SMS marketing has a 98% open rate. Not 98% of your best subscribers. 98% of everyone you send to. Compare that to email (20-25% if you are lucky) or social media (2-5% organic reach), and you start to see why the smartest Shopify brands are adding SMS to their marketing stack.
What’s in This Article
But most ecommerce brands either ignore SMS completely or use it the wrong way, blasting discount codes until customers unsubscribe and block their number. The brands making $3-5 per SMS subscriber per month are doing something very different. Here is the playbook.
Why SMS Works So Well for Ecommerce
SMS cuts through the noise in a way no other channel can. The average person checks their phone 96 times per day and reads a text message within 3 minutes of receiving it. Your email might sit in an inbox for hours, or get filtered to promotions and never seen at all. A text gets read almost immediately.
For Shopify stores, this speed matters most for time-sensitive offers. Flash sales, back-in-stock alerts, shipping notifications, and abandoned cart reminders all perform dramatically better via SMS because they reach the customer when the moment still matters.
The conversion rates back this up. SMS campaigns typically convert at 8-12%, roughly 3-5x higher than email campaigns. The catch is that your SMS list will always be smaller than your email list (not everyone opts in to texts), so the two channels complement each other rather than compete.
Building Your SMS List the Right Way
SMS consent is more personal than email consent: people are protective of their phone numbers. You need to earn it with a clear value exchange:
- Pop-up with SMS-specific incentive. Offer something you do not offer via email. “Get 15% off your first order + VIP early access to sales, text only.” This differentiated value gives people a reason to hand over their number.
- Checkout opt-in. Add an SMS consent checkbox during checkout. Customers who have already decided to buy are far more likely to opt in because they trust you with their information. Conversion rate on checkout opt-ins is typically 25-35%.
- Post-purchase text opt-in. After someone receives their order and is happiest with your brand, send a follow-up email inviting them to join your SMS list for exclusive offers. This captures your most engaged customers.
- Keyword campaigns. Run “Text JOIN to [number]” campaigns on social media, packaging inserts, and in-store signage. These work well for brands with a physical presence or strong social following.
Australian privacy law (the Spam Act 2003) requires explicit consent before sending marketing SMS. Always include an opt-out mechanism in every message and honour unsubscribes immediately. Compliance is non-negotiable.
The 5 SMS Flows Every Shopify Store Needs
Just like email, your automated SMS flows will generate more revenue than one-off campaigns. Set these up first:
1. Welcome Flow. When someone opts in, send an immediate text with their discount code and a link to shop. Follow up 24 hours later with a product recommendation or bestseller highlight. Keep it to 2-3 messages max. You are building the relationship, not overwhelming it.
2. Abandoned Cart. Send a text 30-60 minutes after cart abandonment. Keep it short and direct: “Hey [name], you left something in your cart! Complete your order here: [link].” A single well-timed SMS recovers 10-15% of abandoned carts, often outperforming a 3-email sequence.
3. Shipping and Delivery Updates. These are not technically marketing messages, but they are the most opened texts you will send. Use them to build trust and cross-sell: “Your order is out for delivery! While you wait, check out what is new this week: [link].”
4. Post-Purchase Review Request. Send a text 7-10 days after delivery asking for a product review. Include a direct link to the review form. SMS review requests generate 4-6x more reviews than email requests because the barrier to action is lower.
5. Win-Back Flow. If a customer has not purchased in 60-90 days, trigger an SMS with a personalised offer: “We miss you, [name]! Here is 10% off your next order, just for you: [link].” Keep the discount modest and the message personal.
SMS Campaign Strategy: Less Is More
With email, you can send 3-4 times per week and still maintain engagement. SMS is different. Send more than 4-6 texts per month and your unsubscribe rate will spike. Every message needs to justify the interruption.
The best-performing SMS campaigns fall into three categories:
- Flash sales and limited-time offers. The urgency plus the immediacy of SMS is a powerful combination. “24-hour flash sale: 25% off everything. Shop now: [link]. Ends midnight.” These drive 2-3x the revenue of the same offer sent by email alone.
- New product launches and restocks. “It is back! [Product] just restocked, last time it sold out in 48 hours. Grab yours: [link].” Scarcity messaging via SMS creates urgency that email cannot match.
- VIP-exclusive offers. Make your SMS list feel special with offers not available anywhere else. “SMS VIP exclusive: free shipping this weekend. No code needed: [link].” This exclusivity justifies staying subscribed.
Choosing the Right SMS Platform
For most Aussie Shopify stores, Klaviyo SMS is the default choice. If you are already using Klaviyo for email (and you should be), adding their SMS feature is the path of least resistance. Your customer data, segments, and automation triggers all work across both channels without any integration hassle.
You will see Postscript recommended in a lot of US content. It is a strong SMS-only specialist, but it is built for the US market and bills Australian numbers at international rates, so check its current international pricing before you sign up. Omnisend is the other realistic option for Aussie brands, particularly if you want email and SMS in one cheaper plan (our Klaviyo vs Omnisend comparison covers the trade-offs).
Cost-wise, Australian texts cost more than US ones. On Klaviyo, a standard 160-character SMS to an Aussie number uses several credits and works out at roughly 5-7 cents AUD per message, and longer messages are billed per 160-character segment. A 5,000-subscriber list sending 4 campaigns per month plus automated flows will cost roughly $1,200-1,800 AUD per month.
