2026 Edition
Based on a sample of over four hundred million messages sent through SlickText across nearly seventy-five thousand campaigns, this report measures how often people clicked links in SMS marketing messages, what a good click rate looks like, and which campaign choices were associated with higher or lower click rates.
1. Introduction
Since 2011, SlickText has powered over 124,000 text message programs. That experience has given us a valuable perspective on SMS marketing, along with a wealth of data we can use to better understand what drives engagement and separates high-performing campaigns from the rest.
Engagement takes many forms, from purchases and store visits to appointments and website traffic. For this report, we’re focusing primarily on one of the most measurable indicators of engagement: link clicks. We also analyzed opt-out rates to better understand the relationship between positive and negative engagement. Our research team analyzed more than 400 million messages across nearly 75,000 campaigns to establish meaningful engagement benchmarks and better understand what drives performance. We examined actual campaign results rather than relying on surveys or self-reported data.
You may have seen SMS click rates reported at 20%, 30%, or even higher. Those results are certainly possible, but our research shows they’re more representative of top-performing campaigns than the typical campaign. One of our goals is to help marketers understand what good performance really looks like and what it takes to achieve exceptional results.
Some findings confirmed what we expected. Others challenged conventional wisdom. For example, shorter messages generally achieved higher click rates, and click rates tended to decline as campaign audiences grew. On the other hand, adding emojis showed no measurable improvement, and first-name personalization showed only a small directional lift that wasn’t statistically significant.
Our aim is to give marketers reliable benchmarks and actionable insights they can use to improve their results.
I hope this report helps you better understand your performance, challenge your assumptions, and find new ways to engage your customers.
2. Executive summary and key findings
Median campaign click rate
Top 10% click rate threshold
Messages across the full study
Only about 1 in 8 campaigns surpassed the 20% click rate often cited for SMS.
The median campaign in this study had a click rate of 5.5%, and a campaign needed 23.9% to reach the top 10%. The widely cited range comes from a survey of businesses describing their own results, not from measured campaign data.1
What this means for marketers: Click rates vary widely by industry. Use this study to understand how message variables and industry can impact click rates.
Shorter messages earned higher click rates, and longer messages didn’t pay a penalty.
Compared with the same sender’s 141–160 character campaigns, campaigns of 100 characters or fewer clicked about 50% more, and campaigns of 101–140 characters about 12% more. Campaigns longer than 160 characters clicked at least as often as the same sender’s 141–160 character campaigns.
What this means for marketers: Test a shorter version of your next campaign to see how it performs compared to your usual messages.
MMS (messages with multimedia) click rates were about 17% lower than SMS from the same senders, with no difference in opt-outs.
The raw gap was 4.1% for MMS against 5.7% for SMS, and it held when each sender was compared with itself.
What this means for marketers: MMS can drive more conversions even with lower click rates. Look beyond clicks and measure metrics like conversion rate and revenue to get a clearer picture of MMS performance.
Bigger sends had lower click rates.
Each doubling of a campaign’s audience was associated with a click rate about 13% lower, even when comparing campaigns from the same sender.
What this means for marketers: As your audience grows, focus on maintaining engagement by targeting smaller groups with timely, relevant messages that reflect their interests and behaviors.
Emojis made no difference, and first-name personalization showed only a directional lift.
Campaigns with and without emojis showed no statistical difference. Within the same senders, first-name personalization was associated with click rates about 13% higher, a positive direction that didn’t hold at 95% confidence. First-name personalization was also associated with opt-out rates about 26% higher, a statistically significant finding. Emojis showed no statistically significant effect on opt-out rates.
What this means for marketers: Use emojis for tone, not for clicks.
Links placed earlier in the message earned higher click rates.
Compared with the same sender’s campaigns of similar length, links in the first half of a message clicked about 45% more than links in the last fifth, and links in the middle about 26% more.
What this means for marketers: Test placing the link right after the hook, then finish the message with the reason to tap.
Day of week had some impact; time of day had little.
