Text messaging is the highest read rate channel most businesses have access to and the one with the sharpest legal edge. Unlike email, where a wrong send costs you an unsubscribe, a wrong text can cost a statutory damages claim per message, and the liability usually sits with the brand rather than the agency that pressed the button. That asymmetry should shape how you buy the service. This page covers what an SMS programme actually consists of, how agencies and platforms price it, and the specific consent and record keeping questions that separate a partner who will protect you from one who will grow your list quickly and leave you exposed.
What you are actually buying
An SMS programme has four parts and they are often bought from different places. There is the platform, which sends the messages, holds the subscriber records and manages opt outs. There is carrier registration, the process of registering your brand and campaign so messages are delivered rather than filtered, which takes days to weeks and has its own fees. There is the per message cost, which is a pass through and varies by message type and length. And there is the strategy and copy work, which is what an agency actually charges a fee for. When you compare quotes, establish which of the four each includes. A cheap agency fee sitting on top of an expensive platform contract is not cheap, and an all in number that hides per message costs will not survive your first heavy sending month.
Consent is the whole compliance question
The federal rules on automated calls and texts to mobile numbers, codified at 47 CFR 64.1200, turn on consent: prior express written consent for marketing messages, a clear disclosure at the point of sign up, and a working opt out that is honoured promptly. That means the consent language on your form matters more than the copy in the message, and the record of who consented, when, and to what text, is the evidence you would need if a claim ever arrived. Ask every candidate agency where consent records are stored, whether you can export them, and what happens to them if you change platforms. Ask how they handle a number that has been recycled to a new owner, and how quickly a stop request propagates across every list. An agency that treats consent as a checkbox rather than an evidence trail is the risk, not the channel.
How to price a programme honestly
Model the cost per send before you sign, not the monthly fee. Take your list size, the number of sends you realistically want per month, and the per message rate for the message type you will use, and you will usually find the variable cost dwarfs the agency retainer within a few months of list growth. Then look at what the fee buys: segmentation, flow building for abandoned carts and post purchase sequences, copy and offer testing, and the analysis that tells you when frequency is burning the list. Compare that against buying the platform directly and running it in house, which for a simple programme is entirely feasible. The honest answer for many businesses is that SMS belongs inside a broader digital marketing and SEO services engagement as one channel among several, rather than as a standalone retainer with its own agency.
Vetting questions that actually discriminate
Ask to see the consent language a candidate would put on your sign up form, written out, before you hire them. It is a two minute request and the quality of the answer is diagnostic. Ask what their policy is on buying or renting lists, and treat any answer other than a flat refusal as disqualifying. Ask how they measure a healthy list: opt out rate per send, delivery rate after carrier filtering, and revenue per recipient are the three that matter, and an agency reporting only open equivalents or click counts is not watching the things that predict a dead list. Ask who is named on the carrier campaign registration, because that determines who controls deliverability. Finally, ask what they would send in month one. A partner who proposes fewer, better timed messages than you expected is usually the one who has run a programme long enough to see one burn out.
Questions people ask about sms digital marketing
Does email consent cover text messages?
No. Consent to receive email is not consent to receive marketing texts, and importing an email list into an SMS platform is one of the fastest ways to create liability. Text consent has to be collected for text, with the disclosure shown at the point of sign up, and it should be recorded with a timestamp and the exact wording the subscriber saw. Any agency that suggests migrating a list across channels should be declined on that answer alone.
Why are our messages not being delivered?
Almost always carrier filtering rather than a platform fault. Unregistered or mis registered campaigns, message content that trips spam heuristics, shortened links on shared domains and sudden volume spikes all cause silent filtering, where the platform reports a send and the phone never rings. Ask your provider for delivery rate as distinct from send rate, and check that your brand and campaign registration is complete and current.
What should the opt out process look like?
STOP should work in any message, in any case, with or without punctuation, and it should suppress the number across every list you hold rather than just the campaign it was sent from. Confirm the suppression is global, test it yourself with a real handset before launch, and make sure the record of the opt out survives a platform migration. Honouring opt outs promptly is a legal requirement, not a courtesy.
How often should we send?
Less than most agencies propose. Text is an interruption in a private space, and the cost of over sending shows up as opt outs rather than as ignored messages, which means the damage is permanent. Start monthly with a clearly valuable message, watch the opt out rate per send, and only increase frequency while that number stays flat. Transactional and triggered messages sit outside this budget and generally carry both better results and better tolerance.