We've designed this guide to walk you through what you need to know and do to launch your SMS program on Postscript.

This guide is for brands that are new to SMS marketing and starting with zero subscribers. If you're migrating an existing subscriber list from another platform, check out the migration guides in our New? Start Here section.

If you're new to Postscript or SMS marketing in general, we recommend starting with our Introduction to SMS Marketing article. Unfamiliar with some SMS-related terms and concepts? We've got you covered with our SMS Glossary.

Overview

SMS Marketing is a promotional strategy in which brands use an owned channel to reach, engage, and convert subscribers via text message to their mobile devices. At Postscript, we view SMS as a two-way communication channel — one where you can encourage subscriber interaction and focus on building personalized, carefully nurtured relationships.

Launching an SMS program from scratch comes down to a few key steps: ensuring compliance, collecting subscribers, activating automations, and sending campaigns. This guide covers those steps in the order we recommend completing them.

Step 1: Understand SMS Compliance

Ensuring your store remains compliant as you grow your SMS program is our number-one priority.

SMS compliance is adhering to the rules and regulations that dictate how businesses can use SMS and MMS messages to contact their consumers. This includes how shops collect subscribers, the content of the messages that shops send, how frequently shops can send messages, and what time of day messages can be sent.

SMS compliance is informed by two entities: the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA).

The TCPA's regulation of SMS marketing can be summarized as: consumers have the right not to receive unsolicited marketing communications via SMS, and companies should not send consumers automated SMS marketing text messages unless they have obtained a consumer's prior express written consent.

Non-compliant shops run the risk of being shut down by wireless carriers and face expensive class-action lawsuits.

We strongly recommend reviewing these articles before proceeding:

Introduction to SMS Compliance — Covers the four key elements of compliance: opt-in consent, message content, opt-out, and quiet hours.
SMS Marketing Compliance Overview — A deeper dive into TCPA and SHAFT regulations, quiet hours, abandoned cart requirements, list upload compliance, and required language at opt-in sources.
TCPA-Approved Compliance Language — The exact language you need to display wherever a consumer gives consent to receive automated marketing messages.
Compliance Checklist for Dedicated Phone Numbers and Short Codes — Requirements for popups, forms, checkout pages, and keywords.
Subscriber Opt-Out Compliance — How Postscript handles opt-outs, including fuzzy opt-outs and manual unsubscribes.
Building SMS Opt-In Popups That Result in Binding Terms of Service — Design best practices for compliant popups.

Step 2: Install Postscript

Select Postscript in the Shopify App Store and install the app. Follow the prompts to complete your setup. Once installed, Postscript may take up to 15 minutes to sync with your store. The total time will depend on the size of your store.

For a detailed walkthrough, see Install Postscript.

Step 3: Update Your Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Before you begin collecting subscribers, your shop's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy need to include SMS-specific language. Both need to be live, linkable URLs on your store — they'll be referenced in the compliance language on every opt-in source you create.

You have two options:

Option A: Use Dynamic Hosted Messaging Terms and Privacy Policy. With this feature, you backlink to Postscript-hosted dynamic terms and privacy policy pages. Set them up once, and your Messaging Terms and Messaging Privacy Policy will be automatically updated by Postscript as carrier and TCPA compliance requirements change. Learn more in our Dynamic Hosted Messaging Terms and Messaging Privacy Policy article.

Option B: Manually update your own Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. We've created templates with the required language you can add to your existing pages:

Step 4: Grow Your Subscriber List

Growing your subscriber list is an essential, ongoing part of a strong SMS strategy. Each subscriber who opts into receiving text messages from your shop is a potential customer.

Per TCPA guidelines, businesses must have clear consent from a subscriber before the business can send a text message. Every list growth method contains a form of opt-in — whether that's a popup asking a potential subscriber to enter their phone number, or a social media post advertising a keyword to text.

Successful brands place opt-in opportunities throughout the customer journey. We recommend having multiple opt-in sources active at any given time. Below are the key list growth methods available in Postscript:

Popups: Postscript's popup editor lets you create branded desktop and mobile popups with compliant consent language built in. You can collect custom properties, A/B test designs, and use formats like Spin to Win. For a full walkthrough, see our Guide to Growing Your List.

Checkout opt-in: Add an SMS subscription option to your Shopify checkout page. See Activate SMS Collection at Shopify One-Page Checkout for setup instructions.

Landing pages: Create dedicated opt-in landing pages to collect subscribers. See Grow Your List with a Dedicated Landing Page.

Embed forms: Add an SMS opt-in form directly to your website. See Create an Embedded Form.

Keywords: Set up text-to-join keywords that subscribers can text to your dedicated number. See Grow Your List with Keywords.

Social media: Promote your SMS program on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or Twitter using keywords and compliant opt-in language:

Email: Convert your existing email subscribers to SMS. See Grow Your List with Email.

QR codes: Use QR codes on packaging inserts, flyers, or in-store signage. See Grow Your List with QR Codes.

Tip: For more detail on opt-in flows, confirmed opt-in, and compliance language requirements, review our Guide to Growing Your List.

Step 5: Activate Core Automation Flows

Because SMS automations are triggered by subscriber behavior (e.g., subscribing to texts, abandoning a cart, etc.), they are some of the most contextual messages you can send — which often leads to higher conversion rates.

We recommend setting up and activating each of the following flows as soon as possible in order to begin converting subscribers into purchasers. You can build from scratch or use our automation flow templates, which open directly in your Postscript account for customization.

Automation	Trigger	Guide
Welcome Series	Subscriber Created — via keywords, popups, checkout, or API	Create a Welcome Series Automation Flow
Abandoned Cart	Checkout Started — subscriber began checkout but did not complete their purchase	Create an Abandoned Cart Automation Flow
Browse Abandonment	Subscriber Viewed Product or Product Added to Cart — subscriber browsed but did not begin checkout	Create a Browse Abandonment Automation Flow
Post-Purchase	Order Created, Order Delivered, or Order in Transit	Create a Post-Purchase Automation Flow

Important: Abandoned cart and browse abandonment automations must be limited to one message and need to be sent within 48 hours of the trigger event. This is an industry-wide carrier regulation. Learn more here. Abandoned cart messages can only be sent to subscribers who compliantly opted in before abandoning their cart.

For a deeper dive into automation flows, triggers, and performance, see:

Step 6: Send Campaigns

Campaign flows are the perfect way to send single-message or multi-message campaigns to a specific customer segment or your entire subscriber base. By employing campaign flows, you can extend your brand experience from your website into the text thread, capture attention with interactive campaigns, and collect zero-party data for more targeted segmentation.

Every campaign sends to a subscriber segment. You will need to create your desired segment before you can select it in the campaign Flow Builder.

For guidance on building and sending campaigns:

Create a Campaign — The basics of creating and scheduling a single-message campaign.
Create a Campaign Flow — How to build multi-message campaign sequences with Flow Builder.
Guide to Campaign Flows — A deep dive into campaign properties, scheduling, splits, and performance data.
Jumpstart Your SMS Strategy with Campaign Flows — Five campaign types to get you started, with templates that open directly in your Postscript account.

Tip: Postscript adheres to TCPA-defined quiet hours for automations and campaigns. Learn more about quiet hours in our SMS Marketing Compliance Overview.