Key takeaways:
- SMS provides a direct way to engage ecommerce customers with promotions, abandoned-cart reminders, order updates, support, and repeat-purchase campaigns.
- Personalization and segmentation improve SMS performance by tailoring messages, offers, timing, and product recommendations to customer behavior and preferences.
- SMS works best as part of a broader ecommerce marketing strategy, complementing email, paid advertising, SEO, and social commerce rather than operating as a standalone channel.
- Successful SMS marketing requires compliance and measurement, including proper consent, clear opt-outs, audience segmentation, and tracking metrics such as CTR, conversions, revenue per recipient, and unsubscribe rates.
SMS marketing is becoming one of the most effective marketing channels for interesting reasons. According to statistics from Mobile Monkey, nine out of ten people open their text messages. With a large percentage of people using their mobile devices for most of the day, this is no surprise.
SMS marketing is one of the most direct ways for ecommerce brands to reach customers. Text messages can support promotions, abandoned-cart recovery, order updates, product recommendations, customer support, and repeat purchases. When combined with email, paid media, social commerce, and other channels, SMS can also become part of the most effective ecommerce marketing strategies for driving sales.
SMS is also evolving beyond traditional text-only campaigns. AI-powered personalization is making it possible to tailor SMS content, timing, offers, and product recommendations to individual shoppers.
This guide will cover all you need to know about SMS marketing and how ecommerce businesses can use text message campaigns to drive more sales.
SMS, or short message service, marketing is a marketing channel that allows businesses to send promotional, informational, and transactional messages to customers and prospects who have provided the required consent.
Unlike email, SMS reaches customers through a channel they frequently check throughout the day. This makes it useful for time-sensitive promotions, abandoned-cart reminders, product launches, restock alerts, and other messages where timing matters.
You can also segment your subscribers based on purchase history, browsing behavior, preferences, engagement, and lifecycle stage. This allows you to create targeted campaigns that move customers further down the marketing funnel and encourage more purchases.
Why is SMS a great ecommerce marketing channel?
SMS marketing is effective for various reasons. Here are some benefits of using SMS marketing for your ecommerce business:
Better engagement
As the attention of most people shortens, text messages are certainly a great way to engage with them.
Research shows that 95% of text messages get read within three minutes, with an overall open rate of 98%. With these statistics, it is clear that SMS marketing has one of the highest engagement rates. You can take advantage of this to better engage with your customers and prospects and ultimately encourage repeat purchases.
Better personalization
SMS allows ecommerce brands to create highly relevant customer experiences using information such as purchase history, browsing behavior, product preferences, and customer lifecycle stage. Personalization can go beyond inserting a customer's first name. For example, a skincare brand can recommend products based on a customer's previous purchase, while a fashion brand can send a restock alert for a product or category a customer previously viewed.
AI is now making this personalization more scalable. Platforms such as Attentive and Klaviyo can use customer behavior and engagement data to help determine who should receive a message, what the message should say, and when it should be sent.
Easy to track
SMS campaigns can be measured using metrics such as click-through rate, conversion rate, revenue per recipient, unsubscribe rate, and revenue generated by specific flows. These metrics give ecommerce businesses a clearer picture of whether their SMS program is actually contributing to sales rather than simply generating engagement.
How to start using SMS marketing for your ecommerce brand
If you’ve never set up an SMS marketing campaign for your ecommerce business, here’s how you can get started. SMS should also be considered as one channel within building a complete ecommerce marketing plan, alongside email, paid advertising, and other channels.
Define your goals
There are many possibilities with SMS marketing. The first thing you want to do is begin with your ecommerce business goal in mind. What do you want to achieve with SMS marketing? For example, your objective could be to recover abandoned carts, increase repeat purchases, promote a new product, generate sales during a seasonal event, or reactivate inactive customers.
Choose an SMS marketing software.
Choose software that supports your ecommerce platform, automation needs, segmentation, compliance requirements, and reporting.
