Mobile Messaging Metrics that Matter

You likely receive text messages from retailers letting you know about new promotions, order status, delivery status, etc. 

But how many texts do you receive from the actual brands you’re loyal to? 

Text messaging feels like a personal channel for brands to use to communicate with their customers, but it’s an extremely effective channel for cutting through the noise and capturing the attention of customers. 

If you have a text messaging program already in place, here are seven mobile metrics you need to keep a pulse check on to ensure the success of your communications. 

Seven Mobile Metrics to Watch 

Let’s take a look at seven mobile metrics to keep a pulse check in so your text messaging program is as successful as it can be. 

Delivery Rate

Before you determine how many people are opening your texts or unsubscribing, you need to ensure your text messaging program doesn’t have a delivery rate issue. What we mean by that is are subscribers receiving the text messages you’re sending? 

If subscribers aren’t receiving your texts, they can’t engage with your content. Low delivery rates also lead to lower ROI since subscribers aren’t able to click on the links within texts nor are they converting off these links. 

Low delivery rates could also signal a compliance issue presented by carriers. If you’re not in compliance with the original goals you stated when completing a shortcode form, carriers could prohibit your texts from being sent. 

Improving Your Delivery Rate

You likely have a data issue where you’ll need to verify subscribers’ phone numbers. 

Also verify you’re sending out the original amount of texts you stated in your short code application, as well as the content you outlined. Carriers can audit your texts at any time, and if you’re not following through on your original promises, your texts could be blocked from being sent. 

Open Rate

Your subscribers are receiving your text messages. But how many are actually clicking to open the message versus deleting the message without reading it? 

Your open rate is the number of people who successfully received a text message from your brand divided by the number of people who opened it. 

Open rates are one of the most important mobile messaging metrics to keep track of on a regular basis. If customers aren’t opening your text messages, your click-through rates and conversion rates are going to reflect low numbers too and your unsubscribers could increase, leaving your brand without the ability to communicate with them through text messaging in the future. 

Improving Your Open Rate

Consumer attention spans are low and if the first few sentences or even words don’t catch our eye, we’re likely not opening the content. 

Test the copy at the beginning of your text messaging. You don’t want to click-bait your subscribers too much, but you do want to spark their interest enough to open your content. You could try adding the recipient's first name in the text message to increase levels of personalization as well. 

Unsubscribe Rate

Your unsubscribe rate is the number of subscribers that have chosen to opt- out of receiving future texts from your brand.

To unsubscribe from a text messaging program, standard language like STOP is usually sent from the subscriber to your brand’s shortcode. Once they unsubscribe, you legally cannot send them another text unless they opt back into your program.

Improving Your Unsubscribe Rate

Check back with the original goals of your text messaging program. What did subscribers expect from your brand? How many text messages did you originally say subscribers could expect to receive? Are you being true to what you originally set out to accomplish? 

Alter the content being sent, the frequency of texts being sent, or perhaps even the time of day.

Click-through Rate

One of the main use cases for a  texting messaging program for manufacturers is the ability to send promotions and coupons in an attempt to drive sales. 

An example of a promotional text sent by a grill manufacturer may look something like this,“🔥Get ready for sizzling deals! Enjoy up to 40% off on our top grills this weekend only. Use code BBQ at checkout! 🌭” This example is most likely coupled with a link that takes customers to view grills available to purchase with the coupon. 

The number of subscribers who click the link is your click-through rate. 

Improving Your Click-through Rate

If you’re not seeing as many subscribers click the link included in your text messaging program, you likely have a copy issue or you’re not being clear enough in your messaging. 

Try to create a more compelling copy that makes users want to click on the action you want them to take. This could mean being more conversational, including emojis in your texts, or possibly making the product you’re promoting more personalized to the subscriber. 

You may also want to take a pulse check to see if your messaging is clear to subscribers that they should click on the link to take them to your brand’s website. It may also indicate your promotion isn’t attractive enough to customers to click the link. 

Conversion Rate

Subscribers are clicking on the link you’ve included in the text message, but are they purchasing? 

The conversion rate is the number of people who made a purchase through a link that you sent in a text message. 

Conversion rate differs from click-through rate. The click-through rate compares the number of people who opened an email versus the number of people who opened the email and clicked the link whereas the conversion rate looks at the number of people who clicked the link versus the number of people who purchased from that link. 

It’s great if your click-through rate is high, but if your customers aren’t purchasing even with the special promotion, you need to rethink your marketing strategy to get the results you want for your business. 

Improving Your Conversion Rate

To improve your conversion rate, play around with the size of your promotion, or perhaps the timeliness of your text message. For instance, if you’re selling heavy winter jackets, many people aren’t going to buy them in the summer. 

You may also want to increase the level of personalization. Are you sending out links to products that customers actually care about or is it more generic products when you think about it? By segmenting your subscribers into groups based on behaviors, preferences, products purchased, etc. you can better control the levels of personalization and send highly relevant promotions that help drive sales for your business. 

List Growth Rate

List growth provides insights into how many new subscribers your brand is acquiring for its text messaging program.  

List growth is important because it shows the expansion of your text messaging program and helps prove its value. It also shows the increase in the number of people your brand can communicate with over text and ultimately drive higher ROI. 

The more people subscribed to your text messaging list means the increased likelihood of customers engaging with your brand and making purchases based on your content. 

Improving Your List Growth Rate

Increase the number of places you ask customers to subscribe to your text messages. We have an entire guide on ways you can increase mobile opt-ins but the key thing to remember is to make signing up simple and easy to find. 

One of our favorite ways manufacturers can collect opt-ins is through the product registration process. When customers are completing a digital product registration form, you can include a checkbox asking if they would also like to subscribe to your brand’s text messages so they can receive content like product updates, maintenance reminders, and promotions. 

Message Response Rate

Communication shouldn’t just be your brand telling customers information in a single channel. It should also be about receiving information from the customer. 

Message response rates indicate the number of individuals who text your brand back. Depending on the content, it might not make sense for customers to reply to your messages. But if you want to truly engage with your customers, you’ll need to create a two-way dialogue. 

Replying to messages isn’t just beneficial to your customers. Your brand can gain valuable insights from texting short surveys to customers to get their feedback on what products they’re interested in, customer satisfaction, or what their main challenges are. 

Improving Your Message Response Rate

The first step to improving your message response rate is to first do a pulse check if you’re sending text messages that subscribers would reply to. If you’re just sending out coupons or maintenance reminders, customers may not feel the need to reply. 

Get creative by creating polls or surveys you ask your customers. For instance, you can create a question with what product are they most interested in purchasing from your brand in the future.  Or you can poll subscribers about what they’re most interested in hearing about from your brand (ex: promotions, exclusive content, company updates, etc). 

Finally, make sure their responses are easy and prepopulated. For example, use options like 1, 2, or 3, if you’re asking them to choose from a list of things. 

Start Texting Your Customers

Good news - starting a text messaging program with Lumavate is easy. We take care of the hard work for you so you can spend more time communicating with your customers and less time worrying about the legal steps you have to take for compliance. 

Schedule a demo with a member of our team today to see how messaging works in Lumavate or take a self-guided tour to see for yourself.