May 28, 2026
Steal High-Converting Ideas From Leading DTC Brands
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SMS marketing has become one of the highest-performing channels for ecommerce brands because it creates direct, immediate communication with customers in a space people check constantly: their phones.
Unlike social media platforms or crowded inboxes, SMS messages bypass algorithms and deliver marketing content straight to mobile devices in real time. That immediacy is a major reason text marketing continues to outperform many traditional digital channels when it comes to open rates, engagement, and response times.
SMS campaigns consistently see extremely high visibility, with most text messages opened within minutes of delivery. Click-through and response rates also tend to significantly outperform email and paid social, making SMS a valuable channel for promotions, product launches, abandoned cart recovery, back-in-stock alerts, and personalized customer engagement.
Unfortunately, while many brands have mature email programs with email lists in the thousands (or millions), their SMS list growth lags behind. Compared to other marketing channels like email and social media platforms, SMS messages provide a direct line to customers, ensuring your messages are seen and acted on quickly. Actively growing your list to reach more SMS subscribers is essential for increased engagement and conversions.
Brands often grow their email lists by capturing emails on their website, usually with pop-ups or embedded forms.
Email pop-ups like this are great for capturing more emails, but some marketers struggle with the best way to replicate their email capture success with SMS list growth.
“Do I replace the email pop-up on my site with an SMS pop-up and lose out on email subscribers? Or do I add a mobile number field to my existing email forms? What if visitors don’t want to submit both pieces of information, so we get neither of them?”
Including a clear opt-in option for SMS subscriptions at checkout and other engagement points is crucial to collect SMS consent and grow your SMS subscriber list. Collecting phone numbers and SMS consent can also be facilitated by embedding opt-ins at checkout and in post-purchase emails, making it easier for customers to sign up. Including SMS program opt-in options in post-purchase emails is especially effective, as customers who have just completed a purchase are more likely to engage with future communications.
Using a two-step lead capture process, where customers first provide their email and are then invited to upgrade to the SMS program by entering their phone number, can increase overall conversions and boost SMS list growth by over 50%.
SMS list subscribers are extremely valuable, and collecting SMS numbers is a key strategy for growing your SMS subscriber list and increasing sign ups. You don’t have to sacrifice email signups for mobile number opt-ins. In fact, you can even use your existing email list to convert email subscribers and grow your text message marketing audience. Converting email subscribers to SMS subscribers can lead to higher engagement, with SMS click-through rates reaching up to 36% for ecommerce brands, compared to just 4% for email campaigns.
To encourage sign-ups through an SMS opt-in, provide immediate incentives such as discounts, early access to sales, or exclusive deals—these increase the likelihood of users sharing their contact numbers.
When creating compliant SMS sign up forms, make sure to disclose message frequency to set clear expectations for subscribers.
Successful SMS campaigns start with clear, explicit consent. Regulations like the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) exist to ensure customers actively choose to receive text messages and understand exactly what they’re signing up for.
That’s ultimately good for both brands and subscribers. SMS performs best when messages are sent to people who genuinely want to hear from you. Clear opt-ins, transparent expectations, and permission-based list growth help create healthier subscriber relationships, stronger engagement, and better long-term SMS performance overall.
SMS marketing is heavily regulated, with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) in the US and GDPR in Europe setting strict guidelines for SMS compliance laws. Failing to comply with SMS marketing and explicit consent regulations can result in fines ranging from $500 to $1,500 per violation.
Clear opt-out instructions are an essential part of a healthy SMS program and a better customer experience overall. Every SMS sign-up form should clearly explain what subscribers are opting into, include required disclosures, and make it easy for people to unsubscribe at any time.
Brands that honor opt-out requests immediately and communicate transparently tend to build stronger trust and healthier long-term engagement with subscribers.
The best SMS marketing programs grow because customers genuinely want to hear from the brand. Clear expectations, transparent messaging practices, and respectful subscriber experiences ultimately lead to stronger retention, higher engagement, and more sustainable SMS list growth over time.
Here are two approaches you can take to grow your mobile list and engage customers alongside your email list.
The more fields a form contains, the more likely shoppers are to abandon it before completing the sign-up process. Multi-step forms help reduce that friction by breaking the experience into smaller, lower-commitment interactions that feel faster and easier to complete.
This approach also gives brands more flexibility to collect additional customer data over time, including preferences, quiz responses, and opportunities to convert email subscribers to SMS without overwhelming visitors upfront.
Multi-step forms consist of two or more pages, allowing visitors to provide form data piece by piece. Breaking long forms into smaller pieces creates a less daunting user experience, making it more likely that users will complete each step.
