Measure SMS campaign performance

Bola’s Baked Goods noticed that a subset of their recent SMS campaigns each had a pretty low click rate. These campaigns each highlighted new product launches of various pastry flavors, and were being sent to all of their SMS subscribers.

After reviewing Klaviyo’s help article on how to increase SMS click rates, Bola’s team identified a few changes they should make going forward:

• Targeting these messages to subscribers most likely to engage: instead of sending this message to all of their SMS subscribers, Bola’s team decides to target these campaigns to some of their more engaged segments. By doing so, Bola’s team is only sending their product updates to those most likely to engage with the message, thus improving their click rates. Bola’s team schedules their future product launch campaigns to send to their SMS VIP segment, and a segment of subscribers who have purchased other pastries in the past.
  
• Including a link in every campaign: Bola’s team noticed that in a few of their product launch campaigns, they had crafted a short and snappy description of the new pastry flavor but they didn’t actually include a link to the product on their site. With no link, Bola’s team can’t track and click rates. Going forward, Bola’s team makes sure to always include a link to the new product in each campaign so they can accurately track subscriber clicks.
  
  
• Making their CTA (call-to-action) clear: While Bola’s team had done a great job describing the new pastry flavor in each campaign, they noticed that they rarely included a strong CTA in their message copy. Because of this, their campaigns were coming across as short, informative descriptions rather than enticing their subscribers to learn more about the product and eventually purchase it. In their upcoming campaigns, Bola’s team made sure to include a clear CTA at the end of each message directly before their link, such as “Click here to purchase now” and “Learn more about this product,” to encourage their subscribers to click the link.
  
  
• Mixing in an exclusive deal every few campaigns: Lastly, Bola's team chose to include exclusive discounts in select product launch campaigns to further encourage subscriber engagement. This practice also helped build customer relationships by providing their most engaged subscribers with rewards for their continued loyalty to Bola’s brand.

Bola’s Baked Goods noticed that a few of their recent campaigns had a high click rate, but a surprisingly low conversion rate. These few campaigns centered around their upcoming sale on all fall-flavored items, and each was sent to all of their SMS subscribers.

After reviewing Klaviyo’s help article on how to increase SMS conversion rates, Bola’s team identified a few changes they should make going forward:

• Targeting these messages to subscribers most likely to engage: To keep their deliverability high, Bola’s decides that going forward, they would send sale announcements once per month to all of their SMS subscribers. For subsequent sale SMS messages, they decided to target them to their engaged segments, allowing them to further customize these messages. For example, they’ll send one SMS to their SMS VIPs with an early access to sale prices, and they’ll send another SMS to their high-intent shoppers with an extra discount they can use during the sale period, encouraging them to convert.
  
  
• Changing their link to more clearly reflect the CTA: Bola’s team decided to adjust some of the links they had been including in their text messages to be more specific to the content. For example, in a previous SMS campaign about a sale on muffins, the link they included brought recipients to the website homepage. For their next sale on muffins, Bola’s team will send an SMS with a link specific to the product page for muffins on their website, making the user journey more seamless and assist in getting them to the point of checkout.
  
  
• Optimizing the mobile checkout experience: Bola’s team additionally evaluated and tested their mobile checkout experience, and noticed a few roadblocks that likely caused customers to get frustrated and drop-off before completing a purchase. If checking out on a phone isn’t easy, you’ll likely have low conversion rates for your SMS messages. Improving the mobile checkout experience will help recipients place orders via their phone, thus increasing conversions driven by SMS messages.

Bola’s Baked Goods noticed that a string of their recent campaigns had an unsubscribe rate of above 2%, which is high for SMS campaigns and needs immediate attention. This group of campaigns highlighted different deals for a few of their product categories, and were all sent to all of their subscribers.

After reviewing Klaviyo’s help article on how to decrease SMS unsubscribe rates, Bola’s team identified a few changes they should make going forward:

• Re-evaluating their engagement criteria for targeted messages: Having a high unsubscribe rate could be a symptom of sending messages to unengaged subscribers. Bola’s tightened the criteria on their engaged SMS segment to be a smaller window (from clicked an SMS in the last 90 days to 60 days) to ensure they were only sending SMS to those who wanted to receive their texts.
  
  
• Personalizing their messages to increase relevance for subscribers: Instead of sending each of these messages to all of their SMS subscribers, Bola’s Baked Goods decided to target each message to those likely to take advantage of the product-specific deal. They created segments based off of previous purchases to better make the messages relevant to their recipients.
  
  
• Making adjustments to their SMS sending schedule: Bola’s team took a look at the sending details of all of their campaigns. They noticed their campaigns that had the strongest metrics were sent during the late morning, and some of the messages with high unsubscribe rates had been sent in the evening. In addition, when each of these messages were went to all of their subscribers, they were receiving an SMS from Bola’s Brand 4 times in one week. With better targeting, each recipient received 1 SMS message per week from Bola’s Brand, which helped to reduce unsubscribes.
  
  
• Setting expectations more clearly at sign-up: It’s important to set expectations for your SMS program at the point of sign-up, so you only get subscribers who actively want to receive your SMS messages. Bola’s tweaked their sign-up forms on their website to more clearly describe messages that their subscribers could expect when they opt-in, helping refine their SMS list to only engaged subscribers.