RCS messaging delivers more engagement and conversion for FragranceNet. It’s just more expensive, said David Janecek, Director of Marketing Email and SMS for the online-mostly perfume retailer.
“We get more engagement, but then we get into the challenge of the cost,” Janecek said. “How do we prove to our management that even though we’re using RCS, getting more engagement, we’re getting better response rates and revenue lift, that we can beat the cost of just sending a straight SMS message.”
Janecek said the costs increase going up the ladder starting at email, SMS, MMS, RCS and then direct mail. The key is to be efficient, he said.
RCS, or rich communication services is a newer form of texting marketing that allows retailers to send “richer” messages directly to shoppers’ chat apps. Instead of a single image (which brands can send via MMS or Multimedia Messaging Service) they can send multiple, high-resolution images, with several call to actions leading to multiple landing pages. RCS messages show the brand name and icon image in the from line, instead of a short code.
With RCS, FragranceNet is sending shoppers a carousal of images from different products they have engaged with on its website. By sending more options in the text messages, the retailer is likely to send the product the shopper was the most interested in, rather than just guessing with one image with an MMS message. This means more opportunities for conversion, he said.
The merchant also is building “journeys” for shoppers, such as sending a message to thank the customer for their purchase, the next message about leaving a review and the following message about a cross-sale.
The Costs of RCS Marketing
Janecek estimates RCS messages are two to three times more expensive than sending straight text message. The brand has not had a negative return on ad spend. If the brand is measuring absolute sales, RCS is better, but the has to absorb the costs to get those sales, he said.
“It’s still very profitable to send RCS; It’s just not as profitable as sending a straight text message,” Janecek said.
Most of the time, FragranceNet’s marketing to its shoppers is to “wake them up” and remember the brand. Janecek has to determine if a text message which is cheaper to send, would reengage the customer or if they need a richer note to drive engagement.
“Finding what’s relevant to a consumer and what will actually help them engage or respond to us can be a challenge,” he said. “That’s where RCS is actually helping us.”
If a customer typically engaged with FragranceNet, the brand will likely just send an email or a text to re-market to them, and not spend the money on RCS, he said.
Attentive, which is the vendor it uses to send these messages, has AI tools to help the brand determine the right type of message to send shoppers.
“Everyone talks about personalization, sending the right message, at the right time, at the right place, but it’s a problem that been around for 30-plus years since I’ve been doing this,” he said. “Attentive’s helping us solve this. Some other vendors are helping us solve this. But the kids who work for me now will be — when they’re my age — they’ll be asking the same questions trying to get this done.”
The Value of A Phone Number
FragranceNet started testing RCS in Q1 2025 with its Verizon customers. The merchant has more than 3.5 million customers in its text marketing program, which is a fraction of the 30 million in its email program, Janecek said.
To grow the program, FragranceNet typically runs a 30-37% off the next purchase incentive. Growing the list is important to the business, as the brand knows the lifetime value of what a phone number brings into merchant. This helps it forecasts sales, he said.
A phone number is much more valuable than an email address, Janecek said, because shoppers are less likely to delete a text message from a brand and more likely to delete a marketing email.
“If you have an email, it might live for 40 seconds before it gets buried by another email,” he said. “When you send a text message, especially an RCS one that’s branded, it lives in your messages. It lives there, and people can always go back to it.”
The brand typically sends one to two communications a day and it rarely sends to its full list.
Email is a workhouse for FragranceNet and responsible for generated the majority of the retailer’s sales, he said. FragranceNet uses last click attribution.
