The Impact of SMS on the 2024 Presidential Elections
SMS marketing played a massive role in the 2024 Presidential Election. We aggregated and anonymized tens of millions of texts sent via Textla on behalf of the Trump and Harris campaigns between October and November 2024, and the results were staggering.
The results of the campaigns sent via Textla reflected a strong bias in favor of Trump across the board, with opt-out rates and negative replies to pro-Harris texts being significantly higher than the opt-out rates and replies to pro-Trump texts. These results mirrored the Election results, indicating higher favorability for Trump across the voter base who received these text campaigns.
Going forward, it's safe to say that SMS marketing metrics can serve as a strong bellwether for Presidential campaigns, providing an almost immediate feedback loop on voter sentiment about a given candidate.
Unlike other marketing channels, SMS has an instant, guaranteed delivery rate, with 98% of texts being read by recipients and 90% being read within 3 minutes of receipt. The responses to these texts, especially in swing states, can offer key insights into how a candidate is performing with their constituents.
We also saw that more spend does not necessarily mean better results, as voters seemed to be turned off by repeated texts from the same campaign, leading to higher opt-out rates and more frequent negative responses.
