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What is a typical number of opt-ins for an SMS marketing campaign?

  • There seems to be a lot of hype about SMS marketing. I've read that open/read rates of text messages are 94-97% and that around 85% of all text messages are opened within 1 hour. I've also read that the total volume of text messages sent in the US increases by some significant amount each year. These statistics are pretty easy to come by. Every SMS marketing company and short-code provider likes to talk about these statistics. But I would like to be able to put these numbers in context. It doesn't really matter that almost all my texts are read if the number of recipients (i.e. opt-ins) is too low. From what I've been able to find, SMS opt-in rates seem to be pretty pathetic. I've read about big name brands running an SMS campaign and only getting around 1,300 or so people to sign up. In some cases these numbers are as low as 10-500. This is pretty astonishing when I think of the tens of thousands of advertising dollars probably spent on each campaign. Short-code leasing is cheap -- around $20 per month -- but a billboard or a radio ad can cost around $20,000. I'm familiar with the outliers -- I know Obama got around 2-3 million opt-ins during his presidential campaign (not really marketing in the traditional sense, but whatever), what I'm looking for is a median or mean.

  • Answer:

    I don't know of hand as to what volume these campaigns drive, but wanted to add couple points to think about: When talking about 94-97% open/read rates, a text message on the phone is the closest one can get to a guaranteed read. On most devices they are hard, if not impossible, to ignore. However, this also gets you a guaranteed irritation of what you have to say is not valuable enough in the eyes of the consumer to warrant such a rude interruption. Building on the importance of the value prop mentioned in point 1 and 's response, call-to-action and the level of trust your campaign engenders is really the key. Traveling internationally, I really noticed how under-developed US sms marketing really is. That said, there are some good examples. Like texting a real-estate agent's automated system to get info about a property. It's convenient. However, getting bombarded with info about every open house and listing that agent has is not! This is a great example of where a super targeted value proposition disintegrated into spam. If you can get the value prop and expectations right, your campaign will have few limits... but it has to be obvious to the consumer you are targeting.

Peter Sologoub at Quora Visit the source

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We recently wrote about a study that examined 125 QSR (Quick Service Restaurants) clients that had a combined 9,000 locations, and the average SMS marketing campaign for each location had 791 SMS subscribers. You can read the blog post here: http://www.tatango.com/blog/restaurant-sms-marketing-lists-average-791-customers-per-location/ Also, be sure to read this blog post http://www.tatango.com/blog/sms-open-rates-exceed-99/ as it's the source of the commonly mis-quoted statistic about open rates and time to open for SMS messages. The true statistic is 99% open rate, with 90% of all text messages being read within 3 minutes of being received on the mobile phone. You wouldn't believe how long it took me to hunt down the actual study for these statistics, which you can read about here if you're interested http://www.tatango.com/blog/90-of-text-messages-are-read-within-3-minutes/

Derek Johnson

This will totally depend on your call to action. Here's a blog post I wrote highlighting how to make a call to action effective in order to drive high traffic: http://blog.msgme.com/2011/05/25/how-to-create-a-great-call-to-action-4-ingredients-a-secret-sauce/. More info: To your point earlier about 1300 vs. 10-500. If you have a call to action that asks people to text in to see a website. You will not see high numbers. If you ask people to text in to win free tickets to a Kanye West concert you will see huge numbers. In addition, if you run a local campaign vs. a national campaign your opt-in numbers are going to vary wildly, so requesting a mean/median not relevant. In my experience because mobile is more personal device you will see less mobile opt-ins than email opt-ins for the same call to action. However, those mobile opt-ins are much more valuable due to people giving out their phone number not a faux email address they use for responding to marketing CTAs.

Kane Russell

There are so many variables involved it is impossible to say with any degree of accuracy what a typical opt in rate might be. For instance... Is an incentive being offered? How valuable does the prospect perceive it to be? Does the prospect trust the company making the pitch? Does he or she believe the company will respect her and send only occasional, value-oriented messages? Does she think they`ll spam the heck out of her? Or does she have no idea of what she`s going to experience? Is the prospect passionate about the business' products and services, or is she "meh"? Has the company made it clear that there is no cost for the service, and that the prospect's data is secured, private, and will not be sold to a third party? Are the benefits of opting in being properly presented? Is the prospect actually seeing the SMS call to action? Many companies do a terrible job of this. I was trying on some jeans in a local Old Navy, and it was in the change room that I saw their call to action. Unbelievable. It was printed off an injet printer onto a piece of 8 X 11 paper that was cut in half (presmuably so they could get two calls of action onto 1 sheet). The sheet looked like it had been crumpled up and thrown in the garbage, then retrieved and taped the wall. It wasn't on the mirror - where you'd look if you are trying stuff on - but off the side, so I almost missed it. It's only because I saw the word TEXT out of the corner of my eye that I even bothered reading it. Does the prospect feel that the business' current communication channels (i.e., email, social media) are already keeping her connected to the extent that she wants to be? I think you see my point.   

Paul Crane

The number of opt-ins will depend on the size of the business and its customer base, as well as how aggressively and successfully it is soliciting opt-ins. But even if your subscriber base is, as you called, "pretty pathetic," keep in mind what an SMS impression is vs. what a website impression is. On a website, your ad may only take up a very tiny portion of the screen, competing with the website's content, search results, and of course, other ads. Your ad may be below the fold, so even if your analytics count that web hit as an impression, chances are it wasn't actually seen (or noticed) by a human. With an SMS, your message controls the screen. So even if a text isn't clicked on, and even if it gets deleted, you can be fairly sure that that message was read. That's a benefit no other medium can realistically offer.

Kimberly Kohatsu

There really isn't a typical number of opt-ins for an SMS marketing campaign...it really depends on the brand, call-to-action and the program.

Jeff Judge

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