SMS Compliance Checklist: What You Need To Know for 2025

Every day, more than a billion text messages are sent out to customers by businesses, yours included.

And with so many messages going out to customers yearly, you’ve probably thought along the lines of:

1. Are you sure this message doesn't count as spam?
2. Is the customer still interested in being a subscriber?
3. Are we doing this the way the SMS compliance regulations say they should be done?
4. How can we send text messages without getting into legal trouble?
5. What do the regulations even say?!

If these questions have ever come across your company's quarterly or annual review, we understand and can relate.

SMS compliance is a topic that businesses try to ensure they follow strictly. No company wants to get blocked and waste text messages they paid good money for, or even worse, get into a legal battle.

So to help you worry less, I'm giving you all the necessary details needed to be SMS compliant, either as a small business or as an enterprise company.

But before we start, here's a quick SMS compliance checklist to help guide you on your compliance journey.

SMS Compliance Checklist

• Register your brand (this can be done within your SMS platform dashboard)
• Obtain consent from recipients
• Mention your company/organization’s name in every text
• Include opt-out instructions in every text
• Don’t send messages with content that mobile carriers deem “questionable” (for example, SHAFT—sex, hate, alcohol, firearms, tobacco)
• Send messages between 8am–9pm in the recipient’s time zone
• Make sure to respect opt-outs (opt-outs are handled automatically by Mobile Text Alerts)

Note: this article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice.

SMS Compliance in the US

Before I rush into the legal jargon, first note that “express consent” is the most important factor in staying compliant with every regulation or law. If the consent of your customer wasn't obtained expressly, that's cold texting, and it is strongly discouraged in most cases. (We'll discuss more about this further along in this article.) Additionally, even if your recipient did give their consent expressly, it must not be obtained by misrepresentation.

For now, let’s just understand that express consent is an important condition that must be met before going ahead to send out messages.

Now in the US, text marketing compliance laws and regulations like the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (a law that regulates how customer consent is obtained) and the Messaging Principles and Best Practices developed by member companies of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA: a body that regulates mobile marketing) are well known. They (including others) MUST guide how you conduct your SMS marketing activities as a business, or else you’ll run into issues with your messages not being delivered.

Telephone Consumer Protection Act 1991

The TCPA is a law that regulates telemarketing and is mostly concerned that customers don’t get unwanted texts from telemarketers and businesses. That’s why the law is very particular about getting the consent of your customers (especially the how) before sending them messages.

However, if you're using an SMS marketing tool like Mobile Text Alerts, you can worry a little less about the TCPA applying to you.

Why?

According to certain recent court rulings, text messages are not seen as violating the TCPA since they cannot be classified as pre-recorded calls. This means that as long as your message is not an audio pre-made message, you’ve gotten consent to send the messages, and the list you use is legitimate, you can’t be classified as an auto-dialer.

Regardless, you must still follow the TCPA because it has other provisions regulating SMS marketing for businesses. Additionally, remember again that consent is a major component of sending messages to your customers (we’ll talk more about this later).

Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association

On the other hand, the CTIA is an association that regulates mobile marketing by setting guidelines and practices for how mobile marketing is done. Most of the guidelines cover opt-in/opt-out processes, content of text messages, message/CTA clarity, and, of course, express consent. It ensures that businesses stay in line with mobile carrier requirements.

For example, the Messaging Principles and Best Practices (MPBP) developed by member companies (mostly mobile carriers) of the CTIA set out the parameters under which messages can be exchanged with consumers through Wireless Providers’ messaging networks.

The point of these best practices is to promote the use of wireless messaging services by businesses, which then increases their trust (and patronage) in these wireless providers. It also emphasizes protecting consumers from unwanted messages, i.e. spam and cold texting. It outlines the roles in a messaging ecosystem, while highlighting things like (again) consent, opt-in/opt-out, selling of SMS lists, etc.

Basically, these best practices outline how wireless (text) messages should be sent to consumers by businesses, while regulating the kind of messages to be received.

These are some of the rules that guide the CTIA in its responsibilities as a regulatory body.

Finally, even though regulations like the MPBP under the CTIA are not legally binding, you must follow them. The effect of not following these guidelines will mean your messages won't get delivered - and in some cases could even mean fines.

Sidenote: When a business fails to comply with the regulations of the CTIA, it is the network providers, AKA the mobile carriers themselves, who will block the number (or short code), not the CTIA. This is because most network providers follow the lead of associations like the CTIA and are bound by its rules, guidelines, and authority.

Mobile Marketing Association

The MMA is a global trade association of marketers, media and martech companies. This body regulates mobile marketing practices around the world, ensuring that:

• Marketing standards are constantly being reviewed and improved using science and technology.
• Businesses are in line with ever-changing marketing practices.

