Today, business activities are primarily online. With increased privacy measures, consumers expect to provide their consent to allow businesses to process their personal information as part of the overall online experience. Naturally, a quick and efficient way to capture your text messaging program's marketing consent is during your online store's checkout process.

We'll take you through the steps to update your privacy policy and terms of service, and enable your Shopify account to begin capturing opt-ins for SMS marketing.

Full Consent and Compliance

A blanket privacy statement won't completely cover your SMS marketing permissions at checkout. To be fully compliant with TCPA and CTIA regulations, you'll need to capture explicit consent for SMS marketing and communications reasons. 

Full consent includes:

1. Request that the customer sign up for marketing updates from your company
2. Clear explanation to the customer of how they will receive text messages from you in a TCPA-compliant manner. The customer must acknowledge, understand, and agree:
• To receiving automated, recurring marketing messages to the phone number provided
• That the messages may be sent with automatic telephone dialing system ("ATDS")
• That providing their consent is not a condition of purchase
3. Request that the customer provide their phone number to receive text messages

Configuring Your Shopify Checkout Page

(a) Enable the Marketing Signup Option

You’ll need to provide customers a way to sign up for your marketing communications at checkout. To enable this option, go to your (Shopify) account, and 

1. Go to Settings, then Checkout. Find the Email Marketing section
2. Confirm that Show a signup option at checkout is checked
3. UNCHECK Preselect the signup option. This ensures that the marketing signup checkbox is unfilled by default for customers 
4. Save your updated settings

(b) Update the Marketing Signup Language to include SMS marketing

Next, update the marketing signup language to specify that you will send them text messages. 

1. Go to Settings, then Checkout. Find the Checkout language section
2. Select the Manage checkout language button

3. Search for “Checkout Marketing,” and in the field named Accept marketing checkbox label. Copy and paste the following text in the field:

4. Save your changes

(c) Create the field to collect the customer’s phone number

Lastly, you’ll need to collect the customer’s phone number. To add the phone number field to your checkout page:

1. Go to Settings, then Checkout. Find the Form options section 
2. Update the shipping address phone number to Optional

3. Save your changes