Shopify SMS Marketing: 6 Best Apps & Easy Guide (2024 Update)

SMS Marketing is a tricky practice. Countless businesses and consumers give it a pretty bad name. And you, the merchant that considers using it, faces one challenge:

Should I risk my brand’s reputation just to find a new profit revenue? And most of all, will it be worth it?

The short answer is: it depends.

The more comprehensive answer is: if you know what you are doing, SMS marketing can skyrocket your sales!

Sound’s way too good to be true? As 134% of consumers are more likely to respond to SMSes over emails, and 54% prefer marketing material via SMS, SMS marketing is the best medium to communicate with your consumers.

So you can harness the power of SMS marketing to multiply your sales while maintaining a prestigious reputation, we invested a lot of time reviewing guides, brands, and case studies to give you this complete and information-packed guide on SMS marketing for Shopify.

What is SMS Marketing?

SMS marketing is also known as text marketing. Businesses use SMS marketing to communicate with their consumers by sending them promotions, coupons, and alerts. Consumers must give their permission to receive this marketing material and opt-in for SMS marketing. 

The goal of SMS marketing varies between businesses. Generally, SMS marketing is for increasing your conversion rates, solving high cart abandonment rates, showing customer appreciation, building brand loyalty, and maintaining consumer-to-brand engagement. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evWb-3qHdSA

Why You Should Use SMS Marketing to Generate Sales

1. SMS marketing offers worldwide reach: As 65% of the world’s population use SMSes, your reach isn’t limited to marketing in your country. This opportunity allows you to find more consumers who love your product and increase brand awareness. 
2. SMS marketing relies on permission: Because users have to give their permission and opt-in for SMS marketing, this makes it a highly targeted marketing channel. Therefore, you have more certainty that your SMS list comprises users who genuinely want to know more about your brand. This eliminates users who are not likely to convert. 
3. Users receive SMSes instantly: Around 67% of people use mobile devices globally, and SMSes don’t take time to send. So, this means that the chances of people receiving your SMSes instantly are very high. 
4. There are no bounce rates: Unlike emails, SMSes don’t bounce. Users will receive SMSes even when they’re not online. Knowing that your SMSes will always be delivered allows more room for your conversion rate to skyrocket. You never have to worry about your Shopify SMS notifications not working to yield the results you want.  
5. You can expect high open rates and interaction: With most people spending 5-6 hours on their phones daily, you can expect high open rates and interaction from your receivers. Contrasting emails, SMSes are more conveniently received. Because of this, they have higher chances of consumers reading them. 
6. Businesses can have more control over their expenses: Many Shopify SMS marketing apps allow you to pay per SMS sent. This pricing structure gives you more freedom to determine and manage your monthly expenses. 
7. SMS marketing allows you to save loads of time: Most, if not all, SMS marketing software offers automation. Through automation, you can set up SMS notifications and text messages that require little human management. Having this capability will save your business a significant amount of time. 
8. SMS marketing generates word of mouth (WOM) marketing: After receiving an SMS from your business, many consumers will use WOM to speak about your brand. To increase the chance of this happening, use SMS marketing material tailored to your audience. 
9. Businesses can optimize their consumer loyalty strategy: Through SMS marketing, you can offer incentives to consumers for joining your SMS list. For example, you might offer your consumers $5 off for subscribing. You can then send them an SMS coupon of $5 for a purchase of over $100. There are so many features like discounts, freebies, and specials that you can use to encourage loyalty among your SMS list. 
10. It’s easy to use, manage and track SMS marketing: Few people are tech-savvy and want to hire a mobile marketing agency for SMS marketing. This is perfectly fine because SMS marketing is extremely user-friendly, and it’s simple to manage. You don’t have to have coding or marketing experience.

How To Use SMS Marketing in Your Shopify Store

1. Understand Vital SMS Marketing Terminology

Before starting an SMS marketing strategy for your Shopify store, you need to understand the terminology. Doing this will ensure you make informed decisions regarding your SMS marketing on Shopify.

Here are the two most essential terms you have to know for SMS marketing:

1. Shortcode: You don’t have to use your private phone number to send and receive SMSes with shortcodes. Shortcodes are your chosen number, tied to your SMS marketing campaign. It’s always a fantastic idea to use shortcodes instead of your personal contact number to avoid confusing your personal contacts with your business ones. 
2. Keyword: To help you measure the success of each SMS marketing campaign, use keywords. Keywords are short phrases or pre-defined words you determine. It’s possible to use different keywords for different marketing campaigns. You can track how many times recipients used your keywords to measure the performance of your campaigns.

