SMS Marketing in Australia — The Complete 2026 Guide

1. Intro & TL;DR

SMS marketing in Australia is the highest-open-rate mass channel you can buy. ~98% of messages get opened[1], almost all of them within minutes[2], and 89% of Australians have a mobile in their pocket to receive them[3]. The job of this guide is to show you how to use that lever without wasting spend or breaching the Spam Act 2003[5].

If you read nothing else: consent + segmentation + a single clear CTA + a short link + send between 9am and 8pm. Everything below is detail on those five pieces.

2. What is SMS marketing?

SMS marketing is the practice of sending promotional or informational text messages to a list of contacts who have opted in to receive them. In Australia it splits into two flavours:

• Marketing SMS — promotes an offer or product. Requires explicit opt-in, sender identification, and a working opt-out path.
• Transactional SMS — order confirmations, OTPs, reminders. Sent in response to a customer action, but still subject to consent and identification rules.

Both run on the same carrier rails, both are billed the same way, and both should sit inside the same opt-in / opt-out hygiene.

3. Campaign planning

Goal setting

Every campaign should pick one job:

• Acquisition — turn a list of leads into first-time customers.
• Retention — increase repeat purchase frequency from existing customers.
• Reactivation — bring back customers who've lapsed.

Budgeting

At Texto's flat 3¢ per SMS, the maths is straightforward. A 5,000-contact send costs $150. A 50,000-contact send costs $1,500. There are no monthly minimums, so you only pay for the messages you actually send.

Timing & frequency

• Send between 9am and 8pm local time — best practice and aligns with reasonable-hour expectations under the Spam Act.
• Midweek (Tues–Thurs) typically outperforms Mondays and Fridays.
• Cap at 2–4 marketing SMS per contact per month unless the list has explicitly opted in to a higher cadence.

4. Writing effective SMS

You have 160 GSM-7 characters to do everything: identify yourself, hook the reader, deliver the offer, link the action, and offer an opt-out. Cut anything that doesn't earn its keep.

Annotated examples

Do / don't

5. Segmentation strategies

Generic blasts hurt your opt-out rate without lifting revenue. Most lists respond best when split along one or more of these axes:

• List hygiene — suppress STOP-replied numbers (Texto auto-handles this), strip bounced/invalid numbers, deduplicate.
• RFM segments — Recency, Frequency, Monetary value. Top RFM tier gets early access; bottom tier gets reactivation offers.
• Lifecycle stage — new lead, first-time buyer, repeat customer, lapsed. Different message for each.
• Geo — store/franchise location, time zone, regional offers.
• Behaviour triggers — abandoned cart, viewed product, booked but didn't show.

Merge-field templates

6. ROI calculations

The basic formula:

Worked example: 5,000 SMS at 3¢ = $150 spend. 8% CTR = 400 clicks. 4% conversion = 16 orders. $80 AOV = $1,280 revenue. ROI = ($1,280 − $150) / $150 = ~753%.

7. Case study patterns

Generalised patterns we see across Texto customers — names and numbers anonymised.

8. Compliance deep-dive

SMS marketing in Australia is governed primarily by the Spam Act 2003[5] (enforced by ACMA) and the Privacy Act 1988[6] (enforced by the OAIC). Three rules cover most of it:

1. 1.Consent. Express (tick-box, written agreement, web form) or inferred from an existing customer relationship. Keep the record.
2. 2.Identify yourself. Recipients must know who's sending. Use a recognisable sender ID or name yourself in the body.
3. 3.Honour opt-outs. Provide a working unsubscribe path and action it within five business days. Texto handles STOP automatically.

For broader marketing self-regulation in Australia, also see the AANA Code of Ethics[7].

9. Black Friday / Cyber Monday playbook

BFCM is the highest-ROI SMS marketing window of the year. Open rates of ~98%[1] meet peak purchase intent. The wins go to brands that plan the send schedule rather than blast on the day.

See the bulk SMS marketing page for a shorter version of this playbook and sample message templates.

10. Glossary

GSM-7

The default 7-bit SMS character set. 160 chars = 1 part = 1 credit.

UCS-2 / unicode

Used when a message contains emoji or non-Latin characters. Drops capacity to 70 chars per part.

Sender ID

The 'from' name or number recipients see. Can be a dedicated long number, a shortcode, or an alphanumeric ID.

Opt-in

Documented consent from a contact to receive marketing messages. Required under the Spam Act 2003.

STOP / unsubscribe

Universal opt-out keyword. Texto auto-suppresses any number that replies STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE or similar.

CTR

Click-through rate — clicked links ÷ delivered messages.

AOV

Average order value — total revenue ÷ number of orders.

RFM

Recency, Frequency, Monetary value — a segmentation framework based on past purchase behaviour.

11. Sources & references

1. [1]~98% SMS open rates vs ~20% email open rates — G2 — SMS Marketing Statistics.
2. [2]Average time to read an SMS (within ~3 minutes) — Mobilesquared — A Guide To The SMS Market.
3. [3]89% of Australians own a mobile phone — ACMA — Communications and media in Australia 2023.
4. [4]5+ billion people send and receive SMS globally — GSMA — The Mobile Economy.
5. [5]Spam Act 2003 — rules for businesses — Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).
6. [6]Privacy Act 1988 — Australian Privacy Principles — Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).
7. [7]Marketing & advertising self-regulation — Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA).

FAQ