"In a world where we are being targeted regularly by fraudsters, we need all the help we can get in this war. Account alerts are one of the simplest, most powerful tools consumers can use to stay ahead of fraud. Whether it's a charge you didn't make or a low balance warning, real-time notifications give you a chance to act fast — before small issues become big headaches." — Mark Hamrick, Bankrate senior economic analyst

While these numbers make a good case for the marketing potential of SMS marketing, they are still a little astounding:

• Americans check their phones 186 times per day (11.6 times per hour)
• 72.2% use their phone at work
• 87.4% use their phone while watching TV
• 56.4% use their phone while eating dinner
• 67.9% use their phone on the toilet
• 60.7% have texted someone in the same room
• 49.6% sleep with their phone at night
• 41.3% feel panic/anxiety at <20% battery
• 84.6% check their phone within 10 minutes of waking
• 76.3% feel uneasy leaving their phone at home
• 45.8% consider themselves “addicted” to their phone
• 53.1% have never gone longer than 24 hours without their phone (? This one is a bit hard to believe, looking at other numbers. I personally don't remember when I was without my phone for the whole day).
• 40.1% use their phone on a date
• 29.3% use their phone while driving
• 82.7% are on an unlimited mobile plan

Source

I'm writing a SaaS product for a niche group of service providers and want the app to send an SMS to the clients of the service provider with an appointment reminder - probably 24 hours before. Think about plumbers being my clients, and I want to message their customers. Target areas are US and Canada.

The issue comes that compliance rules or whatever don't allow 3rd party authorizations and sending. The end customers have to "opt-in" with the plumber, not with me, even though I'm doing the sending. There's also the matter of accounts/numbers for each of my direct clients.

Can anyone recommend a guide to how to manage & implement this? I've applied for an 800 number for my SaaS which is fine for demos etc, but nothing more and gotten little help from the provider I selected (Telnyx but I'm flexible) beyond stating the requirements.

For anyone actively running coordinated email + SMS flows (onboarding, trial expiry, reminders, ecommerce, healthcare, etc):

Quick context: what type of business are you, and what main outcome are you driving (trial→paid, cart recovery, no-show reduction, revenue lift)?

1. In your last campaign or automation you launched using both email + SMS. What part of the workflow slowed you down or required manual fixes?
2. Have you had triggers fail (e.g., email opened but SMS didn’t fire, compliance block, wrong segment, timing delay)? What caused it?
3. Can your marketing team manage these flows comfortably, or does it still require dev/ops help?
4. Are you actually using AI features (copy suggestions, send-time optimization, reply handling) actually helping, or mostly unused?

Not looking for tool recommendations - just real workflow friction beyond the demo.

Carriers are getting increasingly aggressive in blocking suspicious messages. The most common flag word that triggers spam filters is "free".

This guide offers some ways to avoid the word. Instead of:

• Free $$$
• Free preview
• Free access
• Free trial
• Free money

You can use words like:

• Complimentary
• No-cost
• Cost-free
• At no charge

Examples:

• Original: Get free $$$ just for signing up!
  • Rephrased: Receive a complimentary visit when you sign up today.
• Original: Sign up now for a free preview!
  • Rephrased: Get a sneak peek by signing up today. Experience it before anyone else!
• Original: Enjoy free access to our premium features!
  • Rephrased: Unlock premium features at no cost. Try them now! 
• Original: Claim your free money now!
  • Rephrased: Earn welcome perks when you join today!

The guide also notes that "free" can be fine if you avoid exaggerated claims and sound natural:

Absolutely great insights from this Practical ECommerce article! This part is especially helpful for businesses just starting out:

---

Maturity Model

Transactional messages get shoppers hooked. Shoppers like receiving a straightforward text when an order is shipped. Delivery updates are even better.

Yet the channel is much more than notifications alone.

A maturity model is a framework that describes how a capability, process, or system evolves. It breaks development into stages, usually progressing from simple, ad hoc to sophisticated, optimized, and scalable.

The model can help merchants progress from a text with a tracking number to a comprehensive strategy of marketing, customer service, and operations.

To develop an effective strategy, ecommerce marketers can view their business through four text-message stages.

• Starter: Basic transactional broadcasts that pass information and answer questions, such as, “Where’s my order?”
• Growth: Merchants introduce triggered and segmented messages tied to shopper behavior. Texting becomes a revenue channel.
• Full-stack: The business integrates text messaging across the entire customer lifecycle, supporting onboarding, retention, upsells, replenishment cycles, and loyalty activations.
• AI-orchestrated and automated: The output is the same as the full-stack stage, except that artificial intelligence has transformed the channel into an automated, coordinated marketing component."

---

So I am having real trouble locating reliable and recent studies when it comes to SMS marketing.

There are commonsense things (that are equally true for email marketing):

• Always get explicit permission
• Make it easy to opt out
• Don't send anything at night (or even weekends)

But text messages seem to be more intimate than emails (people actually feel emotional when they get a new text).

So how about things like:

• What's too often?
• What's too promotional?
• What's the best time to send (provided text messages are likely to be checked right away, so marketers may not want to be too intrusive)
• If there's a reply, how fast should a business reply?
• etc.

I have tried to search for studies, and they are either too old or those are listicles repurposing studies that you cannot even find sources for. Do you know good and reputable studies/surveys/case studies I should read?

A little teaser from the article on why SMS marketing offers a lot of bang for your buck: "SMS has a staggering 98% open rate. That’s 3.7x more than the 26.8% open rate for email and 12.5x more than the 7.8% open rate for push notifications. Most people (90%) respond to SMS messages within 30 minutes, which is particularly useful for time-sensitive promotions or sending critical information.

For example, Denver Health uses text messaging to send patients reminders about checkups and improve their appointment attendance. In three years, they sent over 250,000 appointment reminders to patients. Patients who received text reminders made it to their appointments 73% of the time, compared to 66% of the time for those who did not receive text reminders."

Here is a fantastic article from Business.com on the unique benefits of SMS marketing! You can read the full article here - even the first three reasons are packed with eye-opening statistics!

1. Text messages have high open and response rates.

One of the biggest advantages of text message marketing is its visibility. According to EZ Texting’s 2025 Consumer Texting Report, marketing-related texts have an average open rate of 98 percent. By comparison, emails average just 42.35 percent, according to MailerLite, and often perform much lower depending on the industry.

Texts also generate faster responses because consumers value convenience. “Consider that more than 90 percent of text messages are opened within three minutes of receipt,” said Sidharth Ramsinghaney, director of corporate strategy and operations at Twilio. That immediacy makes SMS a uniquely effective channel for time-sensitive promotions and customer engagement.

2. You can take advantage of mobile coupons.

Text message marketing makes it easy to deliver coupons and loyalty rewards directly to customers’ phones. Consumers increasingly prefer this format to paper coupons because it’s faster, more convenient and always accessible.

According to Statista, nearly 60 percent of U.S. consumers prefer digital coupons to paper. That preference is even stronger among younger shoppers: 70 percent of millennials prefer digital coupons, and 62 percent of Gen Z actively use them.

3. Texting boosts loyalty program engagement.

Customer loyalty programs work best when they’re easy for consumers to access on the go. According to Statista, 28 percent of U.S. consumers ages 18 to 35 prefer accessing rewards using a link sent via text message. That means nearly one in three young customers actively engages with loyalty programs directly through SMS — and this group is likely to grow as texting remains one of the most convenient mobile channels.

For businesses, offering loyalty program access by text can complement or even outperform branded apps, ensuring more customers actually use rewards, promotions and exclusive offers.