with sample messages.
Unregistered traffic pays extra carrier fees, and Twilio says registration brings lower filtering and higher throughput. Do it before Black Friday week, when you least want to find out your texts are being filtered.
5. Send inside the hours, in their time zone
Federal rules allow telephone solicitations between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. local time at the recipient's location (64.1200(c)(1)). The local time is theirs, which matters as soon as you sell in more than one time zone.
Picture a buyer in Los Angeles who left a checkout last night, and a flash-sale broadcast scheduled for 9 a.m. Eastern. It reaches their phone at 6 a.m. Pacific, two hours before the window opens. Schedule broadcasts by the time zone of the shipping or billing address. The area code is a weak guide, since people keep their numbers when they move.
6. Keep the frequency you promised
The confirmation text set a number. Triggered texts count toward what the person experiences, so a buyer who abandoned a checkout, then ordered, then got a shipping update has already had three texts this week before your broadcast arrives.
I'd rather send two broadcasts a month that each have a reason than eight that don't. The opt-out column after each send tells you which side of that line you're on.
7. Write short, and watch the segments
Open with the brand name, give one reason to tap, and put one link in. Providers bill per segment, and segment length depends on the characters:
- Plain characters (GSM-7): 160 per message, or 153 per segment once it splits.
- One emoji switches the whole message to UCS-2: 70 per message, or 67 per segment.
Here is the arithmetic for one 150-character broadcast to 10,000 people, at Twilio's US long-code price. The numbers are illustrative; your provider and carrier mix will differ.
| Same 150-character text, sent to 10,000 numbers | Segments | Twilio fee ($0.0083 per segment, Oct 2026) | Carrier fees ($0.0035 to $0.005 per segment) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plain text | 1 per message, 10,000 in total | 10,000 × $0.0083 = $83 | $35 to $50 |
| Same text plus one emoji | 3 per message (150 ÷ 67, rounded up), 30,000 in total | 30,000 × $0.0083 = $249 | $105 to $150 |
One emoji tripled the bill. That is fine if it earns its keep, and worth testing before you assume it does.
8. The texts worth sending for a paid-traffic funnel
Each of these starts from something the buyer did, so the timing is set by them and not by your calendar.
| Text | Starts when | Timing that usually works |
|---|---|---|
| Abandoned checkout reminder | A checkout with a phone number is left unpaid | I'd start within the first hour: one text, a link back to the same checkout |
| Order and shipping updates | A purchase, then a tracking number | Right away; keep promotions out of them unless the person agreed to marketing |
| Reorder reminder | A purchase of a consumable | A few days before a typical bottle or box runs out |
| Win-back | No order in a set time | Once, with a reason to come back |
| Event broadcast | Your calendar: Black Friday early access, a launch | A handful of times a year |
The first three are the ones I'd build before any broadcast. They reach people who already cost you a click, at the moment they're most likely to act, and they keep working while you sleep (within the hours above).
9. Count SMS in sales
Click rates on texts look flattering and say little. Put a UTM tag on every link (utm_source=sms, utm_campaign=the send) and compare sends on revenue per recipient.
- Illustrative: a reorder reminder to 5,000 buyers brings $1,200, or $0.24 per recipient.
- A full-list broadcast to 20,000 brings $1,500, or $0.075 per recipient, plus more opt-outs.
The bigger send made more money and still lost on the number that decides whether you can keep sending. Track opt-outs per send next to it. There is no official benchmark for a good opt-out rate, so compare each send with your own previous ones.
Sending SMS from funnel data in ElasticFunnels
In ElasticFunnels, texts go out through automations with a Twilio SMS step, on your own Twilio account. The automation starts from what happened in the funnel:
- Triggers: a new purchase, a new customer, a refund, a chargeback, an abandoned cart or a form entry.
- Timing and branches: Wait For spaces the text out, Continue If sends it only when a condition is true, and a split test step tries two versions.
- Sales per text: links tagged with UTM parameters show their revenue and conversions in the UTM Performance report.
Consent capture, sending hours and frequency are set by you. The checkbox goes on your checkout, and the wait steps decide when each text goes out.
- Abandon your own checkout once a month and check the text arrives. Triggered texts fail silently, and nobody complains about a reminder they never got.
- Don't text a discount to someone who paid full price yesterday. They notice, and some of them ask for the difference or a refund.
- Keep emojis out of anything you send to the whole list until a test shows they pay for the extra segments.
- Don't buy or rent a phone list, whatever the seller calls it. Consent given to someone else doesn't transfer to you, so every number on it is a text you had no right to send.
Text is the channel where the buyer's patience runs out fastest, and the rules mostly write that patience into law. Get the consent box, the confirmation and STOP right, register the number, and then send fewer texts than you're tempted to. A list that still trusts you in December is worth more than one big send in November.
