Good morning Marketer, is SMS texting part of your omni-channel strategy? 

Consumer brands – especially retailers and D2Cs – may want to seriously consider adding SMS as a marketing channel. It turns out more than 90% of text messages are opened by recipients. When you consider email open rates for retail marketers are just over 18%, a text message campaign could very well far out-perform your email marketing efforts. 

A number of high-profile retailers are currently using SMS, including Macy’s, Bloomingdales, Old Navy, Nordstrom, Crate and Barrel, Kmart, Bed Bath & Beyond and Eddie Bauer, according to Marketing Land’s Greg Sterling. He says D2C brands are also taking advantage of it as well for various customer communications, including promotions, shipping notifications, shopping cart abandonment alerts, reminders, and more. 

“According to a recent Yotpo survey of 800 adults from a wide range of different countries, more than half of respondents said they wanted a text relationship with their favorite brands (51%),” writes Greg, “It’s a low-cost channel with very high response rates. More than two-thirds of those receiving texts from retailers have made a purchase accordingly.” 

In other news, Google last week announced it’s updating its advertising policies for housing, employment and credit opportunities. Advertisers in those categories will no longer be able to target or exclude their ads from being shown based on demographics — gender, age, parental status, marital status — or zip code. The update adds on to existing policies that prohibit targeting based on race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, national origin or disability – and aligns Google with other advertising platforms that have already done the same. 

There’s more below, including a Pro Tip on the benefits of Snapchat for online shopping. 

Taylor Peterson,
Deputy Editor