Monday campaigns clicked about 12% more than the same senders’ Wednesday campaigns, and Thursday campaigns about 8% more. Evening sends showed a small directional edge that didn’t hold at 95% confidence, and other differences were small.
What this means for marketers: Monday is worth a test if you usually send midweek.
We analyzed a sample of campaigns sent through SlickText between October 1, 2025 and September 30, 2026. Click rate is total clicks as a percentage of delivered messages, with clicks from link-preview and security-scanning bots excluded. Each benchmark is a campaign median: half of campaigns did better, half did worse. Where a raw comparison could mislead, we also compared each sender’s campaigns with that same sender’s other campaigns, holding audience size constant, and we report whether each difference holds at 95% confidence. The “Why this might happen” callouts offer possible explanations: they’re hypotheses, not findings. The full methodology is in Section 10.
Click rate sounds simple, but benchmarks define it differently. Some SMS figures in circulation come from businesses describing their own results rather than from recorded clicks. Most email benchmarks count unique clicks, with each person counted once, as a share of delivered emails.
Most published SMS benchmarks don’t say whether bot clicks are excluded. Link-preview services and security scanners can open links automatically, before a person ever sees the message, and counting those clicks inflates click rates. We exclude clicks from pre-fetch and security-scanning bots.
Our click rate counts total clicks as a percentage of the recipients each message was delivered to.
Total clicks
Delivered messages
The median campaign click rate was 5.5%. The overall rate, total clicks divided by total delivered messages, was 6.0%. Click rates were heavily skewed: most campaigns clustered below 10%, and a long tail of strong campaigns stretched past 40%. That skew is why we use tiers drawn from the distribution instead of a single average.
Campaign click rate (%)
| Click rate bin | Campaigns | % of all campaigns | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–1% | 1,507 | 7.01% | Poor |
| 1–2% | 2,656 | 12.35% | Poor |
| 2–3% | 2,323 | 10.80% | Poor / Below Average |
| 3–4% | 1,921 | 8.93% | Below Average |
| 4–5% | 1,615 | 7.51% | Below Average |
| 5–6% | 1,300 | 6.05% | Below Average / Good |
| 6–7% | 1,169 | 5.44% | Good |
| 7–8% | 1,035 | 4.81% | Good |
| 8–9% | 846 | 3.93% | Good |
| 9–10% | 693 | 3.22% | Good |
| 10–11% | 562 | 2.61% | Good |
| 11–12% | 522 | 2.43% | Good / Excellent |
| 12–13% | 491 | 2.28% | Excellent |
| 13–14% | 385 | 1.79% | Excellent |
| 14–15% | 321 | 1.49% | Excellent |
| 15–16% | 318 | 1.48% | Excellent |
| 16–17% | 251 | 1.17% | Excellent |
| 17–18% | 260 | 1.21% | Excellent |
| 18–19% | 272 | 1.26% | Excellent |
| 19–20% | 240 | 1.12% | Excellent |
| 20–21% | 198 | 0.92% | Excellent |
| 21–22% | 173 | 0.80% | Excellent |
| 22–23% | 164 | 0.76% | Excellent |
| 23–24% | 150 | 0.70% | Excellent / Elite |
| 24–25% | 127 | 0.59% | Elite |
| 25–26% | 136 | 0.63% | Elite |
| 26–27% | 121 | 0.56% | Elite |
| 27–28% | 141 | 0.66% | Elite |
| 28–29% | 113 | 0.53% | Elite |
| 29–30% | 98 | 0.46% | Elite |
| 30–31% | 96 | 0.45% | Elite |
| 31–32% | 101 | 0.47% | Elite |
| 32–33% | 98 | 0.46% | Elite |
| 33–34% | 87 | 0.40% | Elite |
| 34–35% | 86 | 0.40% | Elite |
| 35–36% | 77 | 0.36% | Elite |
| 36–37% | 62 | 0.29% | Elite |
| 37–38% | 49 | 0.23% | Elite |
| 38–39% | 51 | 0.24% | Elite |
| 39–40% | 50 | 0.23% | Elite |
| 40–41% | 55 | 0.26% | Elite |
| 41–42% | 66 | 0.31% | Elite |
| 42–43% | 28 | 0.13% | Elite |
| 43–44% | 37 | 0.17% | Elite |
| 44–45% | 34 | 0.16% | Elite |
| 45–46% | 27 | 0.13% | Elite |
| 46–47% | 26 | 0.12% | Elite |
| 47–48% | 20 | 0.09% | Elite |
| 48–49% | 18 | 0.08% | Elite |
| 49–50% | 22 | 0.10% | Elite |
| 50%+ | 305 | 1.42% | Elite |
In this study, 10% of all campaigns were Elite and half rated Good or better. The table shows how far key groups departed from that. For example, 32% of campaigns of 100 characters or fewer reached Elite, about three times the rate for campaigns overall.
