1.Consent
Under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, marketing texts sent with automated systems generally need the recipient’s prior express written consent. In practice that means a clear statement, such as a checkbox on your application form, where the merchant agrees to receive marketing texts from your business at the number they give.
Carrier rules for 10DLC registration add that consent belongs to the business that collected it: it cannot be bought, sold or shared with another company.
2.Opt-outs
A merchant can withdraw consent at any time and in any reasonable way: STOP, unsubscribe, “don’t text me”, or a reply that clearly means the same thing. FCC rules require you to honor an opt-out promptly, within 10 business days at most. Carriers expect STOP to end messages at once.
An opt-out applies to your whole shop, not only the rep or campaign that received it. Every later send should be scrubbed against it.
3.Quiet hours
Federal rules prohibit telemarketing before 8am or after 9pm in the recipient’s local time. Use the merchant’s time zone, not your office’s. Several states set narrower windows, so many shops simply send between 9am and 8pm local time.
4.Do Not Call
The National Do Not Call Registry applies to marketing texts as well as calls. Scrub your lists against it unless you have the merchant’s written consent, and keep your own internal do-not-contact list for everyone who asked you to stop.
5.State texting laws
Several states have their own telemarketing laws that reach further than federal law. Florida’s Telephone Solicitation Act and Oklahoma’s Telephone Solicitation Act, for example, limit texts to 8am to 8pm local time and to three messages on the same subject in 24 hours, and give recipients their own right to sue. In Florida, a recipient must first reply STOP and give the sender 15 days to stop before suing over texts. Check the rules for every state you text into.
6.Keep records
- When and where each merchant gave consent, and the exact wording they agreed to.
- Every opt-out, with the date and the message.
- Where each list came from and what the vendor said about consent.
- What you sent, to whom, and when.
BlastWiz catches STOP and unsubscribe replies automatically, scrubs every send against your stop list and keeps the full message history. Talk to our team about your program.
Questions brokers ask
- Does the TCPA apply to texts?
- Yes. Courts and the FCC treat text messages as calls under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, so the TCPA’s consent, Do Not Call and time-of-day rules apply to marketing texts.
- Do texts to business owners count?
- Often, yes. Many merchants use a personal cell phone for their business, and the rules for texting cell phones do not stop applying because the person owns a company. Plan as if they apply.
- What happens if we get it wrong?
- TCPA claims carry damages per message, and some state laws do too, so mistakes across a large send add up quickly. That is why scrubbing, opt-out handling and records matter as much as the message itself.