SMS Marketing
SMS marketing is the use of permission-based text messages to send promotions, reminders, alerts, updates, and customer conversations directly to subscribers.
Search clear, practical definitions for SMS marketing, omnichannel marketing, WhatsApp marketing, and email marketing terms used in modern customer communication.
Use this glossary as a reference for planning campaigns, writing content, building automation, explaining compliance, training employees, or helping customers understand business messaging.
SMS marketing is the use of permission-based text messages to send promotions, reminders, alerts, updates, and customer conversations directly to subscribers.
An opt-in is the action a customer takes to give a business permission to send marketing or notification messages to their phone number or email address.
An opt-out is a customer request to stop receiving messages. In SMS, this commonly happens when a subscriber replies STOP. In email, it happens through an unsubscribe link.
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act is a U.S. law that affects how businesses contact consumers by phone and text. It is a core compliance consideration for SMS marketing.
CTIA guidelines are messaging standards used by wireless carriers to protect consumers and reduce unwanted or inappropriate text messaging activity.
An SMS keyword is a short word customers text to a number to join a list, request information, receive a coupon, or trigger an automated response.
A short code is a shortened phone number used for high-volume SMS messaging. It is commonly used for text-to-join campaigns, alerts, and large-scale messaging programs.
10DLC stands for 10-digit long code. It allows businesses to send application-to-person SMS messages from local-looking numbers after proper registration and campaign approval.
A drip campaign is an automated sequence of messages sent over time. Businesses use drip campaigns for onboarding, follow-up, reminders, education, retention, and reactivation.
Marketing automation uses rules, triggers, and workflows to send the right message at the right time based on customer behavior, lifecycle stage, or campaign goals.
Omnichannel marketing coordinates multiple communication channels so customers receive consistent, connected messages across SMS, email, WhatsApp, web, and other touchpoints.
The customer journey is the path a person takes from first discovering a business to becoming a lead, customer, repeat buyer, and loyal advocate.
Segmentation is the practice of grouping contacts by behavior, location, purchase history, interests, lifecycle stage, or engagement so messages are more relevant.
Contact management is the process of storing, organizing, updating, and using customer information such as phone numbers, emails, preferences, tags, and message history.
WhatsApp marketing uses WhatsApp Business or the WhatsApp Business Platform to communicate with customers through conversational messages, templates, media, and follow-up workflows.
WhatsApp Business is a business-focused app that lets companies create a profile, use catalogs, organize conversations with labels, and communicate professionally with customers.
The WhatsApp Business API, also called the WhatsApp Business Platform, enables scalable WhatsApp messaging through integrations, automation, approved templates, and multi-user workflows.
A WhatsApp template is a pre-approved message format used for certain outbound business messages such as reminders, confirmations, updates, and permitted marketing messages.
A WhatsApp catalog lets a business display products or services inside WhatsApp so customers can browse items, ask questions, and continue the conversation.
Email marketing uses permission-based email campaigns to send newsletters, promotions, updates, educational content, offers, receipts, and customer follow-up messages.
An unsubscribe link gives email subscribers a clear way to stop receiving future marketing emails and is an important part of compliant email marketing.
Email deliverability measures how successfully emails reach the inbox instead of being blocked, bounced, or routed to spam folders.
Open rate is the percentage of delivered emails that are opened by recipients. It helps evaluate subject lines, sender trust, timing, and audience interest.
Click-through rate is the percentage of recipients who click a campaign link. It helps measure interest, offer strength, message clarity, and landing page relevance.
Conversion rate is the percentage of people who complete a desired action, such as booking an appointment, buying a product, submitting a form, or requesting a quote.
Marketing ROI compares the revenue or value generated by a campaign against the cost of running it, including messaging, software, staffing, and advertising costs.
Personalization uses customer data such as name, location, purchase history, appointment date, or preferences to make messages more relevant and useful.
Abandoned cart recovery is an automated follow-up workflow that reminds shoppers to complete a purchase after leaving items in an online cart.
A review request is a message asking a customer to leave feedback after a purchase, appointment, service call, event, or support interaction.
A loyalty campaign encourages repeat business through rewards, VIP offers, points, birthday messages, exclusive promotions, and personalized customer follow-up.
Customer retention is the strategy of keeping existing customers engaged and purchasing again through useful communication, service, loyalty offers, and follow-up.
Use TextBlast to manage SMS, WhatsApp, email, opt-ins, contacts, automation, segmentation, analytics, and customer follow-up from one platform.
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