Look for features such as automated flows, customer segmentation, personalization, A/B testing, two-way messaging, analytics, and integrations with your ecommerce and customer-data systems.
Grow your SMS subscribers.
Build your SMS list through website sign-up forms, checkout experiences, email campaigns, QR codes, social media, and other consent-based acquisition methods. Make the value of subscribing clear. For example, you could offer early access, exclusive discounts, product alerts, or useful updates. Your sign-up process should clearly explain what customers are agreeing to receive and how they can opt out.
Your email list can also be an important source of SMS subscribers. If you are learning how to build a high-performing ecommerce email marketing strategy, consider using email campaigns, newsletters, and existing customer journeys to introduce subscribers to your SMS program with a clear value proposition and opt-in process.
Launch your SMS campaign.
Start with a focused campaign rather than sending frequent promotional blasts. Test different offers, copy, audience segments, send times, and CTAs. Track clicks, conversions, revenue, and unsubscribes to determine what works for your audience.
iOS 18 RCS support and SMS campaign design
Apple added RCS support to Messages with iOS 18, allowing compatible conversations to support richer media and more reliable messaging compared with traditional SMS and MMS.
For ecommerce marketers, this creates an opportunity to think beyond plain-text SMS design. Depending on carrier, device, messaging provider, and RCS availability, brands can increasingly use richer content and more interactive messaging experiences. However, SMS campaigns should still be designed to work when richer RCS features are unavailable. Keep the core offer, value proposition, and CTA understandable in the text itself.
5 SMS marketing strategies for your ecommerce brand
Let’s look at some SMS marketing strategies to engage with your audience and turn them into loyal customers.
- Send promotions and special offers
- Notify customers with transactional and triggered messages
- Provide customer support
- Send reminders to encourage repeat purchases
- Keep customers engaged with valuable content
Keep customers updated with promotions and special offers
To keep your customers updated on the latest from your brand and increase your engagement, you can send promotional messages.
You can send discounts, coupon codes, and exclusive offers as welcome text to create a good first impression or as an update to existing subscribers to increase your conversion rates. Promotional SMS can help you create urgency around sales, product launches, limited-time offers, and exclusive discounts. For example: "Your early access starts now. Get 20% off our new collection until midnight”. Ensure your offer is something relevant to your customers and stick to using only one call to action.
Notify customers with transactional messages.
Transactional messages are typically triggered by a customer’s interaction with your brand or by events within a particular service or application. Think of confirmation texts or order updates.
You can send text messages to your customers and keep them updated on their orders. These messages can indicate when their orders have been shipped or if there is a delay.
Another example of transactional messages is abandoned cart text messages. It may interest you to know that mobile phones have an average cart abandonment rate of 85.65%. You can use text messages to notify your customers when they leave products in their shopping cart and recover lost sales.
SMS can work particularly well alongside email automation. For example, use the essential email sequences every ecommerce brand should have running (such as welcome, abandoned-cart, post-purchase, replenishment, and win-back sequences) to complement timely SMS messages to reach customers through another channel.
Provide customer support
SMS can also support two-way conversations with customers. You can use text messaging to answer product questions, provide order updates, share useful resources, or direct customers to a more detailed support page. AI-powered conversational tools are also making two-way SMS more useful. For example, Attentive's AI capabilities can respond to customer questions, recommend products, and support conversations at scale.
Send reminders to encourage repeat purchases.
Existing customers are often a valuable audience for SMS because you already have information about their previous purchases. You can send replenishment reminders, subscription renewal notifications, cross-sell recommendations, or win-back offers based on their buying behavior. For example, a supplement brand could send a replenishment reminder around the expected time a customer is likely to run out of a product.
Keep customers engaged with valuable content.
SMS does not always need to sell something immediately. You can use it to share educational content, product guides, videos, styling ideas, tips, or other resources that help customers get more value from their purchases.
For example, a jewelry brand could send a short styling guide after a customer purchases a necklace. This keeps the brand connected to the customer while creating opportunities for future purchases.
