Most businesses track the wrong SMS marketing metrics. They obsess over open rates, celebrate high delivery percentages, and build dashboards full of numbers that don't actually tell them if their text marketing works.
Most businesses track the wrong SMS marketing metrics. They obsess over open rates, celebrate high delivery percentages, and build dashboards full of numbers that don't actually tell them if their text marketing works.
The problem isn't that these metrics are wrong. It's that they don't drive decisions. A 98% open rate sounds impressive until you realize almost all SMS gets opened regardless of quality. Knowing your messages got delivered doesn't tell you if they drove revenue.
This guide focuses on metrics that actually matter: the numbers that tell you whether to keep doing what you're doing, fix something broken, or kill a campaign entirely.
Email marketing metrics don't translate to SMS. The channels work too differently.
Open rates are meaningless for SMS. Email open rates matter because they vary widely (15-25% is typical). SMS open rates are always 95-99%. This tells you nothing about message quality or campaign performance. A terrible text gets opened just as reliably as a great one.
Click-through rates miss the point. Many effective SMS messages don't include links. "Your appointment is tomorrow at 2pm. Reply YES to confirm" drives behavior without clickable URLs. CTR works for some campaign types, but it's not universally useful.
Delivery rates only matter when they're bad. If 97%+ of your messages deliver successfully, great. That's baseline. The metric only becomes interesting when it drops below 95%, which signals a problem to investigate. Tracking it daily when everything works wastes attention.
Engagement rate is too vague. What counts as engagement? Opens? Clicks? Replies? Purchases? The term means different things on different platforms, making it useless for comparing performance or setting benchmarks.
Instead of these vanity metrics, focus on measurements that directly connect to business outcomes.
Track these numbers consistently. They tell you if your SMS marketing works and where to improve.
What it measures: Percentage of message recipients who complete your intended action.
Why it matters: This is the only metric that directly measures success. Did people do what you wanted them to do?
How to calculate: (People who completed goal / Messages delivered) × 100
What "conversion" means varies by campaign type:
Appointment reminders: Percentage who confirm their appointment Abandoned cart: Percentage who complete purchase after text Review requests: Percentage who leave a review Promotional offers: Percentage who make purchase using offer Re-engagement: Percentage who make another purchase
What good looks like:
Appointment confirmations: 60-75% confirmation rate Abandoned cart recovery: 8-15% purchase completion rate Review requests: 40-60% response rate (not all become public reviews) Promotional offers: 15-25% redemption rate for targeted offers Re-engagement campaigns: 10-15% reactivation rate
These benchmarks vary by industry. Compare your performance against industry-specific SMS marketing benchmarks to see where you stand.
What to do with this metric: If conversion rates fall below these ranges, test these variables in order: message timing, offer strength, audience targeting, message copy. One of these four factors is usually the problem.
What it measures: Percentage of recipients who unsubscribe after receiving a message.
Why it matters: This tells you if you're annoying people. High opt-out rates mean something's wrong with frequency, relevance, or message quality.
How to calculate: (Opt-outs after specific message / Messages delivered) × 100
Track this separately for different message types. Don't blend transactional and promotional opt-out rates. They should be very different.
What good looks like:
Transactional messages (confirmations, shipping updates): Under 0.5% Appointment reminders: Under 1% Educational/value-based messages: 1-2% Promotional messages: 2-3% Overall blended rate: Under 2%
Red flags:
Any single message generating 5%+ opt-outs: Kill that message immediately Steady increase in opt-out rate over time: You're messaging too frequently Spike after specific campaign: That campaign was poorly targeted or irrelevant
What to do with this metric: If opt-out rates exceed these thresholds, reduce message frequency first. If that doesn't fix it, improve targeting (stop sending irrelevant messages to wrong segments). If still high, your message content needs work.
For businesses implementing automated SMS marketing, monitor opt-out rates by automation workflow to identify which sequences need adjustment.
What it measures: Percentage of recipients who reply to messages requesting a response.
Why it matters: Shows engagement quality. People who reply are actively engaged, not passively receiving messages.
How to calculate: (Replies received / Messages delivered requesting response) × 100
Only track this for messages where you explicitly ask for reply. Don't measure reply rates on one-way notifications.
What good looks like:
Appointment confirmations asking YES/NO: 60-75% reply rate Feedback requests (rate 1-5): 40-60% reply rate Question-based engagement: 20-35% reply rate General "reply if interested": 10-15% reply rate
Why this matters more than you think: High reply rates indicate healthy list engagement. People who reply to texts typically have 3-4x higher lifetime value than people who only receive messages passively.
What to do with this metric: If reply rates are low, make replying easier. Binary choices (YES/NO, A/B/C) get higher response than open-ended questions. Also check your response time. If customers reply and wait hours for your response, they'll stop replying.
What it measures: How much revenue each text message generates on average.
Why it matters: Directly ties SMS activity to business results. This is your ROI metric.