2. Learn About TCPA and GDPR Compliance

As SMS marketing is permission-based, there is a lot of regulations and compliance around it. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) regulates what type of messages businesses can send to their SMS list and when they can send these messages. 

Not only should you be well-versed with the TCPA Act, but the SMS marketing app you choose should also be. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rule protects your consumers’ data. GDRP ensures consumers don’t receive SMS marketing material without their permission. 

You must check for any other compliance and regulations around SMS marketing in your state or country. By taking this step, you can prevent many major and legal issues arising from your SMS marketing strategy. 

3. Develop an SMS Marketing Strategy

So your SMS marketing is successful, you need to create a game plan, AKA, your SMS marketing strategy. At this stage, determine what you want to achieve through SMS marketing and focus on one goal at a time.

Tips to consider for your SMS Marketing Strategy:

• Who is your target audience? Be specific about the values, traits, consumer behavior, and demographics of your target audience. The more specific you can be about your target audience, the better you can create a personalized, customer-centric strategy to engage them. Plus, understanding your target audience will also reveal the best times to send SMSes to your consumers. 
• How will you add value to your consumers? Regardless of your product, your SMS marketing strategy should add value and convenience to your customer’s lives. You can do this by offering irresistible incentives and exclusive promotions. It’s also crucial to promote information that interests your audience. 
• Will you combine SMS marketing with other tools? To get the best results from SMS marketing, using email marketing and social media marketing too is a great idea. However, you need to decide whether this works for your business and if you have the time and money to combine different tools with SMS marketing. 

4. Choose a Shopify SMS Marketing App

Now it’s time to choose the best Shopify SMS marketing app for your business. The app you use will house all your SMS marketing data, so you need to be sure about this choice from the get-go. 

5 Tips for Choosing the Best Shopify SMS marketing app:

1. The cost: Choose a Shopify SMS marketing app that accommodates your budget comfortably. Many apps offer different pricing structures. Some businesses may prefer a pay-per SMS option if they don’t send many SMSes. However, if you send thousands of SMSes, a fixed monthly fee might work better. Also, consider any additional costs for extra SMSes you might send outside your monthly plan. 
2. The features: Depending on your SMS marketing strategy, you may need an app that also offers email marketing and social media marketing functions. Other businesses might not need those additional features. Determine what features you need and choose an app that offers those features at an affordable fee.
3. The rating: Sticking to a rating above 4 stars is a great idea. You don’t want to be stuck with an app that doesn’t function correctly or doesn’t have speedy customer support. Choose an app with a rating of 4 stars or higher to avoid disappointment. 
4. The integrations: Having a Shopify SMS marketing app that offers hundreds of integrations may not be essential to you. However, determine the additional tools you need to use and if the software you choose can integrate with those tools. The more native integrations an app offers, the easier it will be to grow and manage your SMS list.  
5. Safety compliance: The Shopify SMS marketing app you pick must comply with safety regulations like the TCPA and GDPR rules. Prevent running into legal issues regarding your consumers’ data by choosing an app that complies with the mentioned regulations. 

6. Start Building your SMS List

After choosing your SMS provider and developing an SMS marketing strategy, you need to build your SMS list. You can do this by leveraging email marketing and social media marketing. Alternatively, you can create a successful referral program or practice loyalty marketing.

To successfully grow your SMS list, you must always try to understand what your consumers want and how you can give it to them in the best way. Use surveys and quizzes to collect this information and create personalized marketing strategies to grow your SMS list. 

7. Manage, Track and Improve your SMS List 

Your SMS marketing strategy might not achieve your goals the first time around, and that’s OK. Because of this, you should always stay updated with your key performance indicators (KPIs) to identify where you can make improvements in your SMS marketing strategy. 

A Few Essential Metrics to Track for Your SMS Marketing Strategy:

• Conversion rate: How many consumers complete your desired action? 
• Click-through rate (CTR): How many subscribers click on the link in your SMSes? 
• Subscriber growth rate: How many subscribers do you gain monthly? 
• Opt-out rate: How many subscribers opt-out of your SMS list monthly? 
• Cart abandonment rate: How many subscribers click on the link in your SMSes, add products to their carts but don’t complete the checkout process? 