AI-personalized SMS
One of the biggest changes in SMS marketing is the shift from mass messaging to AI-powered personalization. Instead of sending one message to an entire subscriber list, AI can help marketers determine which customers should receive a campaign, what content they should see, which products to recommend, and when to send the message.
Attentive is one software that can personalize triggered SMS experiences based on shopper behavior, including the timing, number of messages, copy, link destination, and other elements of the customer journey. Its AI tools can also use customer data to improve audience targeting and send-time decisions. For example, an apparel brand could send different messages to customers who browsed dresses, purchased shoes, or repeatedly viewed a particular product category.
Klaviyo also provides AI-powered SMS tools. Its SMS Assistant can generate campaign copy, while Personalized Campaigns AI can test message variations and determine which version is most likely to perform for individual recipients. Klaviyo can also use customer behavior, purchase history, and other profile information for SMS personalization.
Use SMS to create a TikTok Shop sales funnel
SMS-to-TikTok Shop is an effective way ecommerce brands can sell through social commerce. Instead of treating SMS and TikTok Shop as separate channels, brands can use SMS to bring high-intent customers back into a TikTok Shop experience.
Here are ways a brand can use SMS in their TikTok Shop sales funnel:
- Build an SMS list through its website or existing customer base.
- Segment subscribers based on product interests or purchase behavior.
- Send a text announcing a TikTok-exclusive product, promotion, or livestream.
- Link customers to the relevant TikTok Shop destination.
- Retarget engaged shoppers through TikTok content and promotions.
- Follow up with SMS based on the customer's purchase or engagement behavior.
This creates a cross-channel funnel where SMS acts as the direct re-engagement channel and TikTok Shop provides the social-commerce purchasing experience. The key is to give subscribers a clear reason to move from SMS to TikTok, such as exclusive product drops, creator demonstrations, livestream events, limited-time offers, or TikTok-only deals.
SMS compliance and TCPA consent requirements
Ecommerce businesses sending marketing texts to U.S. consumers need to take TCPA requirements seriously. Consent should be collected clearly, documented, and tied to the messages the customer has agreed to receive. A major change occurred in January 2025 that is important to understand correctly.
The FCC's "one-to-one consent" rule was originally scheduled to take effect on January 27, 2025. It would have required prior express written consent to be provided separately for each seller and would have limited the subject matter of messages to communications logically and topically associated with the interaction that generated consent.
However, the FCC postponed the effective date on January 24, 2025, and later that same day the Eleventh Circuit vacated the one-to-one and logically/topically related consent requirements in Insurance Marketing Coalition v. FCC. Therefore, these requirements should not be presented as active January 2025 TCPA requirements.
Brands should nevertheless follow strong consent practices:
- Clearly identify the business or brand collecting consent.
- Explain that the customer is agreeing to receive marketing texts.
- Do not assume that a phone number collected for an order automatically provides marketing consent.
- Keep records showing when, where, and how consent was obtained.
- Provide a straightforward way for customers to opt out.
- Honor opt-out requests promptly.
- Work with your SMS provider to maintain appropriate compliance records.
The FCC's separate TCPA consent amendments also established requirements around honoring revocation requests within a reasonable time, with a maximum of 10 business days under the applicable rule.
Because TCPA requirements can change and state privacy and marketing laws may impose additional obligations, ecommerce brands should have their SMS consent and compliance process reviewed by qualified legal counsel.
Top 4 SMS marketing software to try
Here are four SMS marketing platforms ecommerce businesses can use to create, automate, personalize, and measure text message campaigns.
Klaviyo
Klaviyo combines email, SMS, automation, segmentation, analytics, and AI-powered personalization in one ecommerce marketing platform. You can use customer data to create targeted campaigns, automated flows, personalized product recommendations, and cross-channel customer journeys.
Klaviyo also supports SMS, MMS, and RCS, making it useful for brands that want to manage multiple messaging channels from one platform.