| Group | % of group in Elite tier | % of group rated Good or better | % of all campaigns |
|---|---|---|---|
| All campaigns | 10% | 50% | 100% |
| 1–100 characters | 32% | 78% | 5% |
| 101–160 characters | 10% | 53% | 58% |
| 161–320 characters | 6% | 41% | 24% |
| 321–480 characters | 10% | 40% | 9% |
| 481+ characters | 15% | 56% | 3% |
| SMS | 10% | 51% | 93% |
| MMS (messages with multimedia) | 4% | 37% | 7% |
| Retail & Ecommerce | 10% | 58% | 32% |
| Nonprofit, Education & Government | 10% | 52% | 9% |
| Marketing & Professional Services | 16% | 52% | 26% |
| Events, Entertainment & Travel | 5% | 48% | 12% |
| Other or Unknown | 5% | 38% | 16% |
| Food & Beverage | 9% | 29% | 5% |
Retail & Ecommerce campaigns had the highest median click rate at 6.8%, followed by Marketing & Professional Services at 6.0% and Nonprofit, Education & Government at 5.8%. Food & Beverage had the lowest at 2.4%.
| Industry group | Median click rate | Tier | % of all campaigns |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retail & Ecommerce | 6.8% | Good | 32% |
| Marketing & Professional Services | 6.0% | Good | 26% |
| Nonprofit, Education & Government | 5.8% | Good | 9% |
| Events, Entertainment & Travel | 5.4% | Below Average | 12% |
| Other or Unknown | 4.1% | Below Average | 16% |
| Food & Beverage | 2.4% | Poor | 5% |
Each industry group has its own click rate tiers, drawn from that group’s campaign percentiles, so you can compare your campaigns with others in the same industry. A Food & Beverage campaign at 3%, for example, is Below Average across all campaigns but Good among Food & Beverage campaigns.
Industry tiers stop at Excellent / Elite. Within a single industry, the Elite (P90) threshold shifted too much depending on which senders were included to publish reliably, so the top industry tier combines Excellent and Elite, and Elite is reported for all campaigns only (23.9% and above, Section 3).
| Industry group | Poor | Below Average | Good | Excellent / Elite |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All campaigns | Below 2.5% | 2.5% to 5.5% | 5.5% to 12.0% | 12.0% and above |
| Retail & Ecommerce | Below 3.4% | 3.4% to 6.8% | 6.8% to 13.3% | 13.3% and above |
| Marketing & Professional Services | Below 2.2% | 2.2% to 6.0% | 6.0% to 15.8% | 15.8% and above |
| Nonprofit, Education & Government | Below 2.7% | 2.7% to 5.8% | 5.8% to 12.5% | 12.5% and above |
| Events, Entertainment & Travel | Below 2.6% | 2.6% to 5.4% | 5.4% to 9.4% | 9.4% and above |
| Food & Beverage | Below 1.1% | 1.1% to 2.4% | 2.4% to 6.7% | 6.7% and above |
| Other or Unknown | Below 2.1% | 2.1% to 4.1% | 4.1% to 8.1% | 8.1% and above |
Customer example
Sterling Restaurants, the largest franchisee of Moe’s Southwest Grill, texted a one-day buy-one-get-one offer to ~316,000 subscribers across 63 of their locations, redeemable by showing the text at the register. The message had no link and recorded zero clicks.
