Understanding SMS campaign performance requires tracking the right metrics and knowing what good performance looks like in the Nigerian market context. Here are the metrics that matter and what the numbers mean.
Delivery Rate
Delivery rate measures the percentage of sent messages successfully delivered to handsets. Target: 95%+ for Nigerian bulk SMS campaigns. Below 90% suggests list quality issues (inactive numbers, wrong numbers) or gateway routing problems. Segment delivery rates by network to identify network-specific issues.
Open Rate
SMS open rates cannot be directly measured (SMS receipts are not trackable in the way email read receipts are). Industry surveys suggest 98% of SMS messages are opened. The practical implication: your SMS is almost certainly seen — your challenge is making the content compelling enough to drive action.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
For SMS campaigns with shortened URLs, CTR measures the percentage of recipients who click the link. Nigerian B2C SMS benchmark CTR: 8–12% for highly relevant promotional messages, 3–6% for general campaigns. Below 2% suggests the message or offer is not compelling, or the target audience is not well-matched.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate measures recipients who take your desired action (purchase, booking, call, store visit). Varies by campaign type: promotional offers 2–8%, appointment reminders 40–60% (attendees from reminders vs. no-shows without reminders), abandoned cart recovery 15–25%.
Opt-Out Rate
Target opt-out rate below 0.5% per send. Monitor trends — an increasing opt-out rate signals frequency or relevance problems. Calculate opt-out rates separately for different audience segments to identify which groups are least receptive.
Cost Per Conversion
Divide total SMS send cost by number of conversions to calculate cost per conversion. Compare against other marketing channels to justify SMS budget allocation. Nigerian retail businesses typically see cost per conversion from SMS of ₦50–₦500, versus ₦500–₦5,000+ for paid social media advertising.
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