Optimize Your Marketing With SMS Analytics

SMS marketing is an effective tool for reaching customers right in the palm of their hand, made even more powerful by Mailchimp's SMS analytics*. Our real-time insights enable you to track and measure the results of your SMS campaigns and optimize their performance. 

Plus, having your reporting data in one place allows you to work more efficiently and optimize your marketing channels to yield better results. With one unified platform for SMS, email, and social ad insights, you can do things like compare the results of your email campaigns with those of your SMS campaigns to inform your strategy. You can then make data-driven decisions on where to invest your marketing budget and to help ensure brand and campaign continuity across channels. 

Let's take a closer look at the SMS marketing analytics you can track in Mailchimp and how you can leverage those metrics to maximize your campaign's impact. 

SMS analytics overview 

Our SMS analytics allow marketers to track message delivery, click-through rates, and other important data in real time. Here are a few actionable metrics you can measure during your campaign, and what they might indicate about your campaign's effectiveness.  

• Deliverability. Messages sent and received during the campaign, or the ability of your text messages to successfully reach the intended recipient's mobile device.
• Click-through rate. The percentage of recipients who clicked on a link in your message can help you understand overall campaign engagement.
• Unsubscribe rate. The percentage of recipients who have opted out of receiving messages. Your unsubscribe rate can help you understand what isn't resonating with (or relevant to) your audience—like timing, cadence, or content. 

Maximize your deliverability  

Deliverability, or the percentage of messages your intended audience actually receives, is an important indicator of your campaign's effectiveness: Your campaign can't reach its full potential if it isn't reaching the right recipients. Here are a few ways to help optimize SMS deliverability. 

• Maintain an up-to-date contact list. Invalid or inactive contact information will impact SMS deliverability rates. Before sending messages, verify phone numbers with double opt-in, and remember to periodically clean your list to remove inactive or invalid numbers. 
• Comply with carrier guidelines. Some carriers may filter messages based on certain criteria such as keywords or sender reputation. Make sure your messages get through by avoiding spammy or misleading content. 
• Make it easy to opt in (and out). SMS campaigns require explicit opt-in from recipients and a clear, easy way to stop receiving messages. If you don't follow opt-in guidelines, you could be non-compliant with applicable laws and your messages might be considered spam. Always obtain express written consent from recipients before sending messages and adhere to any opt-out requirements. 
• Time your messages right. Sending messages at the wrong time can impact deliverability and subject you to non-compliance with applicable laws. Be sure to research applicable laws and seek legal advice regarding the timing of sending messages.  Send messages during legally proscribed hours and avoid sending too many messages in a short period of time.

Reduce unsubscribes and opt-outs

Retaining subscribers increases your likelihood of collecting more data—and more data can mean more engagement and sales for your business. Here are a few tips for sustaining your subscriber base and reducing opt-outs.

• Keep it short. SMS messages have a limit of 160 characters, so it's important to keep your messages short and to the point. One way to keep your character count down is by using a link shortener for URLs. 
• Offer value. Make sure your SMS messages provide value to subscribers, like exclusive offers, discounts, product recommendations, reminders, or helpful tips. 
• Set expectations. Let recipients know how often they can expect to receive messages from you and at what time of day. This may reduce the likelihood of opt-outs. 

Personalize your messaging with SMS reporting

Use SMS analytics to help tailor your campaigns to specific groups. Segmenting your audience —based on what you learn from their clicks, opens, and purchases—can help lead to higher engagement, conversion, and ROI on campaign costs. Here are a few best practices for creating personalized SMS campaigns with the power to drive engagement and revenue.

• Segment your audience. Divide your audience into smaller groups based on their interests, behavior, and demographics to send more targeted and relevant messages. 
• Use dynamic content. Merge tags can help you personalize your messages with the recipient's name, location, past purchases, and more.  
• Send personalized offers. Use data about the recipient's purchase history, browsing behavior, or location to send personalized offers and promotions.
• Automate personalized journeys. Send notifications, promotions, inventory alerts, and more triggered by customer data points.
• Use link tracking. Track clicks on links to find out which recipients engaged with your messages. 

Learn more through testing

Testing is an effective way to make a good campaign even better, and the unique specifications of SMS marketing enable marketers to more precisely pinpoint what's working and what isn't. SMS's more restricted character count means less room for error when testing your messaging. It's also easier for recipients to unsubscribe from SMS, which may yield clearer data about their preferences. Implementing robust tests using analytics data allows you to compare performance to better understand your audience. 

SMS and Mailchimp

Understanding Mailchimp's SMS analytics can help you maximize your SMS campaign's potential. And, with one unified platform for all your multichannel reporting data, you can make smarter, data-driven decisions about what's working across your campaigns while saving time and streamlining your workflow. Add SMS marketing to your overall strategy with Mailchimp's unified platform.