How do I run a promotional SMS campaign?
Run a promotional SMS campaign in five steps: build a consent-based opt-in list, segment it by behavior, write a short offer with a clear call to action and opt-out, schedule the send for a good local time, then measure clicks and revenue. BuzzBlaster handles the bulk send; CartBoss covers automated recovery.
Promotional SMS — sometimes called a "blast" or "broadcast" — is a one-to-many text you send to your whole list or a segment of it: a flash sale, a product drop, a seasonal offer. It's different from the automated cart-recovery and lifecycle texts that fire off a single shopper's behavior. The rest of this guide walks each step in order, so you can run your first campaign cleanly and repeat it every month.
Step 1: Build a compliant opt-in list
Collect explicit SMS consent before you send anything. Add an opt-in checkbox at checkout and a phone-capture popup on your store, each stating you'll send marketing texts and that message rates apply. Keep timestamped records of every consent. A clean, permission-based list protects you legally and keeps opt-out rates low.
Consent is not a formality — it's the foundation the whole channel rests on. Promotional texts require prior express written consent under the US TCPA, and a lawful basis plus opt-in under GDPR and PECR in the EU and UK. In practice that means an unchecked box the shopper actively ticks, clear language about what they'll receive, and a stored record of when and how they agreed. Never buy a list or import phone numbers you gathered for order updates; sending marketing to those numbers is both non-compliant and a fast route to spam complaints.
Step 2: Segment your audience
Don't blast everyone the same text. Split your list by purchase history, engagement, location, and language so each message fits the reader. A win-back offer belongs to lapsed buyers; an early-access drop belongs to your most active subscribers. Tighter segments lift response and cut opt-outs, because people only get offers that matter to them.
Start with a few segments you can act on immediately: recent buyers, lapsed customers who haven't ordered in 60–90 days, high spenders, and everyone who has never purchased. Layer location on top so you send in the right language and the right time zone. The goal isn't a hundred micro-segments — it's making sure a discount on cat food doesn't land with the dog owners on your list. Relevance is what earns the next open.
Step 3: Write the message (with an example)
Lead with the offer, keep it under 160 characters, and make one thing obvious to do. Name your brand, state the deal and its deadline, add a trackable link and a discount code, and close with "Reply STOP to opt out." Short, specific, and urgent beats clever every time.
A 160-character limit is a technical one, not just a stylistic preference: a standard GSM-7 SMS fits 160 characters, and longer copy splits into 153-character segments that each bill separately. Adding an emoji switches the whole message to Unicode encoding, which caps a single segment at 70 characters — so one emoji can quietly double your cost. Write tight, put the offer first, and use a short branded link so the URL doesn't eat your character budget. Here's the shape to aim for:
ACME: Spring Sale is on — 15% off everything, today only. Shop acme.co/s/xY7 · code SPRING15. Reply STOP to opt out.
Illustrative example. The brand, code, link, and offer are placeholders — swap in your own.
Step 4: Schedule for the right time
Send when people can act, in their local time. For most stores that means late morning or early evening on a weekday, and never outside quiet hours — TCPA limits marketing texts to 8 a.m.–9 p.m. local. Schedule by recipient time zone, avoid holidays unless the offer fits them, and give links time to convert before the deadline.
Cadence matters as much as timing. Most stores land around two to four promotional texts a month: enough to stay top of mind, not so many that people tune out or opt out. If your offer has a deadline, a two-message pattern works well — an announcement when the sale opens, and a short "last chance" reminder before it closes, sent only to people who haven't already bought. Let your opt-out rate be the referee: if it spikes after a send, you're going too often or hitting the wrong segment.
Step 5: Measure clicks and revenue
Judge each campaign on revenue, not vanity metrics. Track delivered messages, link clicks, orders, and revenue per send using UTM tags and unique discount codes, and watch the opt-out rate as your guardrail. Compare segments and send times across campaigns so every blast teaches you what to send next.
Attach a UTM-tagged link and a campaign-specific discount code to every send, and you can trace an order straight back to the text that drove it. Revenue per message sent is the number that matters most — it tells you whether a campaign paid for itself and lets you compare a flash sale against an early-access drop on equal footing. Keep a simple running log of each send's segment, timing, offer, click rate, revenue, and opt-out rate; a few campaigns in, the pattern of what your list responds to becomes obvious.
Compliance quick-check
Before every send, confirm four things: you have explicit opt-in consent on record, every message identifies your brand, every message carries a working "Reply STOP" opt-out, and you're inside local quiet hours. Honor STOP requests instantly and keep your consent logs. For the full legal picture, see our SMS compliance guide.
- Consent on file — explicit, opt-in, timestamped, and specific to marketing SMS.
- Brand identified — the recipient knows who's texting from the first word.
- Easy opt-out — "Reply STOP to opt out" in the message, honored automatically.
- Quiet hours respected — nothing sent outside 8 a.m.–9 p.m. in the recipient's local time.
These are the mechanics every reputable sender follows; the underlying law (TCPA in the US, GDPR and PECR in the EU and UK) is covered in depth in our SMS compliance guide for e-commerce.
Example campaign calendar
A simple monthly rhythm keeps you top of mind without fatiguing your list. Here's a sample month for a store sending three promotional texts — a mid-month offer, a segment-only early access, and an end-of-month last chance. Adjust the cadence to your opt-out rate and seasonal calendar.
| Date | Campaign | Segment | Message angle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 8, 2026 | Spring sale kickoff | All subscribers | Store-wide offer, three-day deadline |
| Apr 17, 2026 | New arrivals early access | Top spenders | First look, code before public launch |
| Apr 29, 2026 | Last chance | Openers who haven't bought | Final 24-hour reminder |
Illustrative schedule, 2026. Adjust dates, segments, and frequency to your own store and opt-out rate.
Which tool should you use?
Match the tool to the job. For bulk promotional blasts — flash sales, product drops, seasonal offers — BuzzBlaster sends to 30+ countries at about half Klaviyo's per-message price, with no monthly platform fee. For automated cart recovery and lifecycle flows, CartBoss runs those on a pay-as-you-go basis. Many stores use both.
The two tools come from the same team and split the work on purpose. If your goal is to broadcast an offer to your whole subscriber list, BuzzBlaster is the campaign sender — built for high-volume promotional blasts without a subscription eating your margin. CartBoss is the other half of the picture: it doesn't do one-off promotional blasts, it recovers abandoned carts and runs post-purchase and win-back flows automatically, charging only per message sent. Run your promotions through BuzzBlaster, let CartBoss handle the recovery leg, and the two cover a store's SMS needs end to end.