Finding new customers is often a numbers game, and it can be tempting to scale outreach as aggressively as possible. Cold phone calls and cold emails have long been part of the sales process, but cold texting pushes things into riskier territory. Why? Because sending SMS messages without prior express consent can quickly become a compliance problem.
In many cases, cold texting is illegal, especially when promotional texts are sent without an explicit opt-in. This article explains why Sales teams should avoid cold texting, protect their marketing strategy, and use cost-effective alternatives to build relationships, nurture leads, and engage prospects.
What are cold text messages?
Cold text messages are unsolicited SMS messages sent to people who haven’t explicitly opted in to receive them. The sender usually has little context about the recipient beyond a phone number pulled from a list or third-party source. These texts often promote offers, request quick replies, or push sales conversations without any prior relationship. Because SMS is a highly personal channel, cold texts tend to feel intrusive, poorly timed, and out of place.
Why some businesses send prospects cold texts
Some businesses use cold texting because it seems fast, cheap, and scalable on paper. Because SMS has high open rates, the results of a cold text can create a false sense of effectiveness, which can be tempting when email feels crowded, cold calling takes time, and ads are expensive.
Cold texting also creates the illusion of direct communication without the need to build an audience. The problem is that speed and reach don’t equal trust, relevance, or long-term results.
Six reasons why cold messaging is a bad idea
Cold messaging might appear efficient from the outside, but cold texting has real consequences, including legal risk, brand damage, and internal friction that cost far more than it saves.
Reason #1: Makes you vulnerable to legal action
Cold texting puts businesses directly in the path of regulatory risk. In the United States, laws like the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) require explicit, documented consent before sending marketing texts. Similar regulations make cold texting illegal elsewhere as well. Companies can face per-message fines, class-action lawsuits, and audits that consume time and money.
Even if a campaign seems small or informal, a single complaint about an unsolicited text message can trigger scrutiny. Relying on purchased lists or implied consent is especially risky and often indefensible when challenged, making it difficult to avoid fines.
Reason #2: Erodes trust
Texting customers is personal. When a brand shows up uninvited in someone’s inbox, it immediately creates friction. People wonder how you got their number and what else you might do with their data. Once that trust is broken, it is hard to recover. Even if the message itself is polite or well written, the context undermines it. Trust is built through permission and relevance.
Reason #3: Damages brand credibility
Cold messages shape how a brand is perceived more broadly. Repeated exposure to unsolicited texts associates your company with spammy behavior, regardless of how great your product or service might be.
That negative perception spreads through word of mouth, screenshots, and online complaints. Over time, this erodes credibility with potential customers, partners, and even investors. A brand that looks desperate or careless with data loses authority quickly.
Reason #4: Results in low conversion rates
Despite high open rates for SMS, cold texts to prospective customers rarely convert well. The lack of context leaves recipients unlikely to take action. Many ignore the message entirely or opt out immediately. Others respond defensively or with hostility, which still counts as engagement but delivers no value. When you factor in opt-outs, complaints, and list decay, the actual conversion rate is often well below projected levels.
Reason #5: Creates data quality problems
Sending text messages to potential customers without express written consent introduces long-term data issues that ripple through your systems, including your texting platform and contact list.
Fake numbers
Purchased or scraped lists are notoriously unreliable. Many numbers are outdated, recycled, or outright fake. If your messages are undeliverable or reach the wrong person, it’ll skew reporting and waste your marketing budget.
Spam complaints
Unsolicited texts drive complaints. Each complaint damages your sender reputation and can affect deliverability across future legitimate campaigns. Once carriers start flagging your traffic, recovery is slow and uncertain.
Polluted CRM data
When cold contacts are pushed into your customer relationship management (CRM) platform, they distort segmentation and analytics. Engagement metrics become meaningless, lead scoring breaks down, and teams lose confidence in the data.
Reason #6: Increases work for internal teams
Cold texting results in more work, not less, creating downstream cleanup effort that adds no strategic value. Internal teams have to absorb the cost of a shortcut that didn’t actually save time.
Complaints
Customer Support ends up handling angry replies, opt-out requests, and confusion from people who never asked to hear from you. These interactions rarely produce revenue but still require care and documentation.
Compliance reviews
You may need to pull in Legal and Compliance teams to assess risk after sending a cold text. Instead of enabling growth, they are forced into damage control mode, reviewing consent records and responding to inquiries.
Data cleanup
The high number of errors and invalid responses requires businesses to scrub lists, repair CRM records, and rebuild workflows affected by bad data. This reactive work drains time from higher-impact tasks.
Six better alternatives to cold texting
Cold texting prospects isn’t your only option. There are proven, scalable ways to use SMS and other channels without irritating prospects, polluting your data, or putting your business at risk. Here’s what works better.
Alternative #1: Permission-based SMS strategies
If you want to use SMS, do it the right way. When you encourage prospects to give prior consent with permission-based strategies, texting becomes a valuable service for your target audience rather than an unwelcome intrusion.
Clear consent requirements
Consent should be explicit, documented, and easy to understand. People should know exactly what they’re signing up for, how often they’ll hear from you, and what type of messages they’ll receive. This clarity sets expectations and reduces opt-outs later.
Double opt-in
A double opt-in confirms intent by asking subscribers to verify their signup. This extra SMS opt-in step filters out accidental entries, fake numbers, and low-interest contacts. The result is a smaller but far more engaged audience that actually wants to hear from you.
Click-to-text button
Click-to-text buttons on websites, landing pages, or emails enable users to initiate a conversation themselves, creating immediate context and shifting control to the customer.
Alternative #2: Warm texting
Warm texting involves messaging someone after prior contact or context. This might include sending texts to past customers, recent leads, or users who have interacted with your content or Support team. The recipient recognizes your brand and understands why you’re contacting them.
Warm texts work best when they’re timely and relevant, such as appointment reminders, follow-ups, or helpful updates. Used sparingly, they reinforce trust.
Alternative #3: Email-first outreach
Cold emailing is still an effective tool for sales prospecting. It provides more space to explain who you are, why you’re reaching out, and what value you offer. Email also carries a lower perceived intrusion than SMS, especially for the first contact.
Once someone engages with your email by clicking, replying, or signing up, SMS can become a secondary channel. This sequence respects the customer’s attention and builds context before communicating via text.
Alternative #4: Event follow-up
Events create natural permission. Whether it’s a webinar, conference, demo, or in-person gathering, attendees have already expressed interest. Following up after an event feels expected rather than intrusive, especially when the message references the event.
SMS can work well here for relevant information, recordings, or next steps, provided consent was collected during registration. This context increases the likelihood that recipients will respond to follow-up messages.
Alternative #5: Referral-based asks
Referrals leverage trust that you’ve already earned. Instead of contacting someone cold, you’re introduced through a customer, partner, or colleague who already vouches for you. This can take the form of referral links, shared offers, or simple introductions.
When SMS is used in this context, the recipient typically initiates contact or explicitly agrees to receive information. Referral-based outreach converts better because it starts with credibility.
Alternative #6: Retargeting and remarketing
Retargeting—using ads or messages triggered by prior, voluntary engagement—allows you to stay visible without invading personal inboxes. By reaching people who have visited your site, viewed a product, or engaged with your content, you’re focusing on demonstrated interest.
Ads, social media posts, and remarketing emails also reinforce your message over time, warming prospects before any direct outreach. When those users eventually opt in to SMS or email, the communication feels familiar. Retargeting trades immediacy for relevance, which pays off in the long run.