Conventional SMS / voice call marketing in the US requires explicit marketing consent under Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) of 1991.

However certain transactional use cases are exempt from marketing consent rules. Every day use cases of this exemption include:

  • calling / texting a customer to let them know there’s a problem with delivery.
  • helping a user sign into a service via an SMS One-Time passcode.
  • allowing a user to complete a purchase they began on the website.

OneText relies on established legal precedent to send transactional cart recovery messages in line with the third bullet point. We design our cart recovery messages to help users complete orders that they begin on your website. We also respond to questions from shoppers.

Opinion from OneText Counsel Adam Heller of Technology Law Partners

From February 7, 2022:

In short, the court confirmed your instinct - this type of [cart recovery] message is ‘transactional’.  And there is no issue with a short time delay.  If you waited a year, I could see an issue, but waiting days or even weeks would reasonably be deemed the same transaction.

​
Supporting Cases

Cloning and RetargetingAnalytics