SMS advertising has been slow to take hold in the United States but a recent study by Text2VIP shows that it definitely has an impact on consumer behavior.

An SMS campaign (short for Short Message Service) is basically when a business sends out mass text messages to mobile devices of people who have signed up to receive alerts from them. These messages range from a text alert to deals currently being offered by a merchant to a coupon that can be redeemed by showing the message on your device to the clerk.

To test the effectiveness of this marketing medium, Text2VIP tracked an SMS campaign for Bare Feet Shoes to see how SMS advertising affected consumer behavior. What they found was:

  • When measuring mobile-to-online purchase behavior, SMS heavily influenced the consumer’s purchase decision, generating a 2:1 return on ad spend.
  • SMS advertising improved Ability to Directly Identify Product of Interest by 67%:
  • SMS produced greater consumer relevance and resulted in enhancing consumer capacity to find the relevant item of interest by 67%.
  • SMS advertising increased Consumer Engagement in the Funnel by 27%.

Harnessing the power of mass text messaging may not be the best route for all consumer demographics, however as smartphones become a fixture in people’s lives you can certainly see how investigating an SMS campaign can be enticing.