About 84% of American consumers have opted in to text communication from at least one business, according to a May 2025 SimpleTexting survey. Fifty-two percent of the survey’s 1,000 respondents subscribe to texts from four or more brands.
If the survey is accurate, the question is no longer whether to use text messaging — SMS, MMS, RCS — but how to use it effectively.
Roughly eight in 10 U.S. consumers have agreed to receive commercial text messages, according to a recent survey.
Transactional messages get shoppers hooked. Shoppers like receiving a straightforward text when an order is shipped. Delivery updates are even better.
Yet the channel is much more than notifications alone.
A maturity model is a framework that describes how a capability, process, or system evolves. It breaks development into stages, usually progressing from simple, ad hoc to sophisticated, optimized, and scalable.
The model can help merchants progress from a text with a tracking number to a comprehensive strategy of marketing, customer service, and operations.
To develop an effective strategy, ecommerce marketers can view their business through four text-message stages.
Every ecommerce business sits somewhere on the maturity spectrum, knowingly or not. The key is understanding which stage aligns with the business’s operational reality rather than its ambitions.
Here is a guide:
A merchant’s text stage typically depends on operational factors.
May 13, 2025
Moving through the maturity model is not a race. It is a progression based on operational readiness and customer expectations. The best programs grow intentionally, not explosively.
Starter to Growth. Merchants graduate from Starter when transactional messages run smoothly, and the business begins to feel the limitations of one-way communication.
How to grow:
Growth to Full-stack. The shift from Growth to Full-stack occurs when merchants recognize that texts should align with email, loyalty, and the larger customer journey, not behavior alone.
How to advance:
Full-stack to AI-orchestrated and automated. The final stage adds intelligence. AI adjusts timing, sequencing, content, and discounts in response to real-time signals.
How to transition:
This final stage is quickly emerging, as the precision of AI blends with multichannel marketing. Hence merchants who succeed with texting will send the right messages, not necessarily the most.
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