© Copyright 2025 Postscript.
Issue 02, November 9, 2025
A Satirical Publication / $6.00
CDC Investigating New Rash Among Marketers Who Skipped SMS for BFCM
ATLANTA, GA — The Centers for Disease Control and Campaigns (CDC) has officially launched an investigation into a strange new condition affecting ecommerce marketers across the country: SMS Avoidant Response Syndrome — or SARS for short.
The syndrome appears to primarily impact those who opted not to include SMS in their Black Friday/Cyber Monday strategy, despite multiple signs from the universe (and their Postscript CSM) that it was time.
“Patients report a burning sensation on their skin,” said one CDC researcher, “usually triggered by hearing the phrase ‘98% open rate’ or seeing a competitor’s popup convert 17% of site traffic.”
“Everything was fine until Sunday,” said one affected marketer, now recovering in a Slack support thread. “I was watching The Great British Bake Off, and then I saw a brand I follow send a ‘Just for SMS subscribers’ deal — and my skin started peeling off in shame.”
Thankfully the CDC and SMS marketing behemoth Postscript worked together and quickly developed antibodies. “If they can build one BFCM campaign and send it to a warm segment, the rash usually clears up within 24 hours,” said one SMS specialist. “But the psychological scars? Those can last a lifetime.”
SMS Sunday
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Our Director of Content and Community doles out advice to ecom marketers even though she has no real degree.
DEAR TEXT AND THE CITY:
It’s the day before Thanksgiving and my team wants to send an SMS “just to warm people up” before our Friday offer goes out. I’m worried we’re texting too much. Should we send it anyway or chill?
— Overthinker in Oregon
Dear Overthinker,
Listen to me very carefully:
SEND. THE. TEXT.
I don’t care if it’s Thanksgiving. I don’t care if Aunt Carol is carving the tofurkey. I don’t care if your CMO is having a “respectful branding” crisis. Your subscribers are literally sitting on the couch scrolling their phones trying to avoid conversation — you think they don’t want to see your offer?
You’re not interrupting family time. You’re saving them from it.
And if you’re worried it’s “too early,” allow me to introduce you to every brand that launched their BFCM sale on Monday like it was a clearance rack brawl at 8am. You’re already late.
I need you to walk to your laptop, craft a text that’s short, clever, and gives early access or rewards VIPs. Hit send.
My gosh. I feel better already. Do you?
I Ignored SMS. Now I Live in the Woods.
I used to have a team, a tech stack and an email template library that I was bullish on. So bullish, time and time again, I ignored our CMO’s question about when and if we’d be implementing SMS.
At the time, I thought I knew better. I thought texting would never beat email and that the future was going to be catalogs making a resurgence again.
“We don’t need another channel,” I said, while my competitors launched site-wide SMS-exclusive flash deals with 10x ROI and the smugness of a CRO who actually tested their CTAs.
My popup stayed live but only collected emails. By the end of Cyber Monday last year, the team sat me down for an intervention.
A few days later, I packed up my laptop, left my office group chat, and walked into the forest.
Life in the woods is simpler. I forage for mushrooms and imagine what our abandoned cart revenue could’ve been. Sometimes, I send myself texts just to think about what could have been.
I think about returning to the land of WiFi someday again, of course, but right now the shame keeps me here.
But would I do things differently? I would. I’d urge everyone to listen to their teams, believe in the power of SMS, and most importantly,
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Marketer Finally Graduates Winning SMS After 427 Days of A/B Testing
By Feras Khouri,
New Standard Agency for A/B Testing Studies — in partnership with Postscript
After 427 days, 93 split tests, and one mild existential crisis, DTC marketer Riley Knox has finally declared victory: the winning SMS has been found. The message? A bold, groundbreaking discovery that reads, “Hey {first_name}, you up? 20% off ends tonight.”
“It’s been an emotional journey,” said Knox, wiping a tear from behind their blue-light glasses. “We tested every single word, every emoji, every variation of urgency. Turns out, adding ‘tonight’ instead of ‘today’ converted 0.06% higher, generating $8.71 of incremental revenue.”
Within hours of announcing the winning version, Knox reportedly started a new test to “measure tone-of-voice alignment by moon phase.” Their Slack status currently reads: ’AFK (Analyzing CTR Delta)’.
The campaign, which began back in September of last year, originally set out to answer one simple question: does “Sale ends soon” or “Sale ends soon :eyes:” perform better? Since then, the project has evolved into
what coworkers now call “a full-blown trilogy,” one that outlasted three interns, two multi-touch attribution models, and the entire Shopify Summer Update.
“I respect the grind,” said one anonymous colleague. “But at some point, you gotta ask - are we testing to learn, or just scared to hit send?”
There’s a lesson here though. It’s easy to get lost in micro-optimizations and forget the bigger picture. Testing is important, just like personalization, but at some point you hit diminishing returns and just have to… hit send… then focus on things that will actually move the needle.
Still, Knox says the work continues. “I’ll keep testing,” they said. “There’s always another variant. What if I add a comma? What if I remove it? What if… I just send an MMS?”
At press time, Knox was reportedly seen launching a new test comparing “:fire:” vs “:boom:” for emotional impact. Early results show no significant difference, but that hasn’t stopped them from setting up another round of testing.
The Great DTC Crossword
Missed Connections
TO THE GUY IN THE TRUE CLASSIC TEE AT THE SHOPIFY BOOTH
You said your LTV tripled after switching to Postscript. I laughed. You didn’t. Then you said “no, seriously.” I’ve been running lookalike audiences for your heart ever since.TO THE FOUNDER WHO SAID CAC IS JUST ‘A STATE OF MIND’
We locked eyes during the retention panel when the moderator said “zero-party data.” You nodded like you’d already collected mine.TO THE MARKETER WHO WHISPERED ‘RETENTION IS ROMANCE’
We both laughed when someone called a post-purchase flow “love language.” I’d like to follow up in 7–10 business days with an exclusive offer for forever.TO THE RETENTION MARKETER AT THE AIRPORT BAR
You were editing a Klaviyo flow over public Wi-Fi. I admired your recklessness. When the connection dropped, so did my guardrails.
Weekly Ecom Horoscope
