Text message marketing for a contractor is mostly not marketing in the blast sense. The texts that book work are the ones tied to a job event: a missed call, a booking, a tech on the way, an estimate left on the table, a job finished. Those texts answer something the customer already cares about. Promotional blasts are a small slice of the value and carry the strictest rules. This hub sorts the two, explains the consent and carrier registration that come first, and shows how to measure texting from your call log and jobs.
The text inventory: what each text is for
Before you buy a texting tool, list every text your business sends or should send. For each, write down the job event that triggers it, the consent it needs, and the number it should move. If you can't name the number, the text is noise.
| Text | Triggered by | Consent level (CTIA) | The number it moves |
|---|---|---|---|
| Missed-call text-back | A call nobody answered | Treat as conversational: one reply, no offer | Missed calls that still book |
| Lead reply | A web form or marketplace lead | Depends on source; web forms need texting consent | Time to first response, lead booking rate |
| Booking confirmation and arrival window | A job booked | Express | No-shows and "nobody home" visits |
| On-my-way | Tech dispatched | Express | Same, plus fewer "where's the tech" calls |
| Estimate follow-up | Estimate presented, not sold | Express, captured with the estimate; promotional once you add an offer | Estimate close rate |
| Review request | Job completed | Express; say so at booking | Review link clicks |
| Seasonal promotion | Your calendar | Express written | Booked jobs per 1,000 texts |
The consent column comes from CTIA's Messaging Principles, which sort business texts into conversational, informational and promotional messages. CTIA expects no extra permission when the consumer starts the conversation and the business simply responds, express consent for informational texts, and express written consent before promotional texts. It also warns that adding a call to action, such as a coupon code, to an informational text may make it promotional.1 Notice how many rows sit above the promotional line. That's where most of a contractor's texting value is.
Our Field Notes post on texting customers legally goes deep on consent wording, state quiet-hours laws and the FCC's 2026 opt-out changes. Read it before writing your consent language.
The legal floor, in one paragraph
The FCC's rules require prior express consent for autodialed calls to mobile numbers, and prior express written consent when the call (or text) includes an advertisement or is telemarketing. Telephone solicitations can't go out before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. at the recipient's location.2 Several states are stricter, which is why many shops hold promotions to 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the customer's time zone. CTIA asks senders to honor STOP and plain-language opt-outs and to send one final confirmation, then nothing.1
Carrier registration comes first
Every business text from a regular 10-digit number travels as A2P 10DLC traffic, and carriers require it to be registered: a brand (your business, with its tax ID) and a campaign (what you'll send, sample messages, and how people opt in). Twilio's documentation says brand review typically takes minutes but can stretch past seven business days for manual review, and campaign review currently takes 10 to 15 days, up to two to three weeks.3 Start now if you plan to text in the spring rush. Our step-by-step A2P 10DLC registration guide for contractors covers the forms, the sample messages and the reasons campaigns get rejected.
Before your first business text
- Brand and campaign registered and approved for the number you'll text from
- Consent captured where customers give their number: booking form, call, estimate, membership signup
- Two flags on every customer record: job texts allowed, marketing texts allowed
- STOP and plain-language opt-outs processed immediately and synced to every tool
- Quiet hours set by the customer's time zone, not the office's
- A named person who reads and answers replies every business day
The text that pays first: missed-call text-back
If you only set up one text, make it the reply to a missed call. A caller who reaches voicemail usually dials the next contractor; a text in the first minute gives them a reason to reply instead. The missed call text back guide covers setup, consent and three scripts, plus how to measure how many of those callers you win back.
How to measure texting from your jobs
Messages sent is an activity count. These numbers tell you whether texting is working, and you can pull each one from your call log and job records.
Metric
Missed-call recovery rate
The share of missed callers who still booked after getting a text back.
missed callers with a job booked within 48 hours ÷ missed callers who were texted
Where the numbers come from: Missed and voicemail calls on the call log, matched to jobs booked for the same customer.
Metric
Text-to-book rate
For any job-triggered text (estimate follow-up, lead reply), how often the conversation ends in a booking.
jobs booked from the text thread ÷ customers texted
Where the numbers come from: Text threads linked to the customer record, and jobs booked in the period.
Metric
Opt-out rate per send
How many people asked you to stop. The early warning that a text is unwanted or too frequent.
STOP and plain-language opt-outs ÷ texts delivered
Where the numbers come from: Opt-out flags set on customer records after each send.
Watch the opt-out rate most closely on anything promotional. Job-triggered texts tend to have very few opt-outs because the customer asked for the service; if a seasonal promotion pulls ten times more, it's going to the wrong people or too often. For the wider question of how fast you respond to every lead, see the glossary entry on speed to lead.
Free download · ExcelField Service KPI ScorecardTrack the 12 numbers that run a service business, week by week, with formulas already built in.Where TradesWork fits, and where it doesn't
TradesWork texts from your business number once carrier registration is approved, and its texting is built around job events: missed calls, leads, reminders, reviews and automations with quiet hours and STOP handling, as described on the phones feature page. It doesn't send SMS broadcasts yet. If you run promotional text campaigns, use a dedicated texting tool, send only to customers with marketing-text consent, and bring the opt-outs back into your customer records so every tool respects them. If an agency or TradesForce runs your other marketing, the same rule applies: they plan the campaign, and the consent flags in your records decide who can receive it.
Footnotes
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Messaging Principles and Best Practices, CTIA, May 2023, Section 5.1 and Exhibit II. ↩ ↩2
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47 CFR 64.1200, Delivery restrictions, paragraphs (a)(1), (a)(2) and (c)(1), via Legal Information Institute, accessed October 15, 2026. ↩
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Direct Standard and Low-Volume Standard registration overview, Twilio documentation, accessed October 15, 2026. ↩