Deliverability collapses in cannabis SMS are usually quiet. Sends look successful in your dashboard. Engagement just drops. Then revenue drops. By the time it's obvious, the audience is already burned.
What carriers actually care about
- Consent quality and audit trail
- Opt-out enforcement
- Content patterns (aggressive promo language, repeated keywords)
- Send velocity to fresh numbers
- Spam-trap and bounce rates
The audience hygiene that protects you
Bounce handling
Hard bounces should drop subscribers immediately. Soft bounces should downgrade send eligibility over a defined window. Continuing to send to invalid numbers signals low list quality to carriers.
Opt-out enforcement
Every accepted opt-out keyword must result in immediate suppression and no future messages — across automations as well as campaigns.
Inactive pruning
Subscribers who haven't engaged in a long window are a liability. A controlled win-back attempt followed by suppression protects sender reputation better than letting dormant numbers receive every blast.
Content discipline
Aggressive promo language and heavy keyword stacking trigger carrier action. Educational, specific, restrained content performs better and protects long-term delivery.
Early-warning signals
Monitor send-to-engagement ratio by segment week over week. A sudden drop on a previously healthy segment usually means deliverability is degrading, not that the audience suddenly lost interest.