Plus, multi-step forms can capture data progressively. That way, even if users abandon a form without completing each step, you still get the data they provided in previous steps.
To grow your SMS list without losing email signups, you can collect the email address on step one, then ask for the visitor’s mobile number on the second page. It’s important to use a compliant SMS sign up form that includes explicit opt in, clear disclosures about message content and frequency, and provides clear opt-out instructions to comply with regulations.
Additionally, make sure your welcome message includes clear opt-out instructions so subscribers understand exactly what they signed up for from the very beginning. Transparent messaging and consent practices are an important part of staying aligned with evolving SMS marketing regulations while also creating a better subscriber experience.
Here’s the email pop-up example from earlier, reworked into a multi-step form.
Now that you’ve captured the user’s email address, you have multiple opportunities to convert them into SMS subscribers. On a future visit, you can trigger the second step of your pop-up and invite them to opt into text updates, or you can continue the conversation through email and encourage SMS sign-up there.
The key is making the experience feel intentional and transparent. Every SMS sign-up flow should clearly explain what subscribers are opting into, include required disclosures, and provide easy-to-understand opt-out instructions so the process stays compliant and user-friendly from the start.
Multi-step forms are a great way to guide new email subscribers into your SMS list, but they’re only one piece of a larger SMS growth strategy.
Your existing email list is already full of highly engaged customers and subscribers who know your brand. Instead of waiting for those users to revisit your site and discover your SMS opt-in organically, brands should actively promote your SMS program through email campaigns, welcome flows, post-purchase messaging, and loyalty communications.
For example, if you already have 10,000 email subscribers, you can invite those customers to join your SMS list directly through targeted email campaigns that highlight the value of subscribing, whether that’s early access, exclusive offers, product launches, or faster updates.
Since SMS is considered a more personal channel than email, it's essential to communicate the VIP value of joining when converting email subscribers to an SMS channel. Think about the added value that subscribers may get from text messages, such as:
Then, build an email campaign that conveys this value.
To collect the opt-in through this campaign, you can ask subscribers to text the opt-in keyword to your shortcode, or you can direct them to a URL where they can provide their number.
Whether you target website visitors or email subscribers with your SMS list growth campaigns, you’ll need pop-up forms or landing pages designed to convert them into text subscribers.
Using SMS sign up forms and SMS popovers on your website is essential for collecting SMS numbers and phone numbers, as these tools make it easy for users to subscribe and help maximize your list growth. Best practices for SMS popovers include using eye-catching designs and clear value propositions to encourage visitors to subscribe.
Here, we’ll cover how to create multi-step forms and landing pages with Digioh.
If you don’t use Digioh’s form builder, your process may look a bit different. However, assuming your solutions offer the same features, you can still use these tactics to build high-converting forms that kick your text marketing list growth into high gear.
Choosing a robust SMS platform, such as Dotdigital, is also important to effectively manage your SMS marketing campaigns, automate messaging, and ensure compliance. Key strategies for growing an SMS subscriber list include using text-to-join keywords, offering exclusive VIP perks, and embedding opt-ins at checkout. Effective SMS subscriber list growth also involves offering immediate value, using compliant pop-ups, and leveraging existing channels like email and social media.
Embedded forms work well for ongoing lead capture, but a well-timed pop-up modal is often much more effective at getting visitors’ attention at key moments in the customer journey. When triggered strategically based on behavior, timing, or intent, pop-ups can significantly improve engagement and increase the likelihood of capturing customer information before visitors leave the site.
Digioh provides many SMS opt-in form templates designed to capture email addresses and mobile numbers progressively.
These two-step forms can be displayed in lightboxes that appear centered in the browser window, sidebar widgets that slide out from the edge of the screen, or banners that stick to the top or bottom of your site.
After choosing your template, you can customize the fonts, images, colors, and even CSS to match your site’s branding.
Write a clear, concise CTA that shows your site visitors what they can expect to receive in return for providing their email address. Next, do the same for the second page of your pop-up. Create a message that invites your new email subscribers to opt into text updates as well.
As you build your forms, make sure you set up your form integrations to pass data to the right place. Unifying customer data from various marketing channels, such as ecommerce platforms and CRM systems, enables you to deliver targeted promotions and run more cohesive campaigns.
If you send emails and text messages from separate platforms, you’ll need to send new subscribers to each platform. Digioh integrates with many email marketing and text message marketing platforms, allowing you to connect with new subscribers right away.
Next, configure the conditions that determine when your pop-up appears. Depending on your form builder, common triggers may include:
To increase SMS sign-ups, use targeted messaging that feels relevant to the shopper, including personalized offers based on browsing behavior or purchase history. Brands should also promote SMS across multiple channels like email, onsite experiences, and social media to create more opportunities for opt-in and customer engagement.