One of their core activities is using research to gather information, statistics and tools that can be used to improve mobile marketing efforts.

But beyond that, they outline policies and requirements for the mobile marketing industry, which invariably covers text marketing (similar to what the CTIA does). For instance, one of the MMA's key principles is using the same phone number for opt-in and sending messages afterwards. They also cover opt-in and opt-out requirements, subscriber data privacy, and so on.

Some other regulatory bodies include:

• Federal Communications Commission: This is an agency that regulates all interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable. The FCC plays a critical role in shaping policies related to telecommunications infrastructure, broadband access, and spectrum management.
• Federal Trade Commission: This is an agency focused on protecting consumers and promoting fair competition amongst businesses. It enforces laws against deceptive advertising, fraud, and anticompetitive business practices. It also plays a key role in data privacy, especially when companies misuse or misrepresent how they collect and protect consumer information. The FTC also enforces the CAN-SPAM Act, which is a law that regulates all commercial email, sets the requirements for commercial messages, gives recipients the right to opt out of future emails, and outlines tough penalties for violations by businesses. It basically controls how messages are sent, weakening the occurrence of spam messages for subscribers.

SMS Compliance in Canada

Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL)

In Canada, the core rule is the same, but the law is different: consent is super important. The Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) is a new law that applies to all electronic messages that are for commercial purposes (they call them CEM: Commercial Electronic Messages). It states that before any CEM is sent to a recipient by a Canadian or global business/organization, the recipient’s consent must be given. Basically, as a Canadian business, you can't send marketing messages to your customers without their consent.

The consent can be oral or written, but it must be clearly stated. The legislation also lists out how consent can be obtained from customers (Canadian businesses, you really need to have a look).

However, it is not particular about the consent being express consent, meaning the consent can be implicit. However, it’s better and safer to get express consent from your subscribers.

The penalties for not following this law can include fines, civil suits, personal liability of the employees, and even criminal charges. The law looks at a lot of other aspects of text marketing compliance in Canada, so for our Canadian customers, check out what the law has in store for you.

PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act)

The PIPEDA is a privacy law that applies to businesses in Canada, especially those that operate across provincial or international borders, and it’s particularly relevant for companies handling customer data online. It governs how businesses in Canada collect, use, and disclose personal information of their customers.

As with many other similar regulations, the key focus of this law is getting the subscriber’s consent legitimately, using their data for the stated purpose while storing it (and keeping it safe) for as long as it is necessary. In addition, with this law, customers have the right to access their data and request corrections.

Sidenote: For each province in Canada, there is a privacy law that governs that area. So it’s important that you know the law that governs the province where you do business.

Balancing Compliance With Marketing

Compliance can make your business’s marketing game seem tricky, but I promise you it’s not! It always looks like a lot, especially when the sales/marketing teams are at loggerheads with the legal department, while they turn their heads over on how to sell to your customers. And I understand how it can be.

Tomisona Olajire, Data Protection and Information Governance Officer, says, “Most businesses see compliance as a blocker or hindrance, but it's not. It is a way to protect your business and not weaken your marketing efforts."

The need to promote your products/services while staying compliant with SMS regulations like the TCPA and CASL can be a weird balance to maintain. But, with the right strategies, everyone can be in harmony without breaking an SMS regulation.

And that's where we've come to in this article.

Here are a few ways you can market like a pro and still be SMS compliant:

Use a Safe SMS Contact List

You can either build one yourself or use an SMS marketing tool like Mobile Text Alerts to build a comprehensive subscriber list. Mobile Text Alerts provides you with a web sign-up form, a text-to-join option and an automatic QR code generation to help you build the text marketing list you need.

But what about integrations, you ask? Well, you can integrate with virtually any other software via API or Zapier, and there are some native integrations available as well.

If you already have a list of your own, you can easily try the drag and drop feature to import your spreadsheet list or integrate it with other tools that contain your list to make the process smoother.

When you use a list that is properly regulated, your sales/marketing team can focus more on hooking your audience with attractive offers or campaigns.

Transparency

Right from the start, let your contacts know very clearly what they're consenting to receive from you. Are they buying-in to informational or promotional messages or both? Let them know.

When you send them the first message, make sure you introduce your business to them as clearly as possible. Nobody wants to get a text message from an anonymous sender telling them to opt in for weekly messages on building equipment. So let them know your company name alongside other necessary information. It makes it easier for interested subscribers to consent to you sending them messages. (P.S. You can use Mobile Text Alerts to easily add your messages and schedule them in less than 5 minutes.)

