SMS Marketing Compliance 101: The Terms Your Company Can’t Afford to Skip

Companies using SMS and MMS messaging for marketing, transactional alerts, or customer communications face a growing and actively enforced patchwork of legal obligations. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) remains the primary federal framework — with statutory damages of $500 to $1,500 per message and well-established class action exposure for non-compliant programs.

Beyond TCPA, The Campaign Registry (TCR) now mandates brand and campaign registration for all commercial SMS traffic over 10-Digit Long Codes (10DLC). Unregistered campaigns are filtered or blocked by major carriers — meaning messages may never reach customers even if they opted in. At the state level, Florida’s FTSA and similar statutes in Texas, Oklahoma, and Washington impose requirements beyond federal law, including stricter consent standards and per-message damages that stack rapidly.

A compliant SMS program requires, at minimum: (1) prior express written consent documented before the first marketing message; (2) standalone SMS Terms and Conditions disclosing message frequency and carrier charges; (3) a functional opt-out mechanism that processes immediately; and (4) a compliant opt-in flow that does not pre-check boxes or bury consent in general terms. If your company sends marketing texts, now is the time to audit.