That Wednesday, sales across these stores were 45% higher than the following Wednesday, and 42% higher than the same day year over year.
This campaign produced a 38x return on each delivered BOGO text. The opt-out rate was 0.37%, in line with other food and beverage campaigns.
Delivered messages, clicks, and opt-outs come from SlickText’s records. Sales figures come from the franchise group’s own point-of-sale reports.
Food & Beverage campaigns had a median opt-out rate of 0.42%, nearly twice the overall median of 0.24%, and 78% of its campaigns recorded at least one opt-out, the highest share of any industry group.
Message length and where the link appeared were associated with the largest differences in click rates. MMS clicked less than SMS. Emojis made no difference, and first-name personalization showed only a directional lift that didn’t hold at 95% confidence. This section covers each of these: length, SMS vs. MMS, personalization, emojis, and link placement.
5a · Message length
Campaigns of 70 characters or fewer had a median click rate of 18.2%, more than three times the overall median. Click rates fell steadily with length to about 4% at 241–480 characters. About a third of campaigns of 100 characters or fewer reached the Elite tier, against 10% of campaigns of 101–160 characters.
| Characters | Median click rate | Tier | % of all campaigns |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–70 | 18.2% | Excellent | 0.9% |
| 71–100 | 11.0% | Good | 4% |
| 101–120 | 7.4% | Good | 8% |
| 121–140 | 6.8% | Good | 15% |
| 141–160 | 5.2% | Below Average | 35% |
| 161–240 | 4.7% | Below Average | 12% |
| 241–320 | 4.0% | Below Average | 12% |
| 321–480 | 4.1% | Below Average | 9% |
| 481+ | 6.8% | Good | 3% |
Some senders got high click rates on nearly everything they sent, and they wrote a disproportionate share of very short messages. They sent about 12% of all campaigns but 37% of campaigns of 100 characters or fewer. With those senders set aside, the median for campaigns of 70 characters or fewer dropped from 18.2% to 7.4%. Short messages still led, by a smaller margin. The apparent rise at 481+ characters came from the same senders.
When the same sender sent both short and long messages to similar-sized audiences, campaigns of 100 characters or fewer clicked about 50% more than that sender’s 141–160 character campaigns. Campaigns of 101–140 characters clicked about 12% more. Campaigns of 161–240 characters clicked about 8% more, a difference that only barely held at 95% confidence; no longer length differed in a way that held. Confidence intervals for every comparison are in the appendix.
| Characters | Difference vs. 141–160 characters | Holds at 95% confidence? |
|---|---|---|
| 1–70 | +50% | Yes, higher |
| 71–100 | +55% | Yes, higher |
| 101–120 | +12% | Yes, higher |
| 121–140 | +12% | Yes, higher |
| 161–240 | +8% | Yes, higher |
| 241–320 | −1% | No |
| 321–480 | +2% | No |
| 481+ | +33% | No |
SMS platforms and carriers charge message credits based on the number of standard segments in each message. A standard SMS message segment holds 160 characters; longer messages are split into segments and rejoined on the phone. In the raw data, one-segment SMS campaigns had a median click rate of 6.5% against 4.3% for two segments. Compared within the same senders, the difference disappeared.
| Estimated message segments (SMS) | Median click rate | Same-sender difference vs. 1 segment | % of all campaigns |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 segment | 6.5% (Good) | Reference | 55% |
| 2 segments | 4.3% (Below Average) | 0% (doesn’t hold) | 18% |
| 3+ segments | 5.1% (Below Average) | +8% (doesn’t hold) | 8% |
5b · SMS vs. MMS
MMS campaigns had a median click rate of 4.1% against 5.7% for SMS. Compared within the same senders and audience sizes, MMS clicked about 17% less, and the difference held at 95% confidence. Opt-out rates showed no difference that held.