Pricing: Klaviyo has a free plan for up to 250 active profiles, which includes $5 of mobile messages per month. Paid pricing depends on your active profiles and messaging volume. Since July 2026, Klaviyo has used dollar-based per-message pricing for mobile messaging rather than its previous credit system. SMS/MMS/RCS rates vary by country, channel, and number type.
Omnisend
Omnisend is an ecommerce-focused marketing platform that combines email, SMS, push notifications, automation, segmentation, and AI-powered features. You can use it to create campaigns for promotions, abandoned carts, product recommendations, birthdays, and other customer journeys.
Its automation and ecommerce integrations make it particularly useful for businesses that want to connect SMS with other marketing channels.
Pricing: Omnisend offers a free plan with up to 500 emails per month and 250 contacts. Its Standard plan starts at $16 per month, but SMS is now available to new customers only through the Pro plan. The Pro plan starts at $59 per month, with SMS sold separately using volume-based pricing starting at $0.007 per message for high-volume U.S. sends. Actual SMS rates vary by destination and volume.
Attentive
Attentive is a customer messaging platform built around SMS, MMS, RCS, email, push notifications, and AI-powered personalization. It offers tools for subscriber acquisition, segmentation, automated journeys, two-way messaging, A/B testing, and campaign analytics.
Its AI capabilities can help brands personalize message content, audience targeting, send times, and customer journeys based on shopper behavior. This makes Attentive particularly relevant for ecommerce brands running sophisticated SMS programs.
Pricing: Attentive does not publish a fixed monthly price. Pricing is customized based on factors such as subscriber list size, message volume, number of channels, and AI products selected. Its text plans use usage-based pricing, while premium AI tools can have separate fees. Attentive also offers customized packages that combine SMS, email, RCS, push, and AI capabilities.
ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign combines marketing automation, customer data, email marketing, segmentation, and SMS to help businesses build automated customer journeys. You can schedule messages, trigger SMS based on customer actions, manage contacts, and connect the platform with other ecommerce and business tools.
ActiveCampaign also supports a large ecosystem of integrations, making it useful for businesses that want SMS to work alongside their existing marketing and CRM systems.
Pricing: ActiveCampaign's base plans are priced according to the plan and number of contacts, while SMS is available as an add-on. SMS can be added to Plus, Professional, or Enterprise plans, and the cost varies based on the number of SMS credits and destination country.
2026 SMS marketing benchmarks to track
Instead of relying only on open rate, you want to monitor the metrics that connect SMS activity to revenue. Current 2026 benchmarks vary considerably by platform, industry, and message type. Omnisend's analysis of more than 246 million SMS campaign sends found an average 12.39% click-through rate for standard SMS campaigns, while automated SMS achieved a 20.32% click-to-sent rate.
For a broader benchmark, Vite Mobile reports a 98% average SMS open rate and 19.2% average ecommerce CTR, based on its analysis of billions of messages. Because open-rate methodology differs across SMS providers, CTR, conversion rate, revenue per recipient, and unsubscribe rate should carry more weight when evaluating campaign performance.
You want to pay attention to:
- Delivery rate: How many messages successfully reached recipients?
- Click-through rate: How many recipients clicked your link?
- Conversion rate: How many recipients completed a desired action?
- Revenue per recipient: How much revenue did each recipient generate?
- Unsubscribe rate: How many subscribers opted out?
- Revenue by flow: Which automated journeys generate the most sales?
Wrapping up
When SMS is treated as part of building a complete ecommerce marketing plan, rather than an isolated promotional channel, it can help brands increase engagement, recover lost sales, encourage repeat purchases, and build stronger customer relationships. It can also work alongside email, paid advertising, SEO, social commerce, and other channels to create a more connected customer journey.
If you need support developing and executing these strategies, ePlaybooks' ecommerce growth and marketing services can help connect your ecommerce marketing activities to broader growth goals.
