The ideal approach to SMS timing will be specific to your business and your audience. Each message’s performance across different time windows will vary depending on your:

• Industry

• Audience demographics

• Campaign geography

• Message content
  
  

When one of these variables changes—such as the CTA of your message or the audience segment you’re targeting—the ideal timing of that campaign is also subject to change.

But the road to mastering this timing is long. A period of trial and error is inevitable. One way to speed up these test-and-refine cycles, though, is to create a campaign starting point based on widely accepted best practices for timing SMS messages.

Meanwhile, these best practices will help you squeeze more value out of SMS campaigns right out of the gate. Here’s what your business needs to do:

1. Identify the best time windows for SMS delivery

Let the past performance of other business SMS campaigns be your guide. One of the biggest trends in SMS timing is delivering messages in the afternoon. Across the board, it’s working well.

One study suggests that text messages sent between 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. can generate a 33% lift in revenue. Based on these numbers alone, a similar delivery window might be worth testing for your business—assuming you adjust the delivery schedule for local time zones. 

The success of afternoon marketing could be the product of several different factors. In general, consumers seem more inclined to engage with brands across channels in the afternoon, resulting in better ROI for this messaging. 

But your industry might make a big difference: since consumers are most engaged with online shopping during the evening hours, e-commerce SMS might be more effective when scheduled for prime-time delivery.

Your audience also matters. A text message sent in the morning hours might earn decent engagement from adults keeping a traditional schedule, but that same message could severely underperform if targeted at younger consumers who are inclined to sleep late. Take all sweeping SMS timing recommendations with a grain of salt, and choose a delivery strategy that makes sense for your business.

2. Restrict message delivery during “off-limits” hours

Certain times of day are no-fly zones for your SMS marketing. It’s not only a matter of respect to your subscribers; in many cases, these off-limits hours are a matter of compliance.

These legal requirements become far more complex when delivering messages to a global audience. In addition to time zone differences, each country sets its own rules, dictating when business SMS messaging is prohibited, and your campaigns need to consistently account for these differences.

In the United States, for example, text messages from businesses are prohibited between 9:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. But more than a dozen states have enacted their own SMS regulations, some of which are stricter than federal guidelines. In Florida, Oklahoma, and Washington, for example, quiet hours for SMS messaging begin at 8:00 p.m., and other states plan to follow their lead.

The timing considerations continue to mount as you move abroad. France doesn’t allow business SMS messages on Sundays. South Africa only permits SMS on Saturdays between 9:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. The list goes on—and it can quickly complicate your efforts to develop a consistent approach to SMS timing.

Beyond these regulations, you’ll also need to account for cultural differences, including religious and cultural holidays where certain segments of your audience may not appreciate receiving a branded SMS message. 

Pro tip: Use an SMS messaging platform like Bird to keep track of these time considerations for you and keep your campaigns time-compliant.

3. Set up a system for A/B testing delivery times

If you’re sending a branded SMS message to more than one person, you have the opportunity to experiment. You can find out if your customers prefer morning or afternoon messages, engagement on weekdays or weekends, and even whether different types of messaging achieve better results when targeted to specific delivery windows.

These insights can only be achieved when you’ve created a reliable, repeatable process for A/B testing your SMS. To conduct an A/B test, you will create two identical versions of your SMS message and deliver them to similar audiences at different times of day, or even different days altogether. 

When one message outperforms the other, your business might be able to glean a valuable insight to optimize its message timing for future campaigns. 

Here are three requirements to create a successful A/B testing process:

• Isolate one element in A/B tests. If you want to optimize your timing strategy, keep all other elements of your SMS the same. Changing the message content, delivering to dissimilar audiences, or changing other elements will invalidate your insights because you don’t know whether variances in performance should be attributed to SMS timing or other message differences.
  
  
  

• Split your audience into two random groups. Use an SMS messaging platform to randomize and divide your audience. The larger your audience, the better. For businesses still building up their SMS lists, smaller audience sample sizes may be unavoidable until you can increase your subscriber count.
  
  
  

• Identify the metrics used to evaluate performance. Whether you’re focused on open rates, click-throughs, conversions, or other metrics, choose metrics that reflect the desired marketing outcome of each message you send.

4. Analyze performance and implement changes

After each A/B test is complete, review performance metrics and make note of any significant differences between the two delivery times.

In some cases, you might not identify any noteworthy changes. When the two message versions achieve different results, though, ask the following questions:

• Are there any variables outside of delivery time that could account for this variance?

• Do these insights make sense given our past timing tests?

• How can we use this information to refine our approach and schedule another A/B test?