The chart above summarizes the same-sender comparisons for message format and content: MMS was the only format or content choice with a difference that held at 95% confidence. The data is in Tables 6, 7, and 8, with confidence intervals in Table A1.
| Format | Median click rate | Tier | % of all campaigns |
|---|---|---|---|
| SMS | 5.7% | Good | 93% |
| MMS (messages with multimedia) | 4.1% | Below Average | 7% |
5c · Personalization
Personalized campaigns looked worse in the raw data: campaigns using the first name had a median click rate of 5.3% against 5.7% without. Compared within the same senders, the gap reversed: personalized campaigns clicked about 13% more. That’s a positive direction, but the difference didn’t hold at 95% confidence. Opt-out rates were about 26% higher, a difference that held at 95% confidence. The raw gap reflected which senders personalize, not what personalization did.
| Tactic | Median click rate with | Median click rate without | Same-sender difference in clicks |
|---|---|---|---|
| First name | 5.3% | 5.7% | +13% (doesn’t hold) |
| Any merge tag | 5.1% | 5.7% | +12% (doesn’t hold) |
| Emojis | 5.3% | 5.6% | −4% (doesn’t hold) |
5d · Emojis
Campaigns with emojis had a median click rate of 5.3%, against 5.6% for campaigns without. The same-sender comparison agreed: no meaningful difference in clicks or opt-outs.
5e · Link placement
Across all message lengths, campaigns with the link in the first half of the message had a median click rate of 10.4%, against 7.0% for links in the middle and 4.1% for links in the last fifth. Because link position travels with message length, we compared each sender with itself while holding length group and audience size constant. Links in the first half still clicked about 45% more than links in the last fifth, and links in the middle about 26% more. Both differences held at 95% confidence.
| Link position | Median click rate | Tier | % of all campaigns |
|---|---|---|---|
| First half of the message | 10.4% | Good | 6% |
| Middle (50–80% through) | 7.0% | Good | 45% |
| Last fifth of the message | 4.1% | Below Average | 49% |
Compared within the same senders at similar lengths, campaigns that ended with the link clicked about 15% less than campaigns with text after the link, and the difference held at 95% confidence. The link was the last text in 78% of campaigns, apart from opt-out language such as “Reply STOP to end.” The raw medians point the other way (5.6% when the link came last, 5.4% when text followed it) because the senders who end with the link differ from those who don’t; the same-sender comparison removes that difference.
| Link at the end? | Median click rate | Tier | % of all campaigns |
|---|---|---|---|
| Link is the last text | 5.6% | Good | 78% |
| Text after the link | 5.4% | Below Average | 22% |
About 4.6% of campaigns used a sender’s own branded link domain instead of SlickText’s link shortener. Their median click rate was 5.4%, against 5.6% for the shortener. Compared within the same senders, the difference (about +5%) didn’t hold at 95% confidence. Relatively few senders used both, so the comparison is limited.
| Link domain | Median click rate | Tier | % of all campaigns |
|---|---|---|---|
| SlickText shortener | 5.6% | Good | 95% |
| Custom domain | 5.4% | Below Average | 4.6% |
Toll-free campaigns had a median click rate of 6.1% against 2.8% for 10DLC. In business messaging, toll-free numbers use prefixes such as 800 or 888 and must be verified before they can send messages, while 10DLC (10-digit long code) uses standard local numbers tied to a brand and campaign registered with The Campaign Registry. Only a small number of senders used both number types, so the same-sender comparison couldn’t separate the number from the sender using it.
| Number type | Median click rate | Tier | % of all campaigns |
|---|---|---|---|
| Toll-free | 6.1% | Good | 87% |
| 10DLC | 2.8% | Below Average | 6% |
Median click rates ranged from 4.9% to 6.2% across the days of the week. Compared within the same senders, Monday campaigns clicked about 12% more than Wednesday campaigns, and Thursday about 8% more. Both differences held at 95% confidence. No other day differed from Wednesday in a way that held.
