SMS marketing has become the most direct tool for any business planning to communicate directly with the audience in real-time. Whether sending out a promotion/sale, pushing some time-sensitive offer, or simply keeping them updated, it’s all about that personal connection, which channels sometimes fail to achieve. 

But just as in any other form of marketing activity, it is important to measure the success of these campaigns so that they can achieve their intended ramifications, which is the return on investment, or ROI.

Key metrics have helped fine-tune and perfect your SMS marketing campaigns. You can optimize your messaging strategies while pursuing high ROI.

Essential Metrics for SMS Marketing Success

Delivery Rate

The delivery rate refers to how effective your bulk message delivery has been. It does this by checking the percentage of your messages delivered to devices on the recipient’s end. Thus, the percentage of delivery reflects the percentage of messages received by the recipient’s device. 

A very high delivery rate is relied on as a percentage that shows how reliable and accurate your message delivery is. If your delivery rate is low, it can be due to various reasons, like old and incorrect phone numbers in your contact list and other causes that might reflect the networks at the recipient’s end.

 Monitoring delivery rates ensures that your sms marketing campaigns reach as many customers as possible, maximizing the campaign’s impact.

Open Rate

Of course, it’s not as straightforward as it would have been with an e-mail marketing campaign. Still, the open rate is a useful metric for the SMS campaign. It helps determine if your message content is interesting or relevant enough for recipients to open and interact with it immediately.

It means having an open rate on a high level signifies that the messages of a person reach the eyes of the audience, but low rates tell that it is about time to reconsider the timing, the content, or even the name of the sender so that it can get much better for the recipient.

Visualization of the difference between click-to–open and click-through-rate metrics. Source: Klipfolio

Click-through Rate (CTR)

The click-through rate, or CTR measures how many recipients clicked on a link in your text message. The CTR is an important measure of your calls to action effectiveness. Did people follow the click that landed you on a landing page, website, or product page? CTR shows whether your messages drive the desired traffic and engagement.

To increase the click-through rate, make sure CTAs are clear, actionable, and linked to a value proposition communicated in the SMS.

Advanced Metrics to Enhance SMS Campaign Insights

Conversion Rate

The conversion rate goes beyond CTR and shows how many of those on your list have actually converted-for example, purchased, signed up for an event, or downloaded a coupon. A must-have way to link SMS marketing campaigns to business outcomes.

Track conversion rate through the hookup of the SMS campaigns with set goals and use tracking instruments to track results; this means knowing how well your message will tangibly impact revenue or other key objectives.

Opt-out Rate

The opt-out rate is the number of recipients who opt out of your SMS marketing list after receiving one of your messages. Of course, some opt-outs are impossible to avoid, at least not completely. 

However, an uptick in the opt-out rate during the last period may suggest dissatisfaction regarding your messages’ frequency or relevance.

Regularly checking your opt-out rate will help you determine your customers’ moods and the need to fine-tune your campaign so that the latter can be achieved without failing to interest and remain relevant.

Visualization of opt-out metric. Source: bluecore.com.  

Cost Per Conversion

Cost per conversion is one of the most crucial metrics to measure the economic efficiency of your SMS campaigns. It tells how much you pay for one conversion through a sale, sign-up, etcetera.

Knowing your cost per conversion will help you determine whether you are spending your marketing budget wisely and make changes, if needed, to improve the overall ROI of sms marketing campaigns.

Integrating SMS Metrics with Overall Marketing Analytics

Cross-Channel Impact

SMS marketing is not an island unto itself. It helps integrate your SMS data with metrics of other marketing channels like email, social media, or even PPC, which might give you an overall view of your effectiveness. For instance, if SMS messages drive users to your site, you might care to compare how that traffic behaves against users from other sources.

This automatically creates a more holistic campaign, where your SMS campaign complements and strengthens the other parts of your broader marketing campaigns.

Tracking Long-Term and Trends

Therefore, by monitoring the performance of your sms marketing campaign metrics over time, you can understand how your audience behaves in terms of trends and seasonal behavior. 

You may learn that particular types of messages are responded to more widely within specific times of the year, which sometimes means that the audience engages otherwise at different times of the year due to outer factors such as holidays or offers.

This will help you see long-term trends and campaign strategies to adapt to consumer behavior so that your messages remain relevant and impactful.

Using Analytics Tools for SMS Marketing

Recommended Tools and Platforms

Here are some metrics in this blog that you can track across a few tools and platforms for measuring sms marketing. For example, Twilio, SlickText, and SimpleTexting allow tracking, delivery, open rates, and click-through rates. When looking at full analytics, some things to look for in the tool you choose are real-time reporting, A/B testing capabilities, and integrations with other marketing platforms.

Dashboard Setup

The right tools mean half the battle, but the magic lies in how you use them. An analytical dashboard already set up allows you to see real-time SMS campaign metrics. This makes tracking trends, troubleshooting problems, and making data-based decisions much easier. 

Most of these SMS marketing platforms allow you to personalize dashboards and prioritize what is most important to your business. You can also access all the insights needed to power campaign success.

Conclusion

The right metrics to measure the success of your SMS marketing campaigns include having the right metrics. Having said that, once you’re off and running, you might start with some basic KPIs, like delivery rate and CTR; however, you will not want to stop there because more advanced metrics, like conversion rate and cost per conversion, will provide you with all the information you need to refine your strategy and keep it optimized.

Monitoring and analysis will continue to ensure all your efforts in SMS marketing are always solidly on track with all the business objectives, thus improving engagement and the customer experience and driving greater ROI.

Review your current SMS marketing strategy now. Are you tracking these crucial metrics? If not, it is time to upgrade your analytics practices to gain more insight and drive better results.

If some have already been implemented, how do they affect your current marketing strategy? Please comment with your experiences!