SMS marketing continues to significantly impact modern business growth trajectories, particularly when integrated strategically within a broader marketing ecosystem. SMS marketing provides valuable feedback — customers can reply, follow links or participate in polls. With real-time data, brands, companies and enterprises can refine their offers, segment their audiences and personalize communications to drive growth further.
But is cold texting illegal? In most cases, yes — it is prohibited. Under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), businesses must get prior written consent before sending commercial texts to customers. Without the correct permissions, companies risk legal issues, fines and penalties.
In this article, we cover prominent laws and SMS compliance best practices to empower businesses to adhere to the most pressing rules and regulations. We'll highlight the relevant legal frameworks, offering practical advice for obtaining consent and approaching SMS marketing with complete fairness.
What Is Cold Texting?
Cold texting is the practice of sending SMS messages to potential customers without their prior consent. It's popular in sales and marketing, but is seldom condoned as it involves contacting recipients who haven't opted in. As such, cold texting becomes a legal risk for marketers and highly intrusive for customers.
The Difference Between Cold Texting and Cold Calling
When you cold-call customers, you make unsolicited phone calls to promote your business, products or services, also known as making telemarketing calls. When you cold text recipients, you send unsolicited text messages to initiate promotional communication.
Cold texting is considered illegal under certain texting laws because unsolicited marketing and promotional messages violate consent permissions, data security rules and privacy principles. Regulations like the TCPA require prior consent, protecting consumers from unwanted and intrusive communications. There are very fine legal lines to toe to ensure compliance, fair practice and good conduct.
There's another type of invasive marketing tactic related to cold texting and calling — cold emailing. Here, you would be sending unsolicited marketing electronic messages to individuals who haven't opted in, shown interest or established a prior relationship with your business.
General Laws To Know About and Keep In Mind
There are industries that can use text marketing, and generally, businesses have to adhere to the following laws and guidelines:
- TCPA: Requires businesses to obtain written consent before making certain types of sales-oriented calls, sending promotional messages, using auto-dialers or prerecorded messages.
- Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act: Regulates commercial email marketing, ensuring clear opt-out options for customers.
- Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) Guidelines: Ensure best practices in the wireless communication industry.
- Various State Laws: Some U.S. states have stricter legal requirements regarding regulation, such as texting hours or additional permissions.
Key Regulations: The Rules That Matter Most for SMS Marketers
The most important types of consent that are required before sending promotional texts are guided by these three major rules:
- TCPA: To restrict telemarketing solicitations and the use of automated phone tools and platforms.
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): Guarding against unregulated use of personal data within EU text marketing and commercial communications, with a special focus on promotions to EU and EEA residents.
- Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL): Regulates the use of electronic and text messaging for commercial purposes.
Note: The CASL and CAN-SPAM Act are similar but differ in consent requirements, strictness and scope, with CASL being the stricter version.
Consequences of Non-Compliance
Similar to other well-regulated industries committed to safeguarding the rights of customers and the general consumer public, there are consequences to non-compliance in SMS marketing. Understanding SMS compliance protects businesses, marketing teams and enterprises from legal action, harsh fines and penalties and reputational damage.
So, what are the repercussions of crossing the legal lines and falling into the trap of non-compliance in SMS marketing? These five categories cover the most detrimental consequences for businesses:
- Business suspensions.
- Client, customer, supplier, partner and revenue losses.
- Harsh fines and penalties.
- Lawsuits and other legal ramifications.
- Serious reputational damage.
Best Practice in SMS Marketing: 10 Tips
Following the best practices is one of the most powerful ways to build a compliant and highly effective SMS campaign strategy. Make these 10 tips part of your broader marketing approach:
Tip #1: Be overt about your opt-in and opt-out options.
Tip #2: Obtain written consent from potential customers.
Tip #3: Research the right SMS message timing restrictions.
Tip #4: Avoid overly suggestive, persuasive or high-risk content.
Tip #5: Comply with appropriate messaging volume and frequency.
Tip #6: Identify your business brand with full transparency every single time.
Tip #7: Pay attention to message length, purpose and desired outcomes.
Tip #8: Consider using advanced tools, TCPA-approved platforms, resources and SMS providers.
Tip #9: Monitor and track your SMS campaigns and keep complete marketing records.
Tip #10: Tailor SMS messaging for personalized communication.
Bonus tip: Integrate SMS with other marketing channels, such as social media, to maintain a fine blend of compliance and creativity. Research your options for compliant warm texting, which entails making contact with individuals who've already shown interest via the appropriate opt-in forms. This builds customer relationships, facilitates customer engagement and helps you launch effective email marketing campaigns and SEO-driven content marketing.
Common Queries To Guide Your Decision-Making
Looking for short, sharp answers to some common questions to help you in your strategizing and decision-making processes? Take a look at these eight information essentials.
Can You Legally Text People if You Already Have Their Phone Numbers?
No, having people's numbers doesn't give you the automatic right to text them for promotional purposes. The correct permissions are required by law.
Does Adding a Phone Number to a Website or Email Signature Count as Permission To Text?
Adding phone numbers to websites or email signatures doesn't constitute written permission. The TCPA has clear guidelines about obtaining the correct SMS marketing customer permissions.
What Fines Could Businesses Face for Violations?
SMS marketing fines range anywhere from a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars for texting infringements and violations.
Are There Texting Hours Businesses Must Follow?
While there aren't explicit texting hours across jurisdictions and industries, best practices and some state laws recommend a window from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. (local time) as reasonable text messaging hours.
Which Regulations Apply if a Business Texts International Contacts?
The GDPR (Europe) and CASL (Canada) are the most common guidelines outside the U.S. for business texts to international contacts.
How Do You Set Up Opt-In and Opt-Out Processes?
The SMS opt-in/out workflow involves obtaining prior written consent, disclosing specific business details and ensuring certain customer confirmations are in place.
Are There Alternatives to Cold Text Messages?
The most popular alternatives to cold texting include warm texting, compliant email marketing, social media outreach, SEO content marketing and paid ads.
What Are the Benefits of Text Marketing Compliance?
The benefits of compliant text messaging include building trust, avoiding fines and legal consequences, improving message deliverability and enhancing customer engagement.
Understand the Parameters of Compliance: Approach SMS Marketing Responsibly
SMS marketing is a high-impact, high-ROI channel that supports growth by improving engagement, boosting sales and enhancing customer retention, especially when used as part of a multi-channel strategy. Marketers have to adhere to the major SMS regulations and follow through with proper compliance.
Swift SMS Gateway provides full-scale SMS communication services via alerts, applications and advertising services that anchor modern businesses with turnkey solutions that protect and grow their SMS marketing operations. Interested to know more? Contact us or sign up for a demo today!
