SMS Compliance Best Practices: Stay Compliant in Marketing (2026)

Sending engaging text messages can help build customer relationships and increase conversions for your business. But, if you fail to follow compliance regulations, your messages may never reach your subscribers, and you could even put your business at risk of fines. As you start sending text messages, make sure you're following these best practices to ensure your messages are compliant and will send successfully.

Before we go any further, if you're enjoying this video, make sure to like and subscribe so you don't miss out on any future content like this. Best practice number one. Grow your text list compliantly. Before you send text messages, you first need to acquire subscribers. It's required to receive explicit consent from all your subscribers, which means they've told you directly that they want to receive text marketing from your brand. For example, consider

setting up your text message sign-up form with a double opt-in method like smart opt-in or tap-to-text. Subscribers have to take two distinct actions to subscribe to text, indicating their express interest in receiving text marketing and ensuring you are collecting valid and engaged subscribers. You also need to make sure you include your text message disclosure language on any text opt-in method you use to collect subscribers. Make sure you update your terms of service and privacy policy to include

language around text consent, and link both documents within your disclosure language. Best practice number two. Craft messages designed to deliver. The content of your text messages matters, depending on the location you're sending to. There are certain types of content that will cause your text to be blocked. For example, in the US, avoid sending messages that relate to any SHAFT terms. Including copy, images, or links to

other pages within your texts that include prohibited topics puts you at serious risk of getting your message blocked or your sender ID banned. In addition to location-specific regulations, you should also ensure you're always adhering to regulations for your text message format, whether you're sending SMS or RCS messages. There are also certain things you need

to include in your text messages to pass regulations. For example, it is a best practice to always clearly identify your brand. Unless you have a branded sender ID, ensure you're always identifying yourself by including your brand name as a prefix in every message. Also, make sure to include clear opt-out instructions to make unsubscribing easy, which helps to reduce spam complaints. Best practice number three. Send texts to those who can receive them. The timing and the recipients of your text messages are crucial for successful delivery. Avoid sending messages during quiet hours, which are determined by your local laws. Similarly, enable smart sending to ensure recipients don't receive more than one text from you within a set period of time. Klaviyo's default window is 24 hours. There are additional regional-specific regulations you need to follow. For example, in the US, abandoned cart flows must be limited to one text per recipient per event. And it must be sent within 48 hours of someone abandoning their cart. It's also best practice to create a specific segment of any subscribers who have logged an error in the last 30 days. Once you create the segment, you should exclude it from all text campaigns. This strategy helps protect your deliverability by reducing your error rates. If you're a high-volume sender, a short code sending number type might be the best fit for you. Compared to toll-free numbers, short codes can help with faster message delivery, stronger brand recognition, and less carrier filtering. You should also regularly clean your text message list. List cleaning helps to ensure you're sending texts to only your engaged subscribers. Best practice number four. Monitor your text message performance. Consistently monitor the performance of your text channel to identify problems that put your deliverability at risk. Some key metrics you should watch are your click rate, conversion rate, and unsubscribe rate. Make sure your click rate and conversion rate stay high, while your unsubscribe rate stays low. Do keep in mind that bot clicks may affect your reporting. Bot clicks are made by a machine and often occur to confirm the safety of links in texts. They can drive up your click rate artificially, but don't worry. You can use filters to exclude them from your reporting if you wish. You should also frequently review your error rates and logged error reasons. These can actually be your first indicator of sending issues and can help diagnose the problem. By continuously monitoring your metrics, you can diagnose problems early and take action quickly to protect your deliverability. And that's it. Now you know the key best practices for text message compliance foundations to make sure your messages reach your recipients successfully. We hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, be sure to like, subscribe, and check the description for links to more resources to help you learn and grow with Klaviyo.