Your Guide to SMS Affiliate Marketing in the UK

As an affiliate marketer operating in the UK, you’re likely looking to tap into diverse strategies to bring in more prospects and maximise their value effectively. If that sounds like you, SMS affiliate marketing might be an overlooked gem that could elevate your performance, particularly if you’re involved in pay-per-call campaigns targeting local UK customers.

While SMS messages may not necessarily be the first thing that comes to mind as an affiliate marketing strategy, they can help you reach audiences in a more elaborate way. Don’t downplay its potential, though. SMS marketing has incredibly high engagement. Industry norms usually refer to more than 90% open rates, surpassing other online mediums, including email.

With a well-planned SMS affiliate marketing strategy, you can:

• Establish personalized, direct communication channels with the audience
• Reach subscribers when they will be most interested in offers or information
• Grow your affiliate revenue while discovering more about the behavior and preferences of your customer base

Adding SMS marketing to your affiliate marketing strategy can be relatively simple, potentially creating significant new revenue streams and ensuring a smooth omnichannel experience for your audience.

Read on to discover the fundamentals of SMS affiliate marketing, such as integrating it most effectively with your other affiliate campaigns and remaining completely compliant in the UK.

Expand your multi-channel approach: Download your free email deliverability guide to help synergize email and SMS marketing campaigns.

How SMS Affiliate Marketing Works: Key Considerations

SMS affiliate marketing is much like other forms of affiliate marketing, except that it involves mobile network operators and SMS gateway or service providers, both of which affect the success of your SMS affiliate marketing campaigns.

Key Roles in SMS Affiliate Marketing:

Choosing a reliable SMS service provider and knowing mobile network dynamics are important to deliver your messages on time. Poor deliverability wastes money and potential. For more on delivering messages into the inbox, examine overall best practices for SMS deliverability, with UK regulation always considered.

Essentially, SMS affiliate marketing is like the basic mechanism of performance-based promotion. Sales or traffic are brought by affiliates using SMS, and they receive commissions. However, its functioning and, more significantly, its regulatory framework in the UK are vastly different from content, email, SEO, or social media affiliate marketing.

SMS Affiliate Marketing vs Other Channels:

Here are examples from popular niches:

One essential, non-dismissible element that unites all these examples is the opt-out. This is required under PECR in the UK and regulated by the ICO. Maintaining clean lists and letting customers unsubscribe is critical to ensure compliance and keep your sender reputation.

Effective SMS marketing, though, is so much more than compliance.

Let’s explore how to drive targeted SMS traffic to your affiliate products in this market.

Crafting Your SMS Marketing Strategy: 7 Key Steps

Regardless of whether Peer-to-Peer (P2P) or Application-to-Person (A2P) SMS messaging is used, inserting the inbox keys into the keyboard is not enough; there should be conversions and clicks to target. This means a unified SMS marketing plan should exist despite the available affiliate programs. The regulatory legislation and customer expectations require an individualized approach.

There are seven steps to achieving a successful and compliant SMS marketing campaign:

Step 1. Find Out Your Target Audience

If you already have active online affiliate channels – a website, blog, or social media presence – you can identify your target buyers (especially so if you use an affiliate tracking software). Given that you already know a lot about your target audience and prospective customers, you only need to plan your messaging carefully and ensure the messages resonate with your audience. 

SMS messaging has several key differences:

• Limited character count: SMS messages are subject to a character limit (typically 160 characters with GSM-7 encoding). Your call to action and main message must be compelling within this constraint, unless you use multi-part messages explicitly (at an increased cost).
• Instant response: SMS elicits an immediate response. Recipients will respond immediately or not respond. Anticipate fast response or create campaigns (like flash sales) that capitalize on instant response.
• Compliance: UK SMS marketing is firmly controlled by GDPR and PECR, under ICO oversight. Opt-in, clear positive consent is needed *before* sending out marketing messages. [See ICO Electronic Marketing Guidance]

For instance, time-sensitive customers seeking flash sales or time-limited offers are an ideal target audience for SMS. Conversely, complex B2B promotions may not be suitable for this channel, but reminders for appointments or event reminders might be beneficial. Effective distinctions can be made based on strong data analysis, aided by the appropriate affiliate marketing software.

Step 2. Define Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Identifying your target receivers’ needs enables you to create an excellent USP specifically for the SMS channel, or adapt your own USP into this format. Clarity of expression is important here – you’ve generally only got 160 characters to convey value and stimulate action. 

Here are some marketing SMS examples:

• Finance: Hi George, Get 5% cashback on grocery shopping with the Premier Rewards credit card. Apply by [Date] & claim £50 bonus! [affiliate link]. Reply STOP to opt out.
• Insurance: Hi Michael, Secure your family’s future. Receive tailored life insurance quotes from SecureLife, used by 100k+ Brits: [affiliate link]. Reply STOP to opt out.

You will likely be unable to fit all benefits in a single SMS. Emphasize the most effective benefits that position your offer differently in the market. Leverage creative materials or suggested copy from your advertisers or affiliate networks because they typically know what converts for their specific offers.

Step 3. Choose the Right SMS Affiliate Program

When incorporating SMS into your strategy, ask yourself if your current affiliate offers or programs are suitable for SMS promotion in this market. If not, or if you want unique SMS offers, seek out programs designed to fulfill these needs, being extremely selective on suitability.

