How to find, measure, and improve your SMS click-through rates

It’s no secret that SMS marketing is one of the best ways to promote your brand and generate sales. In fact, when correctly done, SMS marketing produces an ROI of over 1,000%.

Such ROI is within reach if your SMS click-through rate (CTR) is high. But how high should you aim for? This is where benchmarking your click-through rate with your industry takes center stage.

The good news is, we’ve done the heavy lifting by surveying 400 businesses to identify the SMS click-through rate in 16 industries. Without further ado, let’s explore our 2024 SMS click-through rate benchmarks.

SMS click-through rate is the percentage of recipients who click links in your SMS divided by the total number of recipients.

For instance, you could send a text message blast to 1,000 contacts. If 100 contacts click a link in the text, that puts your SMS click-though rate at 10%. 

SMS Click-through rate formula

Total SMS contacts – Contacts who click a link/Total SMS contacts * 100 = SMS Click-through rate

How to use this benchmarks report

Every business owner who is reading this content is in one of these categories. 

1. Click-through rate is within industry range. Kudos! Your text marketing strategy works well. Improving it by running A/B tests frequently. 
2. Click-through rate beats the high end of the industry range. Congrats! You’re outperforming your peers. Double down on what’s making you successful.  
3. Click-through rate is below the industry range. Use the tips we outline in this article to improve your SMS CTR and boost your conversion rates. 

Our research method involved surveying 400 US-based business owners in December 2023. Afterward, we took the average of each metric overall and by industry.

SMS click-through rate benchmarks
Overall	19-32%
Consumer services	21-35%
Construction	21-35%
Ecommerce/retail	21-35%
Commercial services	21-35%
Education	11-20%
Finance	21-35%
Healthcare	21-35%
Hospitality	21-35%
Human resources	36-50%
Insurance	21-35%
Legal	21-35%
Manfacturing	21-35%
Nonprofit	11-20%
Real Estate	21-35%
Technology	21-35%
Travel	1-10%

To track SMS campaigns in SimpleTexting:

• Open your dashboard.
• Navigate to Analytics, then ‘Messaging report’
• Look at the far right of the ‘Detailed breakdown’ section to see the CTR for text campaigns that include links.

Note: You need to use SimpleTexting’s built-in link shortener to track link clicks. 

If your SMS CTR is below the industry range or you just want to improve it, these tips will help.

1. Include a clear call-to-action (CTA). 

Sending text messages that have a clear CTA is vital. Don’t just include a link with no context. If the CTA is vague, your contacts could become less likely to engage with it. Make it clear where your link will lead the contact and what they should do there. 

Avoid using clever words that may be difficult to understand. Also, use copywriting principles like the fear of missing out, what’s in it for me (incentive), and specificity. 

Below, we’ll share some examples of CTAs, highlight their problems, and show the improved versions. 

CTA	Problem	Improved CTA
Tap to claim your discount!	Not specific. Lacks urgency.	Claim your 15% discount now.
Reserve your spot today!	Not specific. Lacks urgency.	Reserve now–5 spots left!
Get it now: Limited time offer!	Unclear urgency.	Last chance to grab your limited time offer!
Get VIP access!	Vague on what VIP access entails.	Get VIP perks: Limited memberships available!
Don’t miss out – act fast!	Vague. Lacks specific action.	Act now to save 50%!
Unlock savings – Click here!	Lacks context. No incentive.	Unlock $10 off your next purchase!

2. Check your text frequency.

Most people would frown at a business that sends them text messages all the time. If you do this, contacts could become annoyed and opt out in droves.

Even if your sales are down, don’t go texting your contacts thrice every week. While it’s just texting to you, some of your contacts could feel harassed every time your message shows up.

In a recent study we conducted, 48% of respondents said they want to get texts from businesses once every other week, followed by 36% who prefer once a week. This insight implies a cadence of two to four promotional text messages per month is ideal. 

If you must increase the frequency, monitor your engagement metrics to ensure your contacts are not overwhelmed.

3. Segment your contacts. 

A 2021 McKinsey report found companies grew 40% more when they personalized their messages. 

Guess what helps with personalization? Contact segmentation. 

Segmenting your contacts lets you personalize your text messages with relevant content and offers. And its relevant content that leads to a high CTR. 

To segment your contacts, use data points like:

• Location
• Interests
• Past purchases
• Program participation
• Birthdays
• Opt-in date

4. Run A/B tests. 

A/B tests are experiments for optimizing your text messages and getting a better CTR. 

Don’t know what to test? Start with your messaging, offers, CTA text, CTA placement, discount offers, message send times, and more.

One SimpleTexting customer once ran an A/B test with images and had 2% better CTR.

Will images work for you? Perhaps. The only way to know is by testing, analyzing the results, and refining your approach. Continuous testing allows you to iterate, improve over time, and drive higher click-through rates.

5. Personalize your text messages.

Personalization goes beyond customer segmentation. 

When sending texts, you can include information like a contact’s name to create a sense of individualized attention. You could also address contacts by mentioning their business title.

You can do both with SimpleTexting to foster a stronger connection with your audience and drive more click-throughs.

At SimpleTexting, our 100+ customer stories show us SMS is powerful for generating business results. 

From these stories, we’ve learned that personalization, A/B testing, and other tips we’ve mentioned are key to boost CTR and conversion. Implementing them will benefit your business immensely. But to do this, you need an SMS software like SimpleTexting.

17,000+ businesses use SimpleTexting to send messages to their contacts every month.

Besides our 30+ video reviews, we have an average rating of 4.7/5 on G2 (626 reviews), 4.7/5 on Capterra (238 reviews), and 4.6/5 on Trustpilot (273 reviews). 

Ready to try it out? Start a SimpleTexting free trial for 14 days and chat with our team if you have questions about CTRs.