Finally, tell them the benefits of why they should opt in to receive text messages from you. Special bonuses, exclusive offers? Give them a good reason to click “I Agree.” Similarly, for promotional texts, let your CTAs be clear so they know what it is they are getting into once they click. If it's necessary, let them know how long they will be receiving the text messages. One thing to remember: transparency increases trust.

Send Compliant SMS Texts

As much as you should maintain transparency, you also need to go the extra mile in making sure that your messages are compliant. Whether it's a promotional, conversational, or informational text (or even for a marketing campaign), the content needs to comply with current SMS regulations.

For instance, the best practices from the CTIA provides the standard that the content of text messages should follow. The content of your messages should not contain anything harmful, deceptive, unlawful, illicit, fraudulent, unwanted, or even inappropriate. This means that no matter the type of message being sent, it must not fall under any of these categories. For example, you can't pass across messages that could incite violence against a particular race or group of people, no matter the intention.

SMS Is For Engagement, Not Interrogation

According to content marketer Tanaka Chamisa, your SMS marketing strategy should focus on engaging your customers, not trying to extract more information from them. Remember, SMS is a marketing channel, so the focus should be “how can we engage our customers/users better with texts?” and not “how should we use our texts to get more data from our customers/users?” You're not MI6, so you have to craft your messages in a way that makes it easier for your subscribers to warm up to you. When you focus on engagement, you build a better relationship with them, making it easier to retain your existing subscribers and get more leads. Plus, the more you engage with your audience, you'll be able to gradually get more of their data because of the existing relationship.

Processes and Audits

Use compliance regulations particular to your region as a guide to creating and implementing your business's SMS compliance structure. This process should outline how you create your text's content, the opt-in/opt-out process, preferred CTAs, and so on. It will help you stay on the right track so you don't fall into compliance gaps.

In addition, it's good to do a regular audit of your process. Yes, you should be compliant in the beginning, but you must maintain continuous compliance. SMS compliance is not a one-time action; it's an ongoing effort to ensure that you're doing text marketing right. So, as compliance regulations change, your structure can change, and so audits can help.

You can get a professional to handle this audit, or do it in-house if you have the available bandwidth. You could also include a security audit to avoid data security issues that might come up, e.g, your systems being hacked, customer information leaking and so on.

“Businesses and companies get compliant, but they don't stay compliant.” - Tanaka Chamisa

Consent

At the point of obtaining subscribers’ details, getting their express consent is a top requirement. If you send them messages without doing that, it defeats the whole purpose of being compliant. Again, cold texting is not a great text marketing strategy if you want to stay compliant.

When receiving their consent, it's best to keep a written record of their consent for future purposes. Note who consented and how their consent was obtained. Recording it as evidence shows that you did things the right way, to help avoid potential penalties or legal claims going forward.

Staff Orientation

“Compliance is a culture that everyone in the workplace should follow.” - Tomisona Olajire

It's not just the legal team's duty to care about SMS compliance. Everyone must care about compliance. If the management and team heads don't want to be SMS compliant, then the employees won't either. It's why you must ensure that SMS compliance is something that all the relevant teams (sales, marketing, technical, etc.) are involved in. This helps to reduce the incidences of non-compliance because everyone is aware and alert.

Opt in/Opt Out Requirement

Your contacts have now given you their consent to send them messages, which is great. But to be on the safer side, use a clear and detailed double opt-in format instead of a single one. This ensures that they intentionally put in their number. And if you are using a checkbox? Make sure it's unchecked by default so they can fill it themselves. Both methods help you make sure that you have their full consent.

When it's time to opt out, you are required to respect your subscribers’ decision to say they don't want your messages anymore. Give them a very visible and inconspicuous choice to opt out of receiving texts. Make the key text bold and easy to identify, like “Text CANCEL to stop receiving messages like this.” This should come in every message you send to them.

One last thing: make sure that they are actually unsubscribed. It's better to check than leave it to chance. Do the necessary checks to see if they really are unsubscribed. Using an SMS marketing tool like Mobile Text Alerts can help you easily view which customers have opted out through the view-from-anywhere dashboard.

Sidenote: To make SMS compliance feel less overwhelming for your team(s), break down your process into detailed timelines. This helps you set realistic compliance goals based on your current stage, while keeping you constantly in the loop with SMS marketing regulations. For instance, you can set a time-specific goal that by the 3rd quarter of the year, you want to make sure you've refined your SMS marketing strategy to meet the standards of an upcoming regulation.

