Texting works. It also sits under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), a federal law with real penalties per message. This is not legal advice — talk to a lawyer for your situation — but here is the plain-English shape of it so you know what you are dealing with.
Why this matters
The TCPA restricts automated calls and texts to mobile numbers without the right consent, and it is enforced both by regulators and by private lawsuits. The numbers on the wrong side of it are not small. "I didn't know" is not a defense.
The rules of thumb that keep you out of trouble
Honor opt-outs immediately and permanently. If someone replies STOP — or anything that clearly means stop — that number is done. Not "done until next campaign." Done. Your system needs to enforce this automatically, because doing it by hand is how mistakes happen.
Scrub against the Do Not Call registry. Maintain your own internal do-not-contact list and respect the National DNC Registry.
Identify yourself. Say who you are and why you are reaching out in the first message. No bait-and-switch, no pretending to be someone the seller already knows.
Mind the hours and the frequency. Texting at 6am or blasting the same person repeatedly is both bad manners and legal risk. Keep contact reasonable and within daytime hours in the recipient's time zone.
Keep records. Where the number came from, what consent you have, when someone opted out. If you are ever questioned, the paper trail is your defense.
Where software should help
The right tools do the parts humans forget:
- Enforce STOP the instant it arrives, across every future message.
- Block sending to a number on your suppression list — before it goes out, not after.
- Timestamp every message so you have the record automatically.
- Keep sending inside sane hours.
That is exactly the kind of unglamorous, must-never-fail work to hand to a system. Compliance is not a feature you bolt on at the end — it is the fence you build before you start sending.
The goal is not to text less. It is to text in a way you would be comfortable explaining to a regulator. If a message would embarrass you in that room, do not send it.