The Truth About SMS Opt Out Rates
You’ve read all about getting subscribers, the legal and recommended guidelines, and put great offers out to your list. But people still unsubscribe. Should you be worried? Are you doing something wrong?
That depends.
As the saying goes, you can’t make 100% of the people happy 100% of the time. You will have opt outs, but whether you have too many is the question you should be asking.
Benchmarks
Marketing professionals love statistics. Don’t you? We use them to justify budgets, determine campaign effectiveness and even our jobs.
The place to start looking for them is often benchmark studies. These take averages from across an industry, or maybe many industries, and create a picture of what is good, bad, and ho-hum. It’s pretty easy to find email marketing benchmark studies. You can even find mobile marketing benchmark studies that cover all kinds of channels including apps, video, banner ads, etc.
But benchmark data for SMS is pretty hard to find, at least publically. For thousands of pounds you might find a mobile benchmark study that includes SMS for your industry. But mostly there are just scattered reports from specific SMS or mobile marketing vendors – again unless you’re willing to invest thousands into memberships or marketing reports. That’s just not practical for everyone.
You can find some really key SMS statistics publicly from good sources. Most of what you’ll find will be about how many messages are sent, the types of people that prefer SMS, how they feel about SMS marketing and so on.
But when it comes to opt in, read, reply, and opt out rates there isn’t much “benchmarked” data. In fact, the more research you do, the more you’ll find the same statistics used over and over again. The source for them is often not listed or is a secondary source (a source that lists another source). As an example, the statistic that says 98% of SMS messages are read within three minutes is repeated over and over. I finally found the original source and it’s pretty old (pre-2010 if I recall – please correct me if you know). People keep repeating it because there is no new data to replace it, and obviously it’s a really “good” statistic.
All this rambling means there isn’t a good number to give you as a “benchmark” to know if you’re opt out rate is too high, or amazingly low (a good thing). After much looking around I found some sources that said 3.5-5% opt out rates are what the “best” SMS campaigns have. I’m sharing the numbers with you, but I repeat the validity of the numbers is suspect. One source dates to 2012, and I have yet to find the original source for the other.
So what opt out rate is ok?
Here’s the ugly truth: You need to figure out what your acceptable SMS opt out rate is.
There I said it. If you’re just starting out that might be a little scary because you won’t know for a while until you get enough data. And if you have been doing it awhile, does the average you have mean it’s a good average? The question is still, “Are too many people opting out?”
To help you decide on what number is right for you, here are a couple of things to keep in mind:
- Does the opt out rate spike after certain promotions? If the answer is yes, then maybe you need to look at your promotions closer. People could be opting out for any number of reasons including the offer or the time of day. If it happens with every promotion, then there’s something you’re doing consistently you need to change. Do some testing on your messages. Change just one thing and see what happens. You can even test out the changes on a subset of your subscribers to see what the results are before you send it out to everyone.
- Is there any cyclical pattern to the opt outs? Do you have some pattern to your opt outs, such as they are low from May to September but go up in November and December (the worst time!)? If you run a seasonal business, this might make sense. Your customers aren’t interested in the same things at different times. Even if you aren’t a seasonal business, your customers might be interested in different things at those times of the year. The pattern may not be so obvious either. Maybe customers opt out more on offers that require in-store purchases rather than mobile coupons. Plotting the opt-out rate various ways can help you visually identify the patterns based on offer type, time of day, time of year, etc.
It will take some time to see how your campaigns perform. A single campaign could be a huge success within hours, but only as the weeks go by will your lists behaviour become clear. They may love “this”, but hate “that” enough to unsubscribe. But don’t worry. As long as you keep at it and keep an eye on your unsubscribe rate you’ll figure it all out. And maybe at some point they’re will be good industry statistics to compare to – but you’ll already know what works for you.
Related Articles
SMS vs. Instant Message App Marketing
It seems there's a new messaging app popping up every month. It's hard to keep track of them all, but it's also hard to ignore them if you're looking to use mobile marketing. When you've got limited marketing resources, should you spend them advertising on the latest IM app, or go with SMS marketing?
Older Generations and SMS Messaging
50% of people between 55 and 64 own a smartphone and 18% of people over 65 do too. If you’re trying to reach out to these older demographics, it might be time to consider mobile marketing. But what kind should you choose?
The Truth About SMS Opt Out Rates
You’ve read all about getting subscribers, the legal and recommended guidelines, and put great offers out to your list. But people still unsubscribe. Should you be worried? Are you doing something wrong? That depends. As the saying goes, you can’t make 100% of the people happy 100% of the time. You will have opt-outs, but whether you have too many is the question you should be asking.
Why Your Startup Needs to be Using SMS Marketing
Are startups afraid of using SMS marketing? Is it because they’re afraid of annoying customers and breaking the regulations? I don’t think so. If your startup isn’t using SMS marketing already, it’s probably because you don’t know all the facts. Find out why SMS is actually perfect for startups.
Salesforce Finds SMS Messaging a Growing Part of Mobile Marketing Strategy
What do 5,000 marketers from ten different countries say about SMS? It’s great, and we’re going to do more of it. Well, that’s the gist of the results in the Salesforce 2015 State of Marketing Report. Mobile marketing has taken a central place in most company’s strategies, and SMS is a growing part of it. Here are some key statistics from the report.
24 Key Research Statistics that Prove You Should be Using SMS Marketing
If you find yourself needing to justify putting budget towards SMS marketing or convincing your manager that it's the right decision for you, here are some key research statistics to keep in mind for why you should pursue an SMS campaign...
Top Five Questions You Need to Ask Before Choosing a URL Shortening Tool
If you're using social media or sending SMS marketing messages then you know all about link shortening. Or do you? Are all services the same, and are there options you didn't even know you had?Here are five questions you should ask before choose a service to shorten your links in your SMS messages.
What Your Customers Want From SMS Marketing
Mobile marketing offers an unprecedented access to your customers virtually any time, anywhere. This is particularly true for SMS marketing because it is “always on”. Customers don’t have to be surfing the web, or using an app to receive messages. Instead, they see the marketing messages right alongside ones from their friends and family.
Have IM Apps Made SMS Messaging Irrelevant?
Earlier this year there was big news. WhatsApp users were sending more messages each day than SMS users were sending. According to the Telegraph, WhatsApp was 50% more popular than SMS messaging. And the truth is the number of SMS messages sent each day has declined over the last few years. In the UK it was down almost 25% from 2012 to 2013. But is that the whole picture?
Proof SMS Messaging Gets Results: Opt-Ins
SMS messaging is one of the most effective mobile marketing channels. The proof is in the data, of course. In this blog post, you’ll discover how many opt ins businesses get, and how quickly they get them once they give SMS messaging a go.