Text message marketing consent: what to collect

Before you send a marketing text, get the customer's written agreement to receive marketing texts from you, keep a record of how they gave it, and send only what they agreed to. Reminders and replies need less. Offers, sales, and promotions need the most.

This guide is general information, not legal advice. Texting rules come from federal law, state law, and carrier policy, and they change. If marketing texts are a real part of your business, have a lawyer review your consent wording and records. Carrier registration and opt-outs are covered in our guide to business texting registration.

Two levels of permission

The CTIA messaging principles, which US carriers follow, ask for the customer's agreement before an informational text, such as a reminder, and express written consent before a promotional text. They add that putting a sales call-to-action, such as a coupon code, into a reminder may make it promotional.^[1]

Federal rules point the same way. Under the FCC's rule, a call that includes an advertisement or is telemarketing, made with an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice, needs the prior express written consent of the person called, with narrow exceptions.^[2] The FCC has read the word call in the law to include text messages since 2003.^[3] Whether your texting tool counts as an autodialer is a legal question. The CTIA principles expect written consent for marketing texts either way.^[1]

What prior express written consent means

The federal definition is short and specific. It is a written agreement, signed by the person, that clearly authorizes the seller to send them advertisements or telemarketing messages using automated technology, and that names the phone number those messages may go to.^[2]

• A clear disclosure that by agreeing, the person authorizes the seller to send telemarketing messages by automated means.^[2]
• A statement that agreeing is not a condition of purchase. The person does not have to sign up to buy anything.^[2]
• A signature, which can be electronic if it is recognized as valid under federal law or state contract law.^[2] A checkbox or typed name on a web form is the common way.

Here is a plain example for a booking form, written for a made-up salon: "Yes, send me offers and news by text from Willow Hair Studio at the number above. Messages are sent by automated means. Consent is not required to book. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out." Leave the box unticked, keep it separate from your terms, and link your privacy policy next to it.

What to record when someone opts in

If a customer ever disputes a text, your record is your evidence. The CTIA principles list what to keep for each opt-in.^[1]

• The date and time consent was given.
• How it was given, such as a web form, a paper form at the front desk, or a text keyword.
• The exact wording and action the customer saw and took.
• The campaign it covers, such as reminders or offers.
• The IP address, for online forms.
• The phone number consent covers, and the name or other identifier of the person.

Keep a copy of every version of your consent wording, with the dates each was live. In our consent and opt-out tools, every change to a customer's preferences is logged on their contact record, so you can show when someone opted in or out. When we move you across, contact lists come over with their opt-in history.

A rule that was struck down

In 2023 the FCC adopted a rule that would have required consent to be given to one seller at a time, for messages logically and topically related to where consent was collected. On January 24, 2025, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit vacated that part of the FCC's order.^[3]

That does not make shared consent forms safe. The CTIA principles say consent should apply only to the sender and campaign it was obtained for, cannot be transferred, and that rented, sold, or shared opt-in lists should not be used.^[1] Collect your own consent, for your own business.

Quiet hours and do-not-call

Federal rules bar telephone solicitations to residential subscribers before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., local time at the recipient's location, and to numbers on the national do-not-call registry.^[2] The FCC rule says these limits reach telemarketing texts to wireless numbers.^[2]

The do-not-call limit does not cover people who invited the contact or who have an established business relationship with you, meaning a purchase in the last 18 months or an enquiry in the last 3 months.^[2] That exception is to the do-not-call rule. It does not replace written consent for automated marketing texts.

States can be stricter. Florida's Telemarketing Act bars commercial telephone solicitation calls before 8 a.m. or after 8 p.m. in the recipient's time zone, and more than 3 on the same subject in 24 hours.^[4] The act's general exemptions do not apply to those limits.^[5] Florida's separate statute, section 501.059, counts a text as a telephonic sales call and requires prior express written consent for unsolicited automated sales texts.^[6]

Section 501.059, last amended in 2023, also requires a person to reply STOP and wait 15 days before suing over sales texts.^[6] Check the rules in every state where your customers live. A simple habit fits the stricter limits: send marketing texts only between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. in the customer's time zone.

Old lists and changed numbers

Consent belongs to a person and a number, and numbers change hands. The CTIA principles ask senders to process deactivated number files regularly and remove those numbers from opt-in lists.^[1] The FCC also offers a safe harbor when a sender checks the federal reassigned numbers database and the database gives a wrong answer.^[2]

If you have an old list with no record of marketing consent, do not start sending offers to it. Collect consent again at the next booking, visit, or form, and keep using the list only for the reminders and replies those customers asked for.

A checklist

1. Use separate consent for reminders and for marketing.
2. Put clear marketing consent wording, with an unticked box, on every form that asks for a phone number.
3. Record the time, source, wording, campaign, and number for every opt-in.
4. Send marketing texts only to people with a recorded marketing opt-in.
5. Keep sends inside the stricter of federal and state quiet hours.
6. Remove deactivated numbers, and never use bought or shared lists.

Salons send offers to fill quiet days, and trades send seasonal service reminders, so both need this right. See how a salon or spa and a home services business run texting, and how texting works in our system.

Want a second look at how you collect consent? Book a walkthrough and we will go through your forms and lists with you. Texts are $0.0249 a segment, listed with every other rate at published rates.