| Day | Median click rate | Tier | Same-sender difference vs. Wednesday | % of all campaigns |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | 6.2% | Good | +12% (holds) | 13% |
| Tuesday | 5.9% | Good | +5% (doesn’t hold) | 15% |
| Wednesday | 4.9% | Below Average | Reference | 19% |
| Thursday | 5.8% | Good | +8% (holds) | 16% |
| Friday | 5.8% | Good | +3% (doesn’t hold) | 16% |
| Saturday | 5.2% | Below Average | −1% (doesn’t hold) | 11% |
| Sunday | 5.2% | Below Average | +2% (doesn’t hold) | 9% |
Evening campaigns (after 6 p.m.) had a median click rate of 6.2%, against 5.4% for afternoon and 5.3% for morning campaigns. Compared within the same senders, evening campaigns clicked about 5% more than afternoon campaigns, a positive direction that didn’t hold at 95% confidence. Morning and afternoon campaigns performed alike.
| Time of day | Median click rate | Tier | Same-sender difference vs. afternoon | % of all campaigns |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Morning (before noon) | 5.3% | Below Average | 0% (doesn’t hold) | 31% |
| Afternoon (noon–6 p.m.) | 5.4% | Below Average | Reference | 46% |
| Evening (after 6 p.m.) | 6.2% | Good | +5% (doesn’t hold) | 22% |
Quiet hours: when you can legally sendFederal rules restrict telephone solicitations to between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. in the recipient’s local time zone. Several states impose more restrictive hours or additional limitations on Sundays and holidays.
Although recipients must provide appropriate consent to receive marketing texts, the extent to which that consent exempts businesses from federal or state quiet-hours restrictions remains subject to legal interpretation. Requirements vary by state, so marketers should review applicable laws and schedule campaigns according to their recipients’ local time zones.
Median click rates fell from 9.3% for campaigns delivered to fewer than 250 people to 3.6% for campaigns delivered to 5,000–24,999. Compared within the same senders, each doubling of audience size was associated with a click rate about 13% lower, and the difference held at 95% confidence.
| Audience size (delivered messages) | Median click rate | Tier | % of all campaigns |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 250 | 9.3% | Good | 15% |
| 250–999 | 7.2% | Good | 22% |
| 1,000–4,999 | 5.1% | Below Average | 34% |
| 5,000–24,999 | 3.6% | Below Average | 24% |
| 25,000+ | 4.8% | Below Average | 7% |
The median SMS campaign in this study had a click rate of 5.5%, and the average click rate across all delivered messages was 6.0%. MailerLite reported an average email click rate of 2.09% across 3.6 million campaigns, and Mailchimp reported 2.62% across its users. The definitions differ in ways that push in both directions, so treat the gap as approximate. Some email platforms also report a click-through rate that divides clicks by opens, a metric others call click-to-open rate. Text messaging has no equivalent, because there is no reliable way to measure whether a text message was opened.
| Source | Channel | Click rate | What is measured | Period |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SlickText (this report) | SMS | 5.5% median; 6.0% average | Total clicks ÷ delivered messages; bot clicks excluded | Oct 2025–Sep 2026 |
| MailerLite | 2.09% average | Share of recipients who clicked | 2025 | |
| Mailchimp | 2.62% average | Unique clicks ÷ delivered emails | Data last updated Dec 2023 |
| Difference | Effect on the comparison |
|---|---|
| Total clicks (SMS) vs. unique clicks (email) | Counting repeat clicks raises the SMS click rate. |
| Median (SMS) vs. average (email) | Skewed data likely makes averages higher than medians. This can favor email in the comparison. |
| Bot clicks excluded (SMS) vs. not stated (email sources) | Unfiltered bot clicks could raise email rates. |
Campaign median. Every benchmark in this report is a campaign median unless noted. Each campaign counts once, regardless of how many people it reached, and the median is the middle campaign: half did better and half did worse. The overall rate is total clicks divided by total delivered messages for a group, which weights large sends more heavily.
Messages. A message is one campaign delivered to one recipient; each recipient receives one message per campaign. Rates use delivered messages as the denominator.
Frequent senders. Because every campaign counts equally, senders that send many campaigns influence the medians more than senders that send a few. That is one reason some comparisons also look at each sender against itself.
