The guide to international SMS marketing

According to Klaviyo’s future of consumer marketing report, consumers across the world now default to mobile for B2C shopping.

That makes targeted SMS marketing—natively mobile and incredibly direct—one of the most powerful ways to connect with customers. It’s not only quick, it delivers real results.

Klaviyo’s SMS research with Recharge shows that:

• Globally, 72% of consumers have made a purchase after receiving a text from a brand.

• Globally, 72% of consumers are open to receiving at least one SMS per week from brands.

• In Europe, 46% of people are willing to receive a text more than once a week from their favourite brands

Regional expectation differences, on display in Klaviyo’s SMS marketing research with Recharge, prove that one-size-fits-all campaigns won’t work—and with SMS, you can tailor marketing to those differences. 

• In North America, 30% of consumers say SMS is their favourite way to hear from brands. They prefer regular promotional messages and are generally more open to frequent communication. 

• In Europe, shoppers are even more engaged: 46% subscribe to 4 or more brand SMS lists, and almost a quarter have made a purchase via text 4–5x in the past year—more than any other region.

• Asia-Pacific (APAC) consumers love deals, but not too many texts. While 66% say discounts are what they value most, many prefer just one message a week.

To make sure your SMS sign-up forms and processes are built for global scale, follow these best practices:

• Simplify the sign-up process. Keep your sign-up forms short and easy to complete, and test out how many fields you use. For some brands and use cases, more fields work well, while for others, less is more. 

• Offer clear opt-in information and calls to action (CTAs). Build trust with transparency about what subscribers are signing up for and how often—whether it’s exclusive deals, product alerts, or transactional texts like order updates. 

• Create multilingual sign-up forms and consent copy. Maximise global engagement and maintain compliance with sign-up forms and consent messaging in multiple languages. 

• Focus on mobile-first design. Since most users will sign up via mobile, your forms must be responsive and load quickly. Design pop-ups and banners with a mobile-first mindset. 

• Localise sign-up forms. Use Klaviyo to customise sign-up forms by location for more relevant messaging.

• Time your sign-up forms right. Klaviyo’s AI-powered forms display optimisation tests different display timings to determine the most effective option for sign-up forms. Once it identifies the best time, your sign-up form automatically updates and goes live, ensuring your audience sees it at the right moment.

• Check consent status. Check that someone has opted in before sending SMS messages (or ideally, use a tool that does this for you). With Klaviyo, you can easily check consent status within someone’s profile—so you only contact those who have given permission.

Capturing SMS sign-ups on a global scale means meeting your audience wherever they are—both physically and digitally.

For example, displaying in-store QR codes at the point of sale or adding them to receipts or packaging lets customers subscribe in seconds using just their phones, helping bridge online and offline experiences.

And don’t forget to tap into other channels where folks may not know about your SMS program. Share social media promotions like giveaways for those who subscribe to SMS, or share links from Instagram Stories to your SMS sign-up form.

With a platform like Klaviyo B2C CRM that offers built-in SMS compliance, you can scale your global SMS marketing efforts with more confidence. Klaviyo supports SMS in over 19 countries with a range of built-in compliance and localisation features, including:

• Quiet-hour enforcement based on time zone

• Region-specific SMS sign-up forms with built-in consent language

• Default settings that automatically add opt-out language or links based on each country

•  Age-gating features for restricted industries in multiple countries 

• Consent rules tailored to each country (including double opt-in)

You need someone’s consent to send them both marketing texts and transactional messages. But treating them the same can limit your messaging strategy.

Klaviyo makes it simple: you can collect and manage transactional consent separately, ensuring subscribers only get what they signed up for—while you stay compliant globally.

Making sure your messages actually reach your subscribers across borders can be tricky when you factor in varying regulations, carrier rules, and regional spam filters.

Klaviyo’s SMS deliverability hub comes with real-time insights—such as deliverability rates across regions and campaigns—and identifies deliverability issues to help you adapt your strategy, drive better performance, and maintain a strong sender reputation in every market.

Collect language preferences so you can localise SMS messages, send messages in subscribers’ native language, and use regional references that feel natural.

With Klaviyo, you can automatically trigger region-specific SMS flows based on a customer’s location so they get content—including product recommendations and swapped-in privacy policies—that actually makes sense to them.

It’s worth noting that character limits can also vary across languages. While SMS messages typically allow for 160 characters, special characters or non-Latin letters—like those in Japanese or Arabic—can reduce that limit.

And localisation goes beyond language. It’s also about sending at the right moment. With Klaviyo’s Smart Send Time, you can schedule messages by time zone to ensure they land when people are most likely to engage.

Global audiences don’t behave the same, and your SMS messages shouldn’t either. Segmentation is key to driving engagement at scale.

Klaviyo makes it easy to segment customers by country or region, then layer on deeper behavioural and preference-based filters to tailor messages even further. These SMS segments can help you to better personalise your messages: 

• Engagement levels 

• VIP status 

• Marketing preferences (like product or sale-only alerts)

• Product collections, hobbies, and interests

• Channel preferences

The best way to avoid mismatched marketing campaigns? A unified platform that syncs all channels—from social media to email and SMS—to create a cohesive customer experience across all channels.

With an advanced multi-channel marketing automation platform, you can: 

• Create and manage marketing messages across different channels, while also mapping customer journeys. 

• Manage SMS messaging, promotions, and branding alongside your email and social media campaigns.

• Track customer interactions across all touchpoints and ensure accurate attribution of conversions to gain a clearer view of how each channel is driving performance.

Leveraging web and social channels alongside your global SMS campaigns creates a powerful, integrated strategy: think social media ads promoting sign-ups with SMS subscribe links, or website pop-ups and welcome flows tailored to a specific acquisition source.

Using these channels together amplifies your reach and relevance, and provides customers with a more cohesive experience wherever they engage with your brand.

Men’s underwear brand 2xist, for example, uses Klaviyo for email, SMS, and analytics. Their omnichannel marketing strategy revolves around RFM analysis, with segment-specific retention flows and remarketing campaigns on Meta. The results speak for themselves: 61% YoY growth in Facebook ROAS with RFM-based audiences.

“The fact that we can have email, SMS, and Marketing Analytics all under one hood with Klaviyo helps with aligning data, pulling reports—everything,” says Christopher Peek, digital marketing director at The Moret Group, owner of 2xist. “I’m not pulling 3 different reports from 3 different platforms and trying to connect the dots. I love being able to go in and see how each message performed with each RFM segment.”

Key SMS marketing metrics like click rates, conversion rates, revenue per recipient (RPR), delivery rates, and unsubscribe rates will vary significantly across regions.

That’s because not all markets react the same to texts. A regional performance analysis—which includes looking at key metrics across regions—helps you pinpoint exactly where you should make adjustments to your global SMS strategy.

When you uncover local preferences and behaviours, you can adjust messaging strategies—whether it’s timing, frequency, or the types of promotions you use—to better resonate with each audience. For example, if you find that unsubscribe rates are higher in certain regions, consider revising your SMS content or messaging frequency.