SMS Compliance Pitfalls To Avoid

While you balance SMS compliance with text marketing, make sure that you avoid these issues, so that your number doesn't get barred by your mobile carrier:

Getting Contact Lists From Unreliable Sources

Nothing good comes easy. If the cost of getting a list is too good to be true, then it is. I understand the need for reducing the stress of gathering data. But if you need quality contacts, you are going to have to put in the effort to get a good one. It is also advisable not to sell, rent or share your list with other businesses to avoid fines or legal action from subscribers.

The bright side is that with Mobile Text Alerts, you don't have to drop an arm and a leg to compile your own SMS list. We have a variety of features to help you create your list in the simplest ways possible. But the most important thing is, ensure that your list meets the standards of SMS compliance.

Privacy

Another pitfall to avoid is sharing your subscribers’ information with third parties without their consent. If you already intend to share their contacts with 3rd parties, let them know how you will handle their data while you get their consent to share their details with others.

Too Many Messages

Remember: your text messaging channel is for engagement and shouldn't be used to bombard your customers. So sending your customers messages at odd hours of the day and flooding them with too many messages just gets… annoying. The TCPA even provides specific times within which you can send messages: between 8am to 9pm. Sending a message outside of these times is a huge risk, so take note of your subscribers’ time zones and know the best time to send texts to them.

So instead of sending messages sporadically, opt for strategic, scheduled messages (again, Mobile Text Alerts) at specific times of the day according to the subscribers’ locations.

What To Do If You Face the Risk of Non-Compliance

Now, in case you run into compliance issues, here's a quick 2-step plan to help you:

1. Review Your Process:

Remember what I mentioned about auditing your SMS Marketing compliance process? This is also a good time to do that. In such cases, it could be good to consult/get a compliance professional or a compliance software to do this. But for starters, first check how you collect data and also check the content of your messages. These 2 checks could indicate where the problem is coming from or lead you to other areas.

2. Draw Up a Recovery Plan and Implement:

If you have a qualified compliance consultant or efficient compliance software, they should be able to assist you in drawing up a recovery plan. A recovery plan will map out the problem and how it will be solved. Then, assign a team to execute this plan, ensuring that nothing is left to chance because you need to effect a complete solution.

Navigating SMS Compliance with Mobile Text Alerts

As a business that wants to not just be compliant but stay compliant, understand that it is a journey and not a stop. You have to keep on reviewing your SMS marketing blueprint to ensure that you are ALWAYS on the right side of compliance.

And while staying compliant, using an efficient (and uncomplicated) text alert software that exponentially increases your message reach and engagement while helping you stay compliant matters.

That's why Mobile Text Alerts is here! One reason you should join Mobile Text Alerts; sending text messages to your recipients has never been easier. With Mobile Text Alerts, you can seamlessly import your contact list or just create one from scratch using our pre-made web sign-up forms, text to join, etc. You can equally create messages and schedule them so that they get to your subscribers in seconds.

Another reason: we help you first register your clean traffic and then relate with compliance aggregators that might want to flag your messages because of the content. With this, you stay compliant and avoid further issues.

And did someone say automation? We have recurring messages, drip campaigns and automated replies to help you communicate with your subscribers.

Mobile Text Alerts is your simple but powerful solution to a seemingly complex SMS marketing structure. So opt in for our free 14-day trial (no credit card required) and enjoy more reach with more leads.

FAQ

What is SMS Compliance?

In the words of consultant Rory Ovedje, SMS compliance is carrying out marketing within the regulatory framework that covers SMS marketing.

If we break it down a bit more, it’s simply following compulsory SMS regulations that allow your customers to buy in to what you want to say to them, i.e. market your products, pass information, etc.

With this in mind, you must understand that as a business, there are limits to what you can do with text marketing. Practices like obtaining subscribers’ details fraudulently, constantly barraging them with unwelcome texts, and sharing their details without their consent are highly prohibited.

However, it is important to know that no law guides SMS marketing in particular. It usually falls under the general laws and statutes that guide electronic marketing (since, when we think about it, SMS marketing is a type of electronic marketing).

Author Bio

Chioma Ubiji is a lawyer by day and a content writer by night, keen on helping SaaS and e-commerce brands turn complex ideas into content that clicks—and converts.

She’s passionate about content marketing, storytelling, and strategy, with a special love for showing businesses how the right tech tools can drive growth.

When she’s not writing blog posts or drafting legal documents, she's probably listening to R&B Gospel songs, bingeing cooking/food videos or personal development podcasts, or dreaming up her next big business move.

Follow Chioma for marketing musings, career transition tales, tech tools analysis and behind-the-scenes content adventures on:

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Subject Matter Experts

Rory Ovedje

• Data Privacy Analyst & Consultant
• Data Protection Officer

Tanaka Chamisa

• Head of Content & Brand at Safe Workplace

Tomisona Olajire

• Data Protection & Information Governance Officer