Top SMS Marketing Metrics Every eCommerce Marketer Must Track for Campaign Success

Your customer’s attention span is shorter than ever, making every ecommerce marketer explore multiple channels. But there’s one channel that consistently cuts through the noise and gives a good ROI boost — SMS marketing.

Whether it’s a time-sensitive offer or an important update, SMS is a great way to communicate, drive engagement and boost sales. But to truly understand the power of SMS, you need more than just the right message. You need to know the right SMS marketing metrics to track and optimize your SMS campaign performance accordingly.

So, how can you ensure your SMS marketing strategy is hitting the mark? In this guide, we’ll walk you through the essential SMS campaign metrics you should be tracking to maximize your impact and boost your SMS marketing ROI.

SMS Marketing 101: 

What is SMS Marketing? At its core, SMS marketing involves sending promotional messages directly to your audience. This direct communication channel boasts open rates of up to 98%, delivering instant and unmatched engagement

This makes it a cornerstone in digital marketing strategies for eCommerce and D2C brands, fashion, and lifestyle brands and other consumer product businesses.

However, running successful campaigns isn't just about sending messages; it's about tracking and measuring the right metrics to ensure you’re achieving the best results. But how do you measure campaign success in SMS marketing? 

The answer is understanding and monitoring SMS marketing metrics to optimize campaigns, improve ROI, and deliver content that resonates with your audience.

Let’s dive into the key engagement metrics that’ll help you figure out whether your SMS marketing campaign is a hit or a miss. 

The Must-Track SMS Marketing Metrics for Campaign Success

To maximize the effectiveness of SMS campaigns, it’s crucial to track specific SMS campaign metrics. Here’s a breakdown of the top SMS marketing metrics you should monitor:

1. Delivery Rate: Are Your Messages Reaching the Right People?

Your delivery rate measures the percentage of successfully delivered messages. It is the first and most tracked SMS marketing metric, because a low delivery rate may indicate issues in your SMS list like invalid phone numbers or carrier problems. 

Whereas, a high SMS delivery rate is essential for your campaign’s success, so regularly clean and update your subscriber list to ensure your messages hit the right phones.

2. Open Rate: Are Your Messages Being Read?

The second most crucial SMS campaign success metric, that every marketer should track is the SMS open rate. 

While the SMS open rates are important and often exceeds 90%, this metric alone won’t tell the full story. A high open rate with low engagement signals a problem with the content of your message. 

Ensure your SMS copy is compelling, clear, and action-oriented to maximize engagement.

3. Click-Through Rate (CTR): Are Your Customers Taking Action?

The next essential metric in the marketing metrics list is CTR or click through rate. Your campaign’s click-through rates measures how many recipients clicked on a link within your SMS. This metric is a direct indicator of how effective your SMS marketing content is at driving action. 

A low SMS CTR? It might be time to rethink your call to action or simplify the message to make it more enticing.

4. Conversion Rate: Are Your SMS Campaigns Generating Revenue?

Another key SMS marketing metric is conversion rate. It is arguably the most important SMS metric. It tells you how many recipients completed the desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for an event. 

Tracking conversions allows you to measure SMS marketing ROI and optimize your campaigns for better performance.

5. Unsubscribe Rate: Are You Losing Subscribers?

The next top SMS campaign performance metric to track is the unsubscribe rate or opt out rate. A sudden spike in unsubscribe or opt-out rates can be a red flag. 

If too many people are opting out or you notice a high opt-out rate, it could mean your campaign frequency is too high, or the content isn’t relevant to their needs. Monitor this metric closely and adjust your strategy using campaign frequency optimization to improve engagement and reduce churn.

6. Response Rate: Are Your Customers Engaging With Your Interactive Campaigns?

If your SMS campaign invites interaction—like a poll or a response to a limited-time offer—your response rate will tell you how engaged your audience is. It is the best SMS campaign metric to check your engagement rate.

A high response rate shows your messaging is compelling, while a low rate may require tweaking the format or timing of your messages.

7. Bounce Rate: Are Your Messages Being Delivered?

Bounce rate is another SMS campaign measurement tool, that ecommerce marketers should track. 

