- SMS marketing is great and often overlooked
- Need a list of customers (no, we don't sell lists)
- Sending first campaign is easy
- After first campaign, get benchmark for ROI
- Many nuances to scaling successfully
- Top SMS marketers generate leads through Facebook or have resellable product
To start — signup, upload a list, send a campaign, measure results and iterate.
We're trying our best to keep this content up to date, we'd love your feedback.
Affiliate's SMS campaigns are the fastest growing vertical in SMS marketing today.
While Facebook, Google, and Email continue to push affiliates away with higher costs and stricter regulations, smart affiliates are looking for ways to make most out of their costly leads. Whether it's upselling, cross-selling, or converting dropouts — SMS is also on the rise.
Think of it as Email Marketing meets Media Buying — the same data-driven approach, but with dramatically higher open rates and engagement.
Here we go. This is what we learned from working with more than 10,000+ affiliates on the SMSEdge platform.
A 1 minute video about sending SMS campaigns:
If Real Estate is — Location, location, location. Then SMS is — Data, data, data.
The quality and quantity of your SMS contact lists is the single most important factor in your SMS marketing success. High intent leads for upsell, cross-sell, and converting dropouts are the lifeblood of profitable campaigns.
The biggest SMS marketers we work with advertise on Facebook, social media, and display networks to generate opt-ins, then retarget those leads through SMS campaigns. This creates a powerful loop: paid traffic generates leads, SMS converts them.
The other type of successful SMS marketer has a product or service that customers continually need — things like loans, diet products, or subscription services where repeat purchases are natural.
If you don't have quality opt-in lists, stop here, go build your lists and get back when you're ready :)
Let's talk numbers
SMS costs between $0.01 to $0.05 per message depending on the destination country — price is different for each geo. While this is higher than email, the dramatically higher CTR rates more than balance out the cost for well-targeted campaigns.
Routes
A route is the path an SMS takes through a mobile operator to reach the subscriber's device. SMS Aggregators connect different mobile operators, and the route your message takes affects both its cost and whether it actually gets delivered.
There are two main challenges with SMS routes: Delivery and Pricing.
Routes Deliverability
Mobile operators use SMS firewalls that can filter your messages before they reach the subscriber. The domain links in your message, the SMS text content itself, or even the communication provider you're sending through can trigger filtering. A message that delivers perfectly on one route may be completely blocked on another.
Routes Pricing
The SMS ecosystem is highly fragmented. Prices for the same destination can vary 5-10x between different aggregators. There are entire conferences where people buy and sell SMS routes.
How we solved routing in SMSEdge
SMSEdge is connected to 50+ aggregators and carriers, with real-time and historic CTR information for every route. Our AI-powered routing system automatically selects the best performing route for each destination, balancing cost and deliverability.
We've even been awarded a US patent for our method of monitoring SMS receptions and optimizing routing in real time.
SMS Marketing Strategy
First, determine your goal. For most affiliates, that's ROI (ROAS) — return on ad spend.
Start with your best list, your best geo, and your best offer. Don't try to test everything at once.
Your initial spend should be no less than 100 Euro or 1.5x your CPA, whichever is higher. This gives you enough data to make informed decisions. If you see positive ROI, scale. If not, test variations before giving up.
Optimizing SMS Campaigns
There's a concept in philosophy called the Zeno Arrow Paradox — at any single moment, an arrow in flight appears stationary. The same applies to optimization: each individual improvement seems small, but together they compound dramatically.
The key is balancing scaling with optimization. Measurement at each stage — 0m, 0.5m, 0.75m — gets you closer to the target with every iteration.
The Funnel — Sent, Clicks, Leads, Sales
Increasing Sent to Click (CTR): This depends on your SMS text, list quality, and route delivery. A good benchmark is 3-5% CTR.
Increasing Clicks to Leads: This is all about the landing page experience and how well your SMS text sets expectations.
Increasing Leads to Sales: This is largely about the offer itself — pricing, checkout experience, email follow-up sequences, call center interactions, and the product.
The parameters — list, text, landing page, offer, time of sending
- List: Remove landlines and inactive numbers via HLR or MNP lookup. Identify carriers to understand your audience better.
- Text: Split test a minimum of 3 different ad texts. Small changes in wording can dramatically affect CTR.
- Landing Pages / Offers: Split test multiple landing pages. Make sure they're mobile optimized. Rotate offers to find the best performer.
- Time & day of sending: Test throughout the day. Most campaigns are sent during morning times. Start with weekdays and expand from there.
Your lists get tired, your customers get tired, it's natural
You can only send so many messages to the same list before you hit diminishing returns. If a subscriber didn't buy after the first 10 SMSs, the 11th is unlikely to convert them.
The exception is resellable products — loans, diet supplements, subscriptions — where repeat buyers keep coming back naturally.
Other optimization techniques
Extracting clickers
Send more messages to people who actually open your links. Extract clickers from your campaigns and create dedicated lists for retargeting.
Keeping clickers in a segment
Optionally, keep clickers in a list and send just to them directly from the campaign view using segment filters.
List Slicing
Split your list into equal parts for controlled testing. Send different variations to each slice and compare performance.
Sending slowly
Start with a small spend like $5, wait for results to come in, optimize based on what you see, then use the "Finish List" feature when you're happy with the performance. This approach minimizes wasted spend.
Spintax
Use spintax to create message permutations that help avoid spam filters. For example, {hi|hello} {fname} creates unique combinations for each recipient, making your messages look less like bulk sends.
Segment analysis on send
Split your send into 10 segments to detect filtering. If one segment has dramatically lower CTR than the others, it may indicate route-level filtering.
ROI per list per country per offer
Measure ROI across different data sources, countries, and offers. Break down your campaigns to understand exactly where your profit comes from.
Actually sending
- 1Open an account — Sign up here to get started.
- 2Upload your list — The system automatically eliminates malformed and landline numbers. You can also run an HLR or MNP check for additional validation.
- 3Add offer and ad texts — Create multiple offers and text variations for split testing.
- 4Select the routes — Choose from an extensive range per geo, or use "Smart Route" to auto-route to the best performing path.
- 5Click Send — Watch real-time analytics on your dashboard. Use "Finish List" when you're happy with the results.
About SMSEdge — Adding That Extra Layer of Innovation
SMSEdge is the leader in SMS innovation. Our platform connects to 50+ carriers and aggregators with automatic routing for best CTR and CPC. Whether you're sending your first campaign or scaling to millions, we provide the tools to maximize your ROI.
What do you think about Affiliate's SMS marketing? We would love to hear your comments and questions.
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