Try combining different display conditions to provide the best experience for your visitors.
The best way to improve SMS list growth is to make the opt-in process as seamless as possible, especially by reaching your audience directly on their mobile devices for higher visibility and quicker responses. SMS marketing is also ideal for sending appointment reminders, as its speed and reliability ensure that important notifications reach users instantly.
If users visit your site from a mobile device, you can replace the mobile number form field with a one-tap button that makes it easier to opt into SMS marketing.
With Digioh, you can create a button that populates an opt-in text message on mobile devices. By submitting the prepopulated text message to your shortcode, they opt into your SMS marketing communication automatically.
You can also use QR codes on physical materials like signage and packaging to link directly to digital SMS sign-up forms or pre-filled SMS messages, making it easy for users to subscribe from their mobile devices. Additionally, text-to-join campaigns—direct communication where customers opt in by sending a specific keyword via text—are an effective way to grow SMS subscriber lists and can be promoted across various marketing channels.
One-tap opt-ins prevent typos and reduce friction in the signup process. This, along with other mobile-friendly pop-up tweaks, can help you improve mobile conversion rates and marketing efforts.
If you’re inviting email subscribers to join your SMS list, make the opt-in process as frictionless as possible. Instead of sending users back to your site to wait for a pop-up, give them a direct and compliant way to submit their phone number immediately.
One approach is to create a dedicated landing page for new SMS opt-ins. With a focused, mobile-friendly landing page, you increase the likelihood of converting email subscribers into text marketing subscribers.
Digioh’s drag-and-drop landing page solution also provides opt-in landing page templates.
This landing page template includes the necessary SMS compliance terms, allowing visitors to provide their mobile number in exchange for receiving offers via text. You can also use SMS opt-ins to promote loyalty program updates and send reward notifications, encouraging customers to engage with your brand and take advantage of exclusive perks.
Using email merge tags in the URL, Digioh landing pages can associate the user’s email address with the mobile number entered in the form, making it easy to consolidate user data. Additionally, leveraging SMS alerts for post-purchase communication—such as order status and delivery updates—can enhance the customer experience and keep subscribers informed.
Once launched, promote your SMS program by sharing your landing page through social media, email campaigns, and in-store signage to maximize SMS sign ups. This multi-channel approach helps convey the value of joining and encourages more subscribers to sign up for exclusive deals and other email marketing perks.
Growing your SMS list is only part of the strategy. Long-term performance depends on how well you manage and segment subscribers over time.
Strong SMS programs use customer behavior and purchase history to deliver more targeted, relevant messaging that improves engagement and reduces opt-outs. Segmentation helps brands send the right campaigns to the right audiences instead of blasting the same message to everyone.
Healthy list management matters too. Regularly identifying inactive subscribers, running re-engagement campaigns, and maintaining clean lists can improve deliverability and overall campaign performance.
The best SMS platforms also make it easier to manage compliance, automate opt-outs, and track performance metrics like click-through rates, conversions, engagement, and unsubscribe rates so brands can continuously optimize their strategy.
Strong SMS programs are built on consistent measurement and optimization. Tracking metrics like opt-in rates, click-through rates, conversions, revenue generated, and subscriber engagement helps brands understand what’s resonating and where messaging can improve.
Relevance and timing matter just as much as growth. Sending too many messages or delivering content that feels disconnected from customer interests can quickly increase unsubscribes and reduce engagement over time.
Successful brands focus on building healthier subscriber relationships through targeted messaging, clear consent practices, and respectful communication. That includes honoring opt-outs immediately, segmenting audiences thoughtfully, and continuously reviewing campaign performance to improve long-term SMS results.
When resources are limited, marketers often have to prioritize carefully, but SMS and email list growth work best together, not separately.
Multi-step forms, targeted landing pages, and cross-channel campaigns make it possible to grow both lists simultaneously while creating a more connected customer experience.
To support ongoing SMS list growth, focus on strong incentives, frictionless opt-ins, and consistent promotion across onsite experiences, email, social media, and other customer touchpoints. Brands investing in SMS continue to see strong engagement, revenue impact, and ROI because the channel creates direct, high-visibility communication with subscribers.
Looking for more ways to grow your lists and collect zero-party data from your subscribers? Check out our list of ideas for adding quiz funnels to your marketing strategy. These strategies not only help you attract new SMS subscribers but also build a base of loyal customers who are more engaged and responsive to your campaigns.
Don’t settle for siloed tools. With Digioh, you get one powerful platform for pop-ups, product quizzes, onsite identification, and more—everything you need to personalize every step of the customer journey. Identify more traffic. Collect more zero-party data. Turn insights into revenue.