Key features for an SMS affiliate program:

• • Relevant creatives: Look for platforms that provide SMS templates or examples that have been proven effective with local populations. This is a sign that advertisers understand the channel and the audience.
  • Strong tracking & reporting: SMS tracking is different from web or email tracking. Ensure that the program utilizes robust technology capable of tracking SMS clicks and conversions precisely, ideally as an integration within Phonexa or another platform.

• Explicit Compliance Focus (UK Essential): Critically examine the program terms under traffic sources, allowed SMS practices, and niche restrictions. Verify their compliance with UK legislation (GDPR & PECR). Avoid programs with ambiguous or non-compliant terms. [Refer to PECR Legislation]

Other than these facts, verify the program offers competitive commissions, easy payment methods (e.g., GBP payouts), and a reasonable cookie duration to capture delayed conversions.

Step 4. Develop Compliant SMS Sequences

With your USP and aware of your chosen affiliate program’s limitations, create a series of nurturing SMS messages to guide subscribers towards conversion. Occasionally, one SMS may not be enough; timely sequences are the essence of sustainable lead generation and relationship development, always with respect to consent and frequency restrictions.

Here’s an example of an SMS sequence for car insurance:

Note: Frequency and content should be tested and adjusted based on response from the audience and campaign goals, always for the benefit of user experience and compliance.

Step 5. Optimise SMS Campaigns for Maximum Engagement

Since SMS advertising is expensive (growth is obvious, per global trends), there is competition for customers’ attention via text. To win, optimize for engagement using best practices, always in line with compliance:

Step 6. Automate Your SMS Affiliate Marketing

Monitoring, analyzing, and optimising SMS campaigns, particularly when dealing with numerous traffic sources and compliance, is impossible without specialized software. Serious affiliates greatly appreciate full-fledged SMS solutions natively integrated with web, email, and call tracking platforms – preferably in one software suite for an end-to-end perspective.

This is where solutions such as  E-Delivery, Phonexa’s SMS and email marketing software, come in. It provides performance-marketing-oriented features that help with campaign management on a savvy basis while being compatible with Phonexa’s broader suite.

Here’s what Phonexa’s E-Delivery is about:

• Granular segmentation: Examine customer sources, SMS behavior patterns, and path-to-conversions. This aids in facilitating micro-segmentation and highly personalized messaging appropriate to audience segments.
• Advanced reporting: Have access to real-time and summary reports (campaign performance, delivery rates, recipient engagement) to quickly optimize poorly performing campaigns and scale up successful ones.
• A/B testing functionality: Systematically test different SMS copy, CTAs, send times, or offers (often comparing several templates simultaneously) to determine what works best with your audience.

 Build your plan now, or book a demo to learn more about Phonexa. 

Step 7. Coordinate SMS with Your Other Affiliate Marketing Channels

The final step in your SMS marketing strategy is coordinating your text campaigns with other marketing channels. And this is where E-Delivery shines.

• E-Delivery synergises with Opt-Intel, a suppression list management solution that helps keep your SMS list clean and active, which is critical with the GDPR/PECR ruling.

• E-Delivery unifies data streams with Phonexa’s other solutions, creating a single view of performance across campaigns.

Phonexa aims to provide this converged ecosystem, consolidating the key affiliate marketing tech stack into one platform, closing data gaps, and enabling affiliates to maximize campaign performance across all touchpoints of relevance.

Get Phonexa’s eight proprietary solutions at a single price (online price calculator):

Ready to take your affiliate business to the next level? Build your plan now, or book a demo to learn more about Phonexa. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best SMS marketing strategies for affiliate marketing?

Successful strategies usually have triggered messages (such as a reminder of an abandoned cart, if compliant opt-in) and correctly designed drip campaigns to engage leads. However, the strict foundation, especially when business is done in regulated exchanges like the UK, is strict compliance with such regulations as GDPR and PECR – clear opt-in consent before sending *any* marketing SMS and providing easy opt-out at all times. A relevant, valued, timely message to a fully opted-in base is essential.

What are the best ways to get SMS traffic compliantly?

Build your SMS list ethically by obtaining explicit, informed opt-in consent from individuals, particularly adhering to regulations like GDPR/PECR if targeting relevant markets (like the UK). This can be done via website forms (with clear checkboxes, *not* pre-ticked), dedicated landing pages, social media lead ads (with compliant consent mechanisms), or offline methods (ensuring clear consent language). Never purchase mobile number lists. You can drive traffic from your website, blog, social media, and webinars, but the consent mechanism must always comply with applicable regulations.

How do you effectively drive traffic to your affiliate links in SMS messages?

Aside from compliance, drive clicks by sending targeted messages at the optimal times (test for your audience), tailoring where appropriate and compliant, offering real value (special offers, useful information), and creating a clear, good call-to-action (CTA) within the character limit.

How do you choose an affiliate program for SMS marketing?

Review the following potential programs critically: commission structure (and payment currency, e.g., GBP if necessary), offer pertinence to your target market, quality of creative material (SMS examples), reliability of tracking software, unambiguous limitations, and above all, visible understanding and compliance with applicable compliance laws for your target audience (e.g., UK GDPR/PECR). Enquire directly of potential partners about their compliance policy for the markets you work within.