80% of traffic is generated by 1,000 brands according to af2m, a number expected to grow as the integration of the RCS format into iOS approaches.
SMS continues to gain ground as a marketing lever among brands. In 2023, 13.34 billion messages were sent by companies to their customers or prospects in France, a volume up 4.1% compared to 2022, according to the SMS Marketing Barometer published this Thursday, February 29 by the ‘af2m. An association which brings together telecom operators and associations representing online publishers, the marketing sector, payment services and digital advertising.
Published every year since 2019, this overview of the SMS market is gaining particular importance this year as the adoption of RCS (enriched SMS) by Apple approaches. “The integration of the RCS format natively on iOS planned by Apple for this year will remove the last obstacle to a much more widespread adoption by brands of this lever. RCS is an evolution of SMS which frees the creativity of advertisers “, explains Renan Abgrall, president of af2m, to JDN, live from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The use of promotional push SMS (advertising, direct marketing and drive-to-store) also showed more sustained growth in 2023, of 7.9%. This lever represented 40% of the overall volume in 2023, compared to 38.6% in 2022, thus eating into transactional SMS (sending access code, notifications, validation of payments, delivery alerts, etc.), which evolved more timidly, by +1.7% in 2023.
We also learn that 80% of mobile message traffic in France is the result of around 1,000 brands, which this Barometer has identified and classified by sector for the very first time for this edition. “The use of SMS by brands has grown significantly since Covid, accompanying the growth of e-commerce. This lever has reached a good level of penetration and maturity, which allows us to draw lessons on trends in each sector”, explains Renan Abgrall.
Retail (excluding mass distribution) is the main sender of SMS, with 31% of the volume, followed by banks/insurance (21%), services (excluding health and public services, 15%) and large e-commerce platforms ( 11%), such as Amazon, Cdiscount or Veepee, deliveries included. The sector with the strongest growth in 2023 is mass distribution, with +30%, followed by e-commerce platforms, +20%.
© af2m
The af2m takes this opportunity to rejoice at the widespread adoption by brands of personalized five-digit SMS messages in 36XXX (promotional) and 38XXX (transactional), measures made compulsory by the Telecoms Regulatory Authority (Arcep) since January 2023. These five-digit numbers make it possible to display the name of the brand as the sender and to avoid any amalgamation or confusion with the numbers initiated by 06 or 07, which must be used exclusively for interpersonal communications services.
2024-02-28 23:35:47
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