Understanding TCPA Compliance in SMS Marketing: A 2025 Update

Are you complying with TCPA requirements?

SMS marketing seems simple, but it can be complex when it comes to privacy, consent, and other legal requirements.

If you just send SMS ads to everyone, you might face fines and financial losses. So, be careful and learn what you need to consider to avoid these problems in your SMS campaigns.

If you’re running an SMS campaign in the USA, you need to comply with TCPA. This blog post explains what TCPA is and how you can comply with the TCPA regulations.

What Is TCPA?

TCPA stands for Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and is a U.S. law passed in 1991. As the name suggests, it has been designed to regulate telephone calls/messages in the USA.

The main purpose of TCPA is to protect consumers from unwanted calls, faxes, and text messages.

It’s good to know that the law originally focused on telemarketing calls. However, it evolved to cover SMS and MMS marketing as well. 

TCPA will ensure businesses respect people’s privacy and preferences in receiving text messages.

Key TCPA Requirements for SMS Marketing

The TCPA has lots of requirements, but some of them are particularly important for SMS marketing. Here is the list of the most important requirements you need to comply with in your text messaging campaigns:

1. Explicit Written Consent

Before sending any promotional text message, you must get explicit consent from your audience and document the consent.

In fact, TCPA requires you to show written permission from your consumers whenever you face legal disputes.

Remember that this is essential for any SMS type, like marketing, sales offers, promotions, or special deals. The good news is that you don’t need written consent for transactional or informational messages.

In other words, if you want to send order confirmations, shipping updates, appointment reminders, or account alerts, you just need express consent, even verbally.

2. Clear Disclosures

Under TCPA, you need to clearly explain why you’re getting subscribers’ phone numbers. Your audience should know what kind of content they’ll receive and how often you’ll send SMS messages.

Additionally, if any changes happen in the content and frequency of your messages, you must let the subscribers know.

So, if you want to send promotional messages, you can’t hide your intent in your sign-up form. 

3. Opt-Out Mechanism

Every SMS message must have a simple, clear way to unsubscribe. In fact, if your subscribers want to remove their name and phone number from your list, they should be able to opt out immediately by replying with a keyword.

The keyword is commonly “STOP,” and you have to respect their choice. According to TCPA 2025 updates, you should send an opt-out confirmation message to subscribers within 5 minutes after their unsubscription. Remember to avoid including any promotional items in the confirmation message.

Previously, businesses had a long period of 30 days to remove customers from their subscriber list. However, in the 2025 updates, you only have 10 days to do that.

4. No Shared or Purchased Lists

Buying or renting SMS subscriber lists is a major TCPA violation. The phone number and the written consent must come directly from the audience, not anywhere else.

In fact, each business needs one-to-one consent from the audience and avoids sharing lists.

5. Message Timing

TCPA doesn’t specify exact hours for sending SMS. However, it prohibits sending promotional texts at “unreasonable times.”

6. Caller ID

You should not block your Caller ID under the TCPA. Telemarketers need to disclose their business identity or the identity of the seller on whose behalf they are calling/texting.

So, avoid concealing your business identity when sending marketing messages to your audience.

7. Automated Messages to Emergency Lines

Remember that it is illegal to use automated or prerecorded messages to call sensitive businesses. For example, you can’t reach out to emergency lines, hospitals, and other sensitive numbers with automated messages.

So, if you have a business related to these industries, you have to be careful to avoid contacting these places, even if AI technologies are behind the texts.

8. Avoid TCPA Do-Not-Call List

When American citizens want to opt out of unsolicited telemarketing texts/calls, they register their number at DoNotCall.gov.

Your business should avoid sending marketing texts to numbers on the DNC list. Of course, if a person gives you written consent, you can send your promotional messages without legal issues.

What Are the Risks of Non-Compliance with TCPA?

If you violate TCPA, you might face legal and financial risks. Here is what you have to expect for non-compliance with TCPA:

1. Financial Penalties: Consumers can sue for each text that violates the rules. You might face penalties that range from $500 to $1,500 per violation.

2. Class-Action Lawsuits: If one person sues on behalf of hundreds or thousands of people, you’ll face a major legal battle. This might cost your company millions in legal fees and settlements.

3. Reputation Damage: If you send promotional messages without consent or don’t apply opt-outs, people consider your messages spam. This will dent your brand identity.

4. Regulatory Scrutiny: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and state regulators enforce TCPA rules and actively investigate non-compliant issues.

5. Lost Business Opportunities: When you send too many messages and don’t pay attention to timing, you’ll annoy subscribers. This way, they’ll not interact with your business, and you’ll lose business opportunities.

6. Operational Costs: If you face complaints, you must spend masses of time and money on the legal processes.

Best Practices to Comply with TCPA in 2025

Now that you know what TCPA is, it’s time to learn how to make sure your campaigns are compliant with its requirements.

Here are some tips for TCPA compliance in 2025:

Use Difference Channels to Get Consent

Use all the possible channels to get explicit consent from your niche audience. Here are some examples that will simplify the consent process:

• Website sign-up forms
• Mobile keyword opt-in (text-to-join)
• Point-of-sale (in-store) sign-ups
• Social media campaigns
• QR codes
• Event sign-ups (trade shows, webinars)
• Transactional opt-in (after orders or receipts)
• Paper consent forms
• App or customer portal sign-ups

For example, if you have a clothing store, you can ask customers to sign up for “exclusive discounts and offers” via a form on your online store.

You can then include a checkbox that clearly states: “I agree to receive promotional text messages from [Brand Name]. Message and data rates may apply.”

Use Double Opt-In

Although a single opt-in is enough under TCPA, it’s better to confirm it. So, after a user opts in, send a confirmation text and ask them to reply YES to confirm. This provides extra protection against future problems.

Keep Consent Records

Consider a safe server to store consent logs, like time, date, and method. This way, you can provide them as proof in case of audits or disputes.

Segment Your Audience

You must send only relevant texts to what people explicitly signed up for. If some of your customers have not subscribed to promotional messages, you have to create a separate segment for sending transactional messages.

Review Rules

Laws change according to new needs. So, you have to stay updated with communication regulations like TCPA to remain compliant.

Use Compliant SMS Platforms

Last but not least, you need to use an SMS tool that is both effective and compliant with rules like TCPA and GDPR, depending on the region where you want to run your campaigns.

The following table compares the best compliance tools to help you select the best one for your business:

Platform	Compliance Features	Best For
WP SMS	GDPR-ready, supports consent forms.	WordPress site owners.
SimpleTexting	Auto opt-in/opt-out, STOP/HELP support.	Small to mid-size businesses.
Attentive	Tracks consent, audit trails, and auto opt-out.	Enterprises need strong compliance.
Trumpia	Stores opt-in records, legal safeguards.	Businesses focused on risk control.
Infobip	Global TCPA/GDPR compliance tools.	International or large-scale users.

It should be added that WP SMS is not TCPA-ready, but complies with all the necessary requirements like consent, opt-out, segmentation, timing, etc.

Final Thoughts

Compliance is one of the most important things businesses need to consider when running SMS campaigns.

Try to understand the privacy and data protection regulations in your country to avoid legal problems. The TCPA is the protection regulation in the USA and focuses on consent, opt-out, and transparency.

If you run an opt-in campaign and respect people’s unsubscription requests, you can consider your campaign TCPA-compliant.

Of course, you need an SMS automation tool to make sure you can easily apply the requirements with minimum manual intervention. 

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