Your customers' inboxes are overflowing. Email open rates hover around 20%. SMS gets read, but 160 characters can only do so much. Meanwhile, a new channel is quietly posting conversion rates that would make most CMOs do a double take.
RCS marketing (Rich Communication Services) is not just an upgrade to SMS. It is an entirely different category of business messaging, one that combines the immediacy of text messaging with the visual richness of email and the interactivity of a mobile app. And the numbers are proving it works.
If you are still running your mobile marketing strategy on plain text messages alone, here is what you are leaving on the table.
Personalized Video That Hits Home
The most powerful shift in RCS marketing is personalized video messaging. Not a generic product demo blasted to your entire list. We are talking about AI-generated video customized to each individual recipient.
Imagine a financial services company sending a video where the customer sees their own name, their account balance, and a tailored refinance offer, all rendered in a polished, branded video that plays right inside their messaging app. Or a car dealership sending a personalized walk-around video of the exact model a prospect inquired about, complete with their name and a custom financing quote.
This is not hypothetical. It is happening now. And the engagement numbers reflect it. Video messages consistently see 5 to 10 times higher engagement than text-only messages. The emotional connection of seeing your own name and details in a video creates a response that plain text simply cannot match. It feels personal because it is personal.
For sales teams, this means warmer leads and faster closes. For marketing teams, it means campaign metrics that actually justify the budget.
RCS Carousels: Multiple Products, One Message, Zero Friction
With traditional SMS, you get one link. Maybe a shortened URL to a landing page. The customer has to leave the conversation, load a browser, and navigate a website. Every extra step is a drop-off point.
RCS carousels eliminate that friction entirely. You can present a swipeable carousel of products, services, or offers directly inside the message. Each card displays an image, a description, and its own dedicated CTA button. The customer browses, compares, and takes action without ever leaving the conversation.
The use cases are endless. A car dealership can showcase five vehicles with photos, specs, and "Schedule Test Drive" buttons. A restaurant can display the full lunch menu with images and "Order Now" on each item. An insurance company can lay out three plan tiers side by side, each with a "Get Quote" button. A retailer can show personalized product recommendations based on browsing history.
This is not a landing page crammed into a text message. It is an app-like shopping experience delivered natively in the messaging app your customers already use every day.
The data backs it up. RCS campaigns with interactive elements like carousels drive click-through rates of 15 to 30%, compared to 4 to 7% for standard SMS. That is up to ten times higher engagement from a single message.
Verified Sender Branding: Trust That Converts
Here is a problem every marketer knows too well: your carefully crafted message lands on someone's phone from an unrecognized number, and it looks exactly like spam. Even legitimate SMS campaigns suffer from this. Recipients see a random 10-digit number or short code and hesitate to engage.
RCS verified sender changes the game completely. Every RCS business message displays your company logo, brand colors, and a carrier-verified badge directly in the message thread. Before the recipient reads a single word, they see your brand identity and know the message is legitimate.
This is not self-reported branding. Carriers verify every RCS business sender through a rigorous approval process. Your customers see a verified checkmark that tells them this message is genuinely from your company, not a phishing attempt or scam. It is the same trust signal that the blue checkmark provides on social media, but built directly into the messaging experience.
The impact on response rates is significant. When recipients trust the sender, they engage. When they engage with rich media and clear CTAs, they convert. The verified sender badge removes the single biggest barrier to mobile marketing success: the "Is this spam?" moment.
The Numbers That Matter: RCS Response Rates, CTR, and Conversions
Let's talk about the metrics that keep marketing leaders up at night. RCS is not just incrementally better than SMS and email. It is a step change.
Open and read rates: RCS messages land in the same native messaging app as SMS, delivering open rates between 90 and 95%. That is on par with SMS and roughly 35 times higher than email, according to industry data from Vonage and Sinch.
Click-through rates: This is where RCS pulls ahead dramatically. Interactive elements like carousels, suggested replies, and embedded CTA buttons drive CTRs of 15 to 30%. Exceptional campaigns have reported CTRs above 50%. Compare that to SMS at 4 to 7% and email at under 3%.
Conversion rates: RCS campaigns are seeing conversion rates of 20 to 40%, with strong cases reaching as high as 80%. SMS conversion rates sit around 3 to 5%, and email sits below 2%. The combination of trusted branding, rich visuals, and frictionless CTAs creates a path from impression to action that no other channel matches.
ROI impact: Research from Sinch shows that a well-executed interactive RCS campaign can increase average order value by nearly 10% compared to other channels. When you combine higher engagement, higher conversion, and higher order values, the business messaging ROI case writes itself.
These are not theoretical projections. These are real numbers from real campaigns being run by businesses right now.
RCS vs. Email: Why Marketers Are Rethinking the Channel Mix
Email has been the backbone of digital marketing for two decades. But the reality of email performance in 2025 is sobering. Average open rates sit between 20 and 30%. Click-through rates hover around 2 to 3%. And a significant percentage of your messages never reach the inbox at all, caught by spam filters, promotions tabs, or simply ignored in an overflowing inbox.
SMS addressed the deliverability problem with 98% open rates, but it introduced a new limitation: 160 characters, no images, no branding, no interactivity. You can get someone's attention, but you cannot give them a compelling reason to act.
RCS combines the best of both worlds. It delivers with the immediacy and near-universal open rates of SMS. It presents with the visual richness, branding, and interactivity that email promised but increasingly fails to deliver. And it does all of this inside the native messaging app, with no spam folder, no promotions tab, and no app download required.
For CMOs evaluating their channel mix, the math is straightforward. A channel with 90%+ open rates, 15 to 30% CTR, verified branding, and rich media capabilities is not a nice-to-have. It is a competitive necessity.
Ready to See RCS in Action?
Tells.co is among the first US platforms approved for RCS Business Messaging. We combine AI-generated personalized video, rich carousels, and verified branding into messages that actually convert. Ready to see what RCS can do for your business?