6 Best Shopify SMS Marketing Apps:

ONE+

ONE+ is the perfect Shopify app for SMS marketing. You can create SMS automation and send broadcast messages to a large group of receivers. ONE+ also complies with the TCPA and the GDPR to keep your SMS marketing strategy by the book.

With this Shopify SMS marketing app, businesses can use email marketing features, pop-ups, discounts, real-time social proof, and gamification. ONE+ also allows you to segment consumers, create product upsells and manage a consumer loyalty program. 

Pricing

• Free 30-day trial is available
• Free plan is available
• Kickstarter plan is $15 p/m
• Small Business plan is $29 p/m
• High Traffic Shop plan is $70 p/m

Pros

• A free trial is available, and it gives businesses enough time to test out the app.
• The free plan provides sufficient features for startup businesses.
• Businesses can do much more than just SMS marketing to engage their consumers and increase their conversion rates.
• You can integrate over 18 apps for SMS marketing.
• ONE+ has safety features to secure your recipients’ data.

Cons

• There is no cart abandonment feature for SMS marketing.
• Some businesses might not need all the extra features besides SMS marketing functions.
• The SMS credits for each plan are low. 

Shopify app reviews: 5\5 stars (528 reviews)

Postscript

Unlike ONE+, Postscript specializes in SMS marketing only. Businesses can develop a TCPA compliant SMS list, automate their SMS marketing and segment their recipients. There is also a robust tracking feature that provides reports on your messages, campaigns, automation, CTR, and so much more!

To optimize your SMS list, Postscript allows you to build landing pages, create email opt-ins, and use pop-ups. You can integrate Postscript with Gorgias, Klaviyo, Zapier, Privy, and Sumo, to name a few. 

Pricing

• Free 30-day trial is available
• $25 p/m for 2500 SMS credits
• $100 p/m for 10000 SMS credits
• $500 p/m for 50,500 SMS credits

Pros

• A free trial is available with sufficient features and time to give businesses a good idea of how the app works.
• The pricing is based on your growth, so small businesses still have access to Postscript’s advanced features.
• This is an ideal choice for businesses that only want SMS marketing functions.
• The dashboard is clear and easy to navigate.
• Postscript includes security features for your recipient’s data.

Cons

• The paid plans can become very pricey for small and medium-sized companies.
• Businesses who want other communication functions available won’t find value in this app.
• The platform focuses heavily on accommodating USA consumers only. 

Shopify app reviews: 5/5 stars (1319 reviews)

SMSBump

Developed to enable GDPR and TCPA compliance, SMSBump offers SMS and MMS flows, customer segmentation, A/B testing, and text automation like abandoned cart reminders. Businesses can also use and track discount codes, opt-out lists and schedule their SMS campaigns. SMSBump alerts are also effective for keeping your consumers informed and engaged.

You can choose to send messages to specific countries at specific times, too. Businesses can also set their budget, and their SMS marketing costs will never increase that threshold. Additionally, you can use images, emojis, and GIFs in your text. SMSBump offers detailed analytics on your CTR, automation, campaigns, budget, and product orders. 

Pricing

• From 1.5 cents per message for US recipients

Pros

• All businesses have access to SMSBump’s best features while paying per SMS sent.
• Businesses have more control over their SMS marketing expenses with SMSBump’s pricing structure.
• SMSBump provides features for SMS marketing solely, without additional, unnecessary functions.
• SMSBump has safety features to protect your recipient’s data.
• You can rely on in-depth tracking and reporting for all the vital metrics. 
• Businesses can include media in their SMSes. 

Cons

• The price of sending SMSes to countries outside the US might be expensive for many businesses.
• Businesses that send a lot of SMSes will find their monthly fee is pricey.
• The dashboard is very busy and requires more time to explore before diving into SMS marketing. 

Shopify app reviews: 4.8/5 stars (1717 reviews)

Klaviyo

If you want more than only SMS marketing features, Klaviyo might be your ideal choice. Klaviyo allows you to segment consumers and uses dynamic automation. You can measure your business’s essential metrics and create social media ads too. Klaviyo SMS marketing app is also GDPR and TCPA compliant.

Businesses can build personalized forms to encourage users to opt-in and use A/B testing to determine the best-performing opt-in forms. Klaviyo integrates with over 100 apps, and they have a community of users to help each other get the best from this app. 

