Have you ever been so excited about launching an SMS campaign, creating great content, sending it out, and then… nothing? You don’t know if the result was worth the effort.
- 2025-03-05 13:30:00
Have you ever been so excited about launching an SMS campaign, creating great content, sending it out, and then… nothing? You don’t know if the result was worth the effort.
Here’s what metrics to track next time.
These three key performance indicators (KPIs) in SMS marketing will help you not only interpret the results of your campaign but also elevate your business to another level.
Most businesses don’t analyze conversions in SMS marketing. Those that care about the effectiveness of their campaigns measure it through the CTR (click-through rate) of the link in the message, track the average increase in sales, or the percentage of usage of the provided discount codes.
What factors should you consider to declare the campaign successful?
Read more about the key performance indicators in SMS marketing.
The open rate of SMS messages is still high (up to 98%), and most people read text messages within 5 minutes of receiving them.
SMS Marketing KPI: Delivery Rate
A large and well-maintained customer database can serve for years, but many people may change their phone numbers or lose interest in what you offer. Therefore, it’s essential to compare the lists of sent and delivered messages. We recommend conducting these checks more frequently to maintain the effectiveness of your database and reduce conversion costs.
Key questions to ask yourself regarding this metric:
- Do I have returning customers in my database? Those who have shopped more than once?
- Am I personalizing messages according to my customers’ interests and preferences?
- Are customers likely to return and order again in the future?
- What would prompt them to come back?
SMS KPI: Opt-Out Rate
The opt-out rate for SMS is the number of subscribers who unsubscribe divided by the total number of recipients. This metric allows you to determine the share of subscribers who are not interested in your messages.
Although it may sound unreasonable, it’s best to offer them a quick way to unsubscribe from the newsletter. In fact, unsubscribing should be as easy as subscribing.
Removing customers who are not interested benefits the effectiveness of the database, the advertising budget, and the brand image.
SMS KPI: Conversion Rate
You should start monitoring recipients' reactions as soon as the SMS campaign reaches them.
Knowing the number of opened messages is essential, but even more useful is knowing how many people click on the link embedded in the SMS message.
In other words – always check the CTR (click-through rate). And since you can generate a unique link for each recipient, resend messages to those who did not visit the URLs.
You can track the effectiveness of your SMS campaign by adding UTM parameters that contain the medium type and campaign name to the link and then shortening it with a tool like Bitly. These two actions help measure the number of clicks and shorten the message.