How to calculate: Total revenue attributed to SMS campaign / Total messages sent
Attribution approaches:
Simple attribution: Revenue from purchases within 24 hours of text message Multi-touch attribution: Portion of revenue credited to SMS in customer journey Campaign-specific attribution: Revenue using campaign-specific discount codes or links
What good looks like:
This varies wildly by industry and average order value. More useful than absolute numbers is tracking trend over time and comparing cost per message to RPM.
Example calculation:
Message cost: $0.015 per text Messages sent: 1,000 Total cost: $15 Revenue generated: $2,400 (purchases within 24 hours of messages) RPM: $2.40 ROI: ($2,400 - $15) / $15 = 15,900%
What to do with this metric: If RPM is declining, your audience is fatiguing. Reduce message frequency or improve targeting. If RPM is very low relative to cost, you're either messaging wrong audience or offer isn't compelling.
What it measures: How fast your SMS list is growing or shrinking.
Why it matters: A shrinking list means you're burning through your audience faster than you're acquiring new subscribers. This is unsustainable.
How to calculate:
Growth rate: (New opt-ins this month / Starting list size) × 100 Churn rate: (Opt-outs + invalid numbers this month / Starting list size) × 100 Net growth: Growth rate - Churn rate
What good looks like:
New opt-in rate: 5-10% monthly (varies hugely by business type) Churn rate: 2-4% monthly Net growth: Positive (any positive number means list is growing)
Red flags:
Churn rate exceeding opt-in rate: Your list is shrinking Churn rate above 5% monthly: Major problems with message relevance or frequency No new opt-ins: You need better opt-in collection strategies
What to do with this metric: If churn exceeds growth, stop all promotional messaging and audit your program. You're burning your list. Focus only on transactional, high-value messages until you fix the underlying issues.
These metrics should trigger investigation when they hit certain thresholds.
Delivery rate below 95%: Indicates data quality issues (invalid numbers, disconnected lines, carrier blocking). Clean your contact list and verify phone number formats.
Reply rate below 10% for confirmation requests: Your messages aren't clear or customers don't trust your number. Test adding your business name to messages and making call-to-action more obvious.
Zero replies over multiple campaigns: Either customers can't reply (wrong number type, carrier restrictions) or they don't realize replies work. Test your setup and add "Reply with questions" to verify two-way messaging works.
Conversion rate drops by 30%+ suddenly: Something broke. Check message content (broken links?), timing (did timezone settings change?), or targeting (is audience segment correct?).
Spike in opt-outs after specific campaign: That campaign was poorly targeted, too promotional, or sent too frequently. Review what was different about that message.
Stop tracking these unless you have specific reason to care:
Individual message open rates. They're always 95-99%. This number provides no insight.
Time to open. SMS gets opened within minutes regardless of quality. Measuring this wastes time.
Forward rate. People don't forward texts like they forward emails. This metric is essentially zero for SMS.
Delivery speed. Unless you're in emergency services, whether your message delivers in 3 seconds vs 8 seconds doesn't matter.
Platform uptime percentage. Your SMS platform should have 99.9%+ uptime. If it does, stop tracking this. If it doesn't, switch platforms.
Don't track everything. Build a simple dashboard with these specific metrics:
Weekly metrics (check every Monday):
Monthly metrics (check first of each month):
As-needed metrics (only check when problems suspected):
Most SMS platforms provide analytics dashboards. Configure yours to show these specific metrics prominently. Hide or ignore everything else.
If you're running HubSpot SMS automation, build these custom reports in HubSpot to track SMS performance alongside your other marketing metrics.
Absolute metrics matter less than relative performance. Focus on these comparisons:
Your performance vs your past performance. Are conversion rates improving or declining? Is list churn increasing? Compare month-over-month and quarter-over-quarter.
Campaign performance vs campaign performance. Which message types drive best results? Double down on what works, fix or kill what doesn't.
Segment performance vs segment performance. Do VIP customers respond better than new customers? Do certain geographic regions outperform others? Use this to refine targeting.
Your performance vs industry benchmarks. This matters least but provides context. If your abandoned cart recovery rate is 12% and industry average is 10-15%, you're doing fine. If it's 4%, you have work to do.
If conversion rates drop:
If opt-out rates spike:
If reply rates decline:
If list is shrinking:
Pick your most important metric based on your biggest current problem:
If you're not sure if SMS is working: Track Revenue Per Message for 30 days. This shows ROI clearly.
If you're worried about list health: Track opt-out rate by campaign type. This shows if you're annoying people.
If campaigns aren't converting: Track conversion rate by campaign type. This shows which campaigns work and which don't.
If engagement feels low: Track response rate for two-way messages. This shows if people care about your texts.
If list isn't growing: Track new opt-ins vs opt-outs monthly. This shows if you're building sustainable program.
Start with one metric. Get it set up correctly. Understand what good performance looks like. Make improvements. Then add the next metric.
For comprehensive measurement approaches beyond just metrics, explore SMS marketing effectiveness frameworks that connect metrics to business impact.
Ready to start tracking metrics that actually drive better SMS marketing results? Start your free trial with Sakari and get access to analytics that matter.
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