Pricing

• From $5 p/m (contact Klaviyo for an exact quote)

Pros

• The pricing starts at affordable rates for small businesses and accommodates business scalability.
• There are countless apps you can integrate with Klaviyo.
• The dashboard is clear and easy to navigate.
• Klaviyo has security features for your recipient’s data.
• You can create social media ads.
• Klaviyo houses countless conversion rate optimization tools in one app. 

Cons

• There is no free trial available.
• The pricing is unclear and can become very expensive as your SMS list grows.
• Users report Klaviyo decreases the speed performance on their websites and the SMS marketing features have many bugs and glitches. 

Shopify app reviews: 4.5/5 stars (1298 reviews)

Omnisend

Focusing on email and SMS marketing, Omnisend allows brands to use pre-built workflows. Businesses can use these workflows for cart abandonment, new subscribers, product abandonment, consumers about to churn, and consumer feedback. 

Omnisend also provides detailed analytics on your sales, campaigns, automation, visitors, forms, and personalized benchmarks. Unfortunately, Omnisend doesn’t have many integration options as this app only integrates with Gorgias, Justuno, Recharge, Aftership, LoyaltyLion, and Loox.

Pricing

• Free 14-day trial available
• $0.015 per SMS sent to the US
• $0.045 per MMS sent to the US

Pros

• A free trial is available.
• Businesses can manage their costs better with the per SMS pricing structure.
• You can manage your email marketing and SMS marketing with one tool.
• The dashboard is engaging, intuitive, and easy to use.
• The tracking and reporting are in-depth and clear.
• Businesses can save tonnes of time through pre-built workflows and templates. 

Cons

• Omnisend lacks a variety of integration options.
• The free trial is not as long as most Shopify SMS marketing apps.
• The cost of SMS marketing can become very high if you’re sending SMSes and MMS to countries outside the US.

Shopify app reviews: 4.7/5 stars (3900 reviews) 

Tobi

Tobi is all about SMS marketing and enables businesses to create cross-sell and upsell products, use SMS marketing automation and re-target consumers through SMS. You can also use discounts, send birthday and winback customer messages, and leverage pop-ups.

To increase your open rates, Tobi tracks in-depth consumer behavior. Additionally, businesses can use their pre-built templates and access tracking data on sales, consumer location, new subscribers, and much more. You can integrate ReConvert and SMS with Tobi. 

Pricing

• Free plan is available
• Pro Go plan is $0.01 p/m and starts from $0.029 per SMS sent
• Pro Flex plan is $29 p/m and starts from $0.0199 per SMS sent 

Pros

• A free plan is available.
• Tobi provides SMS marketing features only, which is ideal for businesses that only need these functions.
• The tracking and reporting are in-depth.
• Businesses have better control over their monthly expenses through the pay-per SMS pricing structure.
• The pre-built templates can save businesses a lot of time.
• The Pro Go plan includes 100 free SMSes, and the Pro Flex plan includes 300 free SMSes. 

Cons

• Tobi lacks many integrations.
• If you want to send SMSes outside the US, this may be expensive.
• This Shopify SMS marketing app is not ideal for businesses that want more than only SMS marketing features. 

Shopify app reviews: 4.8/5 stars (686 reviews)

Conclusion 

SMS marketing is a great tool to increase user engagement, brand loyalty, and customer experience with your brand. Any of the best Shopify SMS marketing apps can boost the performance of your Shopify store through a quick and easy marketing medium. 

For small businesses, our top choice for Shopify SMS marketing apps is SMSBump. Offering all you need for SMS marketing, SMSBump allows businesses to control their expenses too. Small businesses can use media, pop-ups, and automation for their SMS marketing strategy while accessing detailed analytics.

If your business is a large enterprise, ONE+ is your best bet. This Shopify SMS marketing app allows you to use gamification, upsells, pop-ups, and email marketing to enhance your SMS marketing strategy. The pricing is also very affordable for large businesses. 

References and Sources

1. Smallbiztrends: 54% of Consumers Want Marketing Text Messages But Only 11% of Businesses Send Them
2. G2: 45 SMS Marketing Statistics Your Customers Wish You Knew
3. bankmycell: How Many Smartphones Are in the World?
4. Statista: How much time on average do you spend on your phone on a daily basis
5. ONE+
6. Postscript
7. SMSBump
8. Klaviyo
9. Omnisend
10. Tobi