SMS Campaign Statistics: What They Mean & How to Improve Yours

McDonald's isn't successful because it serves the best hamburgers in the world. It's successful because it's made a science of analyzing business statistics, understanding them and responding to them in a timely and effective fashion.

Not every business should be like fast food, but your SMS marketing campaign will be all the more successful if you monitor, understand and act on the data your campaign produces.

Here are six stats you need to know, and know how to improve upon if necessary:

1. Opt-In Population
This is the total number of people on your broadcast list. It's not the most accurate number, because it measures who you send to – not necessarily who you reach. Still, an increasing population means you are successfully getting the word out. A decreasing population means the opposite.

Improve this statistic by getting your SMS keywords on every marketing item you produce.
 

2. New Subscribers
This is a more focused version of watching your opt-in population, focused specifically on how many new subscribers you acquire each cycle. Watch for spikes in this number when you release other media containing your SMS codes – it can tell you about how those releases are performing.

Get the most out of this number by inserting different keywords in different marketing initiatives – telling you exactly where each new subscriber came from.
 

3. Quit Rate/Opt-Outs
You're going to have opt-outs – people who ask to be removed from your list. That it happens isn't important, but why it happens can tell you a lot. You won't be able to interview your opt-outs about why they quit. Instead, look at your quit rate for spikes or valleys, and search for changes or events around those anomalies.

Reduce your quit rate by always sending out SMS messages with actionable deals or advice, and by posting just enough to stay in mind without becoming annoying.
 

4. Response Rate
How many recipients of your SMS broadcast do what you ask them to? This is a direct measure of how effective your message was. It's the reason a simple but unique call to action should be part of every message you send out – a text response tells you which recipients are engaged.

Improve your response rate by examining messages that had unusually high rates, then mimicking the core of those messages in future broadcasts. Interactive content like polls can also help.
 

5. Conversion/Sales Rate
Not every response results in a sale – but every broadcast should turn into at least one customer. Each industry has its own "good" and "bad" rates of response, but all you need to see is a steady increase in whatever your numbers are.

Use digital coupons and similar deals with limited response times to up your conversion rate.
 

6. Return on Investment
This is the bottom line. Track how many sales your SMS campaign generated, and the total value of those sales. Compare that against the total cost of your SMS marketing. If sales > cost, your program needs work before you can consider it successful.

Improve ROI by reducing costs or using your statistics to increase the effectiveness of your SMS campaign.