Just like email, SMS messages can “bounce” due to invalid phone numbers or carrier issues. Keeping an eye on the bounce rate helps maintain a healthy subscriber list, ensuring your messages are going to real, active users.

8. Cost Per Message (CPM): Are You Getting Value for Your Marketing Spend?

The next most important SMS metric after conversion rate is the CPM. SMS marketing can be cost-effective, but tracking your cost per message is crucial especially when calculating the campaign ROI.  Factors such as standard SMS rates and message length can influence CPM. 

Using SMS marketing tools like an SMS message length calculator ensures your messages stay within the character limit, preventing extra charges for longer messages. 

9. List Growth Rate: Is Your Subscriber List Expanding?

Last but the not the least, list growth rate is an essential performance metric for ecommerce brands. Your list growth rate measures how quickly your subscriber list is growing. It’s essential to monitor this metric as it reflects the effectiveness of your acquisition strategies, such as opt-in tools, ads and marketing campaigns. 

By tracking subscriber growth rate, you can evaluate how well your customer acquisition cost is being managed and identify opportunities to scale further.

Tools like Google Analytics can help measure website traffic and conversions, offering insights into which sources are driving the most sign-ups. Pairing this with list segmentation allows you to not only grow your list size but also optimize the segmentation effectiveness across different customer groups.

A healthy SMS list growth rate ensures that your customer lifecycle management is aligned with both acquisition and retention efforts, ultimately leading to stronger long-term relationships with your audience.

Best Practices to Improve SMS Marketing Metrics:

1. SMS Message Length, Size, Limit and Why It Matters

Did you know that SMS messages are limited to 160 characters? Marketers often overlook factors in SMS marketing like the SMS length and size. Exceeding this limit splits the message into multiple parts, which can increase costs.

Keep your SMS marketing copy concise by using an SMS message length calculator to stay within the standard SMS message size. Additionally, tracking metrics such as SMS message size ensures your content remains concise yet impactful, avoiding potential overcharges.

2. Personalization & Timing is Everything

When it comes to SMS marketing, content and timing is everything. Sending wrong messages at the wrong time can lead to low response rates and low engagement. 

Personalize your content according to your target audience segments and use A/B testing to experiment with different campaign messages and send times—whether it's early morning or late afternoon when your audience is most active. Choose the best based on the A/B testing results and SMS scheduling metrics to optimize your campaign performance. 

3. Integrating SMS with Email & WhatsApp Marketing for Maximum Reach‍

‍For a well-rounded ecommerce marketing strategy, combine Email, SMS and WhatsApp marketing to maximize reach. All three marketing channels offer direct access to your audience but have different user behaviors. 

By tracking Email, SMS and WhatsApp marketing metrics like delivery, CTR, and engagement rates, you can optimize your campaigns to engage your audience holistically.

4. Measure SMS Marketing ROI

‍Ultimately, the success of your campaigns comes down to SMS marketing ROI. To calculate ROI, subtract the total marketing costs from the revenue generated then divide it by the total cost.

Keep a close eye on digital marketing metrics, including SMS campaign data and CTR, to continuously refine and maximize your returns.

5. SMS Standards and Compliance

Adhering to SMS standards is critical to avoid penalties and maintain customer trust. Ensure that your campaigns comply with legal regulations, like the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). 

Compliance not only protects your business but also enhances customer experience, leading to higher engagement.

Wrapping Up:

Running a successful SMS campaign isn’t just about crafting the perfect message—it’s about tracking the right SMS marketing metrics to ensure you’re delivering value to your audience and achieving a high SMS marketing ROI.

By focusing on key SMS metrics like delivery rates, CTR, and conversion rates, and staying mindful of factors like message length and timing, you can continually optimize your campaigns for better results. 

Top SMS marketing tools like The Convertway, can help streamline your campaigns. The Convertway’s marketing automation offers advanced features such as smart segmentation, broadcast campaigns, automation flows and in-depth analytics, making it easier to manage campaigns and optimize performance.

So, are you ready to take your SMS marketing to the next level?