If each subscriber generates $3-5 per month in revenue, the channel still returns well over 5x its sending cost. Keep messages under 160 characters and you keep costs predictable.
The Compound Effect: SMS Plus Email
SMS does not replace email, it amplifies it. The most effective retention marketing strategy uses both channels in a coordinated rhythm. Email handles the heavy lifting of education, brand storytelling, and detailed product showcases. SMS handles the time-sensitive nudges and high-urgency moments.
For example, a product launch sequence might look like: email announcement on Monday (detailed product story, multiple images), SMS reminder on Wednesday (“Launching tomorrow, set your alarm”), email on Thursday morning (full launch details), SMS on Thursday afternoon (“Selling fast, 40% sold in 3 hours. Grab yours: [link]”). This dual-channel approach typically generates 40-60% more launch revenue than email alone.
One eCommerce Circle member added SMS to their existing email strategy and saw total owned-channel revenue increase from 24% to 38% of total sales within three months. The SMS list was only 30% the size of their email list but contributed nearly as much revenue per subscriber.
The SMS Benchmarks to Hold Your Store To
SMS is easy to switch on and easy to run badly. The fix is to know what good looks like before you send your first campaign, so you can tell the difference between a channel that is working and one that is quietly burning your list.
These are the ranges we see across Aussie Shopify stores running SMS through Klaviyo. Treat them as a health check, not a target to game.
- Pop-up SMS capture: 3-6% of visitors who see a two-step pop-up (email first, then phone) will give you their number. Under 2% usually means the SMS offer is not different enough from the email offer.
- Checkout opt-in: 25-35% of buyers, as covered above. If you are under 15%, check the checkbox is visible on mobile and the copy says what they will get.
- Campaign click rate: 8-15%. Below 5% means the message is too generic or the list is tired.
- Unsubscribe rate per campaign: under 2%. Anything consistently above 3% is your list telling you to send less often.
- Flow share of SMS revenue: 40-60%. If campaigns are doing all the work, your automations are underbuilt.
- Revenue per subscriber per month: the $3-5 range quoted earlier is a mature programme. In your first 90 days, $1-2 is normal.
Check these monthly, not daily. SMS numbers swing hard around sale events, so compare each month against the same month last year once you have the history.
Worked Example: The First 90 Days for an Aussie Skincare Brand
Imagine you run a skincare brand doing $80K a month on Shopify, with 14,000 email subscribers and no SMS list. Here is what a sensible first quarter looks like.
Month one: build the list and the two money flows. You add a two-step pop-up and a checkout checkbox, then launch the welcome and abandoned cart flows. By day 30 you have around 1,100 SMS subscribers, mostly from checkout. The abandoned cart text alone recovers about $2,400 in orders you would otherwise have lost.
Month two: add the post-purchase and review texts. Review requests by SMS lift your monthly review count from 20 to around 70, which feeds straight into product page conversion. You send your first two campaigns: a restock alert and a VIP early-access window before a sale.
Month three: coordinate with email. You run a launch using the email plus SMS rhythm described above. SMS subscribers now sit at 2,600 and the channel is contributing roughly 6-8% of total revenue, at a messaging cost of under $400 for the month.
The point is not the exact numbers. It is the order. Flows first, then a small number of high-intent campaigns, then coordination with email. Brands that start with blast campaigns usually burn the list before the flows ever get a chance to earn.
If you want the email side of this built properly, start with our welcome email flow playbook and the abandoned cart recovery playbook. The SMS messages slot into those same flows.
The Aussie SMS Compliance Checklist (Five Minutes That Saves You a Fine)
The Spam Act 2003 applies to every marketing text you send, and the ACMA does issue penalties to online retailers. None of this is hard, but all of it has to be in place before you send.
- Express consent only. A clear checkbox or keyword opt-in. Never a pre-ticked box, and never numbers pulled from order data without consent for marketing.
- Identify yourself. Every message needs to make clear it is from your brand. Start texts with your brand name so there is no doubt.
- A working unsubscribe in every message. “Reply STOP to opt out” is the standard. The law gives you up to five working days to action it, but good platforms do it instantly.
- Keep consent records. Klaviyo logs when and where each number opted in. Do not delete that history when you clean your list.
- Respect the clock and the time zone. Send between 9am and 8pm in the customer’s local time. Perth is two to three hours behind the east coast, so a 7pm Sydney send lands fine in WA, but an 8am Sydney send lands at 5am or 6am in Perth.
- Never buy or rent a list. It breaches consent rules and it wrecks your deliverability with carriers.
For a deeper build of the full channel, including segmentation and send frequency, see our Klaviyo SMS playbook.
Get Started This Week
Enable SMS in Klaviyo (or sign up for Postscript), add an SMS opt-in to your checkout, and set up two flows: welcome and abandoned cart. That is it for week one. Let those run for 30 days, measure the results, then layer in campaigns and additional flows.
Inside the eCommerce Circle, SMS strategy is part of our retention marketing framework. We help members build coordinated email and SMS programs that maximise lifetime value without annoying customers, because the goal is not just more messages, it is more revenue per subscriber.
If you are doing $10K+ per month and not using SMS, you are ignoring the highest-ROI marketing channel available. Start small, respect the channel, and watch it compound.
