SMS vs email: what the data says about prospect engagement

The headline stat is well known: SMS has a 98% open rate compared to roughly 20% for email. But open rates only tell you that someone glanced at a message. They do not tell you whether that message started a conversation.

In Australian real estate, the distinction matters more than most industries. The goal after an open home is not to broadcast information — it is to start a dialogue that reveals buying intent, timeline, and motivation. That requires a channel where people actually reply.

The reply rate gap

Email reply rates for real estate follow-ups hover around 1–3%. SMS reply rates sit between 30–45% when the message is personalised and timely. That is not a marginal difference. It is a completely different category of communication.

Why? Because SMS feels like a conversation. Email feels like a newsletter. When a buyer receives a text from an agent saying “Hey Sarah, great to meet you at the open home today — you mentioned you were looking for something with a bigger backyard. Want me to keep an eye out?”, the natural response is to reply. When they receive the same sentiment in an email with a header image and an unsubscribe link, the natural response is to archive it.

When to use each channel

This is not an argument against email. Both channels serve a purpose, and the best agents use them strategically.

SMS is ideal for: immediate post-open-home follow-up, time-sensitive updates (new price, offers closing), conversational qualification (asking questions, gauging interest), and anything where you need a reply.

Email is ideal for: sending documents (section 32s, contracts, property reports), longer-form content (market updates, suburb guides), nurture sequences for contacts not yet ready to act, and anything where the recipient needs to reference the content later.

The Australian SMS culture

Australia has a particularly strong SMS culture compared to other markets. Australians are comfortable with business communication via text in a way that, say, Americans are not. Tradies text quotes. GPs text appointment reminders. Real estate agents who lean into SMS are meeting buyers where they are already comfortable.

The caveat is that SMS is intimate territory. A badly timed, poorly written, or overly salesy text will damage your brand faster than a bad email. The bar for quality is higher precisely because the channel is more personal.

Conversation quality over broadcast volume

The real insight is not about choosing SMS over email. It is about shifting from broadcast to conversation. The agents who are winning are not the ones sending the most messages. They are the ones having the most genuine two-way exchanges — learning what buyers want, understanding timelines, spotting seller intent — and using that intelligence to make better decisions about where to invest their time.

The channel you use matters less than whether it enables real dialogue. For most post-open-home communication in Australia, that channel is SMS.