TrueDialog, the enterprise-grade SMS platform trusted by higher education, sports organizations, financial services, and major brands, has launched its 2025 SMS Marketing Benchmarks & Best Practices Report. Drawing from an unprecedented dataset of one billion real-world text messages sent through its platform, the report delivers actionable insights on timing, composition, engagement patterns, unsubscribe behavior, and regional performance differences.
The comprehensive analysis confirms SMS continues to dominate customer engagement channels with unmatched immediacy and ROI. As email inboxes grow crowded and social reach declines, text messaging has solidified its position as the cornerstone of modern marketing programs.
Data shows brands overwhelmingly concentrate sends during late-morning weekday hours, creating intense competition on Tuesdays. Meanwhile, messages initiated after business hours—even within legal windows—drive dramatically higher opt-out rates. Marketers who shift to mid-afternoon or off-peak windows can secure higher deliverability and lower churn.
Organizations are fully utilizing the traditional 160-character limit, with short-code campaigns averaging 159 characters. Yet the near-absence of emojis represents a significant untapped lever, as prior studies consistently demonstrate higher open and response rates when emojis are used appropriately.
Engagement varies markedly by geography, with Canadian provinces and certain U.S. states exhibiting response rates far above national averages. These insights enable sophisticated marketers to tailor timing, tone, and offers at the regional level for maximum impact.
"SMS continues to outperform every other channel in immediacy, engagement, and ROI," said John Wright, CEO of TrueDialog. "As brands determine how to plan for 2026, this report gives marketing leaders the empirical data they need to reach audiences more effectively and stand out in increasingly competitive inboxes."
"With crowded email inboxes and declining social reach, SMS is becoming the cornerstone of modern customer engagement," said Amanda McGuckin Hager, Chief Marketing Officer at TrueDialog.
Equipped with these benchmarks, marketing teams can refine subscriber acquisition, optimize send cadences, embrace richer RCS experiences, and select enterprise platforms built for scale, compliance, and direct carrier performance in the year ahead.
TrueDialog is the enterprise SMS platform transforming how organizations connect with customers through text-messaging—today's most engaging and responsive communications channel. Through superior features, industry-leading security, and direct carrier connections, the platform delivers enterprise-grade reliability while reducing messaging costs by up to 75%. TrueDialog is trusted by thousands of brands including Coca-Cola, Hilton, Kansas City Chiefs, Northern Tool, SubjectWell, and Tulane University. Based in Austin, Texas, TrueDialog helps organizations build stronger relationships through reliable, cost-efficient messaging.
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