Raw and same-sender comparisons. A raw comparison shows the medians as they are. A same-sender comparison asks a narrower question: when the same sender sent both kinds of campaign, to a similar-sized audience, how did they compare? Same-sender comparisons appear only where a raw comparison could mislead.
95% confidence. A same-sender difference “holds at 95% confidence” when its 95% confidence interval doesn’t include zero. When it doesn’t hold, the data can’t distinguish the difference from no difference at all.
Callouts. “Why this might happen” callouts offer possible explanations for a pattern. They are hypotheses: the data shows the pattern, but it can’t establish the cause.
The study covers a sample of over four hundred million messages sent to recipients in the United States and Canada across nearly seventy-five thousand campaigns by current SlickText customers, started between October 1, 2025 and September 30, 2026 in the sender’s local time, sent to 100 or more recipients. Messages were sent from toll-free, 10DLC, and short code numbers. Short code results aren’t reported separately. Opt-out rates use all eligible campaigns and their delivered messages: over four hundred million. Click rates use the subset of campaigns that contained at least one tracked link with usable click data, linking through SlickText’s link shortener or the sender’s own branded domain.
Messages that weren’t delivered were excluded from every rate. Click rates use only campaigns containing at least one tracked link with usable click data; campaigns without usable click data contributed to opt-out rates. Campaigns whose links couldn’t be matched to SlickText’s link shortener or the sender’s own branded domain were excluded from click rates. Following a manual review of sending behavior and data quality, a small number of additional campaigns and/or senders were removed. These exclusions were applied before calculating the reported rates, percentile thresholds, and benchmark tiers.
Delivered message: a message the carrier confirmed as delivered or accepted for delivery.
Click rate: total clicks as a percentage of delivered messages. Clicks from link pre-fetching and security-scanning bots are excluded. Clicks are not deduplicated.
Opt-out rate: opt-outs as a percentage of delivered messages. An opt-out is attributed to the last campaign the recipient received, if they opted out within 8 hours of receiving it.
Campaign median (primary): the middle click rate across all eligible campaigns, with half of campaigns above it and half below.
Overall rate (secondary): total clicks or opt-outs divided by total delivered messages for the group.
% of all campaigns: a group’s share of all campaigns with a tracked link.
Tiers: campaign click-rate percentiles (P25, P50, P75, and P90) across all campaigns with a tracked link.
Industry tiers: the same percentile method applied within each industry group, using P25, P50, and P75 only.
Industry: each sender’s industry, aggregated into six groups. Retail & Ecommerce combines retail and ecommerce; health, beauty, and wellness; and fitness and sports. Nonprofit, Education & Government combines nonprofit and religious, education, and government and political senders. Events, Entertainment & Travel combines events and entertainment, travel and hospitality, and media and creators. Marketing & Professional Services combines marketing and professional services; financial, legal, and insurance; and software and technology. Other or Unknown combines real estate and construction, manufacturing and distribution, automotive, and senders with no single recorded industry. Food & Beverage stands alone.
Message length: characters in the message, including link text.
Message segments: estimated from each SMS message’s characters and encoding.
Message type: SMS or MMS (messages with multimedia) as recorded.
Merge tags: any merge tag field used in a campaign’s message body.
First name: messages using the first-name merge tag.
Emojis: messages using any standard Unicode emoji.
Link position: where the first link starts, as a share of the message’s length.
Link at the end: the last link is the last text in the message, apart from opt-out language such as “Reply STOP to end.”
Link domain: SlickText’s link shortener or a sender’s own branded domain, identified from SlickText’s link records.
Sending number type: toll-free or 10DLC.
Day and time: the campaign’s start time in the sender’s time zone, which may differ from recipients’. All campaigns are included. Morning is before noon, afternoon is noon to 6 p.m., and evening is after 6 p.m.
Audience size: delivered messages for the campaign.
