TCPA SMS Basics for Square Businesses

Know who you can message

Build from customers who shared a number in a legitimate relationship with your business. Do not buy random phone lists for promotional SMS. When in doubt, make the marketing purpose obvious at collection time.

• Prefer buyers and known guests over purchased leads
• Separate transactional receipts from marketing intent where required
• Train staff not to invent “everyone who paid is opted in” folklore

Always make opt-out easy

Include clear STOP language. Process opt-outs immediately and keep sending suppressed. ReturnFlowHQ handles STOP keywords at the webhook layer so “sorry, our intern forgot” is not the plan.

Respect timing

Send during reasonable local hours. Configure send windows that match your brand and community norms. Late-night blasts are a fast path to complaints even when the copy is fine.

Keep records

Retain evidence of how numbers were collected and when opt-outs happened. Good systems log inbound STOP events automatically and make audits boring — which is the goal.

Frequency is a compliance cousin

Even with consent, hammering phones trains opt-outs and carrier complaints. Cooldowns, daily caps, and same-day visit exclusion are product features that protect the channel.

Multi-location caution

Do not let Store A’s list get messaged by Store B’s number without a clear relationship. Wrong-city texts feel like spam even when the brand is the same on paper.

Common mistakes to avoid

Buying cold phone lists, blasting the same coupon to everyone, skipping STOP language, and measuring only “messages sent” instead of return visits. Fix those before you scale volume. A smaller clean list with attributed tickets will beat a huge hostile list every quarter.

• No purchased SMS lists
• Segment by visit cadence and relevance
• Track attributed visits, not vanity sends
• Exclude same-day visitors from marketing batches