2021 Political Text Message Marketing Statistics

Text message marketing has taken the political world by storm. Text messaging is one of the highest-performing communication channels, returning 99% open rates and $5 for every dollar invested with Tatango, on average. It’s no surprise that political campaigns are using political SMS marketing to massively increase their donations, votes, and supporters.

To get a better view of how political candidates use texting—including some of the top benefits they’ve seen—let’s look at the data. Below are some top political text message marketing statistics from industry experts, studies, and surveys.

Political Text Message Marketing and Voter Turnout Statistics

Tech for Campaigns released a series of comprehensive data points about the role of text marketing within 2018 political campaigns and its effect on voter turnout. Here are some of those data points:

• People who received text messages were 1% percent more likely to turn out to vote. Although 1% may seem like a very small number for national campaigns, it can make a significant difference for candidates running in local elections.
• Registered voters between the ages of 27 and 50 who received an SMS marketing message turned out to vote at a rate of almost 8% higher than those in the same age group who didn’t receive an SMS message.
• Subscribers who received SMS messages with information about candidates or district-specific issues were 8.2% more likely to vote.
• People who responded to text message CTAs were 9.6% more likely to vote than those who didn’t.
• The average open rate for political campaign emails was 20%, and the average open rate for political text messages was 98%.

A survey commissioned by Mitto found that text marketing has helped Americans get out the vote (GOTV). Here are just some of the findings from that survey:

• 37% of responders said they felt influenced by campaign texts to register to vote.
• 50% of survey respondents indicated they most enjoyed receiving a thank-you text message from a political campaign for casting their vote.
• 47% of responders said the campaign text messages they received were personalized.

Text Marketing and Presidential Contender Statistics

IMGE conducted a study in which their staff consented to receive text messages from all available presidential candidate’s campaigns. Participants responded to every text, clicked every link, and signed every petition. The only action they didn’t take was donating money to the campaigns. After receiving texts for a month, here’s what IMGE found:

• The average length of a presidential candidate’s text message was 170 characters. (Although, Tatango allows its clients to send up to 5,000 characters in MMS messages in case they have important breaking news to share.)
• Across all presidential candidates’ texting campaigns, 45.71% of messages were direct requests for donations.
• The most common day to receive a text message from a presidential contender was Tuesday.
• The least common day to receive a text message from a presidential contender campaign was Sunday.
• The most common time of day for voters to receive an SMS message from a presidential contender was between 2:00-2:30 p.m. EST.
• Job Biden sent the longest text messages, with an average message length of 249 characters.
• Of all poltical text messages received from presidential candidates’ campaigns, 67.23% included links.
• More than 90% of political text messages sent by the Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump campaigns included a link.
• Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump favored the use of ALL-CAPS text.

Political SMS Marketing Statistics in the 2020 Election

Robokiller released a series of data points outlining how many text messages were sent during the 2020 election cycle and who sent them. Here are some of Robokiller’s data points:

• 1,915,512,269 text messages related to the 2020 US presidential election were sent in November 2020.
• Republican campaigns sent 1,455,158,083 text messages in November 2020.
• Democratic campaigns sent 513,433,739 text messages in November 2020.
• GOTV messages accounted for 6 out of 10 text messages sent.
• Donation-related messages were the highest volume and most common type of messages sent.

A press release issued by Robokiller shares findings from a survey that asked individuals about communication from political campaigns during the 2020 election cycle. Here are some of those findings:

• 54% of responders stated that having a verification system would be the best way to know if text messages were coming from a legitimate source.
• Between November 4 and November 9, subscribers received 270 million text messages seeking to influence election day.

Maximize Your Political Donations with SMS Marketing

Did you know that Tatango is the only mass SMS provider optimized for political campaigns? We’ve helped some campaigns generate $5 in donations for every $1 invested in text message fundraising for political candidates. Our political SMS software seamlessly integrates with many of the popular political fundraising technologies, and we provide specialized support for our political clients to help improve even the best fundraising ROIs.

We’d love to chat with you about your text marketing campaign communication and how SMS marketing can help you achieve even better results with your supporters and potential voters. Schedule a time to chat with a political text messaging expert to strategize on winning your next election.