We modeled the logarithm of each campaign’s rate, with a small constant added so campaigns with no clicks or opt-outs count, giving every sender its own baseline and holding audience size constant. Link placement comparisons also held message length group constant. Only senders with campaigns in more than one category inform each comparison. Results are reported as percentage differences from a reference category, with 95% confidence intervals from 200 resamples of senders in Table A1.
Each industry group used for industry tiers includes campaigns from 75 or more senders.
The study includes only current SlickText customers.
Senders that send more campaigns carry more weight in the medians.
The data covers one year.
Findings are associations in observational data. Same-sender comparisons remove differences between senders and audience sizes, not every other difference between campaigns.
Time of day uses the sender’s time zone, not each recipient’s.
Outside sources define their metrics differently; comparisons with them are approximate.
| Comparison | Difference | 95% confidence interval | Holds at 95% confidence? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–70 vs. 141–160 characters | +50% | +7% to +115% | Yes, higher |
| 71–100 vs. 141–160 characters | +55% | +8% to +138% | Yes, higher |
| 101–120 vs. 141–160 characters | +12% | +5% to +25% | Yes, higher |
| 121–140 vs. 141–160 characters | +12% | +5% to +17% | Yes, higher |
| 161–240 vs. 141–160 characters | +8% | +1% to +13% | Yes, higher |
| 241–320 vs. 141–160 characters | −1% | −9% to +7% | No |
| 321–480 vs. 141–160 characters | +2% | −10% to +16% | No |
| 481+ vs. 141–160 characters | +33% | −3% to +71% | No |
| 2 segments vs. 1 segment (SMS) | 0% | −7% to +5% | No |
| 3+ segments vs. 1 segment (SMS) | +8% | −11% to +27% | No |
| MMS vs. SMS (clicks) | −17% | −27% to −8% | Yes, lower |
| MMS vs. SMS (opt-outs) | +3% | −5% to +14% | No |
| First name vs. none (clicks) | +13% | −1% to +23% | No |
| First name vs. none (opt-outs) | +26% | +15% to +37% | Yes, higher |
| Any merge tag vs. none (clicks) | +12% | −1% to +22% | No |
| Any merge tag vs. none (opt-outs) | +21% | +10% to +32% | Yes, higher |
| Emojis vs. none (clicks) | −4% | −19% to +13% | No |
| Emojis vs. none (opt-outs) | +1% | −4% to +7% | No |
| First half of the message vs. last fifth | +45% | +19% to +80% | Yes, higher |
| Middle (50–80% through) vs. last fifth | +26% | +11% to +36% | Yes, higher |
| Link is the last text vs. text after the link | −15% | −21% to −3% | Yes, lower |
| Custom domain vs. SlickText shortener | +5% | −2% to +21% | No |
| 10DLC vs. toll-free | +37% | −47% to +518% | No |
| Monday vs. Wednesday | +12% | +1% to +26% | Yes, higher |
| Tuesday vs. Wednesday | +5% | −3% to +14% | No |
| Thursday vs. Wednesday | +8% | +1% to +16% | Yes, higher |
| Friday vs. Wednesday | +3% | −4% to +9% | No |
| Saturday vs. Wednesday | −1% | −7% to +6% | No |
| Sunday vs. Wednesday | +2% | −5% to +11% | No |
| Morning (before noon) vs. afternoon | 0% | −8% to +10% | No |
| Evening (after 6 p.m.) vs. afternoon | +5% | 0% to +12% | No |
| Each doubling of audience size | −13% | −19% to −8% | Yes, lower |
| Characters | Median click rate, all campaigns | Median click rate, excluding consistently high-performing senders |
|---|---|---|
| 1–70 | 18.2% | 7.4% |
| 71–100 | 11.0% | 7.0% |
| 101–120 | 7.4% | 6.7% |
| 121–140 | 6.8% | 6.3% |
| 141–160 | 5.2% | 4.3% |
| 161–240 | 4.7% | 4.4% |
| 241–320 | 4.0% | 3.7% |
| 321–480 | 4.1% | 3.3% |
| 481+ | 6.8% | 4.9% |
SlickText has powered over 124,000 text message programs since 2011.
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