Automated reminders and job updates: when a service message becomes marketing

The short answer: what's in the message decides

Automation makes it easy to send a booking confirmation, a reminder the day before, an "on our way" text and an invoice without anyone lifting a finger. Those messages help customers turn up, stay informed and pay on time. The trouble starts when someone adds a discount code, a link to a sale or a "you might also like" block, because that small addition changes how Australian law treats the whole message.

The Spam Act's consent and unsubscribe rules apply to commercial electronic messages: emails and texts that offer, advertise or promote goods or services. The ACMA's fact sheet puts the test simply: "If your message offers, advertises or promotes a product or service, it must comply with spam laws. Sometimes, this might be just one part of the message, but it is still commercial."

So a plain reminder can go to every booked customer. A reminder with an offer in it needs the same consent, sender details and working unsubscribe as any marketing message. The practical fix is to decide which kind each automated message is before you build it, and keep the two apart. This guide is general information, not legal advice.

What makes an automated message commercial

Under the Spam Act you can't send a commercial electronic message without consent, it has to identify who authorised it and how to contact them, and it has to include a working unsubscribe. Sections 16, 17 and 18 of the Act set out those three rules.

Purely factual messages sit in a different place. Schedule 1 of the Act describes a message that "consists of no more than factual information", with or without directly related comment, plus details such as your name, logo and contact details. The consent rule in section 16 and the unsubscribe rule in section 18 don't apply to that kind of message. A reminder that gives the date, time, address and how to reschedule is the kind of content this covers.

The exemption is narrow, and the ACMA watches how businesses use it. Its guidance on common mistakes says "Breaches can occur even if a message is mostly 'factual'", for example a bill, invoice or other account or service message that also carries promotional or sales content. It also says "'Welcome journeys' must comply with the spam rules", because automated welcome sequences sent to new and prospective customers often contain commercial content.

Sort your automated messages before you build

Before you set up a new sequence in your booking system, CRM or email tool, list every message it will send and decide which side of the line each one sits on. The question for each message is whether any part of it promotes something beyond the job the customer has already booked or asked about.

Use this as a starting point, then check the actual wording of each template:

• Booking confirmation, day-before reminder, "on our way" text and job-complete notice: service messages, as long as they stick to the job's facts and your contact details.
• Invoice, receipt and payment reminder: service messages, until you add a promotion, a sale banner or a link to other products.
• Shipping or delivery update with a "shop the sale" section: commercial, because of that section.
• Welcome sequence after someone becomes a customer or signs up: treat it as commercial unless every message is genuinely factual.
• "We miss you" or win-back messages to past or cancelled customers: commercial. The ACMA says retention messages to people who cancelled "are commercial and must comply with the Spam Act."
• Newsletters, offers and seasonal promotions: commercial, so they need consent, sender details and an unsubscribe.

Keep readingFollow up a new enquiry without pestering

Where service messages tip into marketing

The most common slip is a marketing block added to a template that started out factual. In March 2026 the ACMA announced that Lululemon had paid a $702,900 penalty after sending more than 370,000 emails with commercial content and no way to unsubscribe. The ACMA found the company had "mischaracterised service messages, including delivery and order confirmation emails, that also had a clear marketing purpose."

The ACMA's Samantha Yorke said "if an electronic message contains any promotional or sales content, it is considered commercial regardless of whether the message has any other purpose." She also described it as "the fifth enforcement action the ACMA has undertaken in the last 18 months against businesses that have incorrectly treated messages as non-commercial even though they contained or had links to clearly commercial material."

Automation makes this easy to get wrong at scale. A footer added to one shared template can turn every reminder, receipt and update into a marketing message overnight. The ACMA also flags paperless receipts that quietly add people to marketing lists, and messages that try to entice people who have unsubscribed to come back. Both are worth checking in any automated flow.

Keep service messages and marketing in separate streams

The ACMA's own advice is the simplest design rule: "the simplest way to comply is to keep transactional or service messages separate from sales content and links." In practice, that means separate templates, separate sending lists and a clear owner for each.

For anything that is marketing, the usual rules apply in full. You need consent you can prove, including when another business sends for you. The unsubscribe has to be clear, free beyond the normal cost of sending a reply, actioned within 5 working days, working for at least 30 days, and it can't require a login or extra personal details. Answering someone's enquiry isn't marketing, but adding them to a promotional list is a separate step that needs its own consent.

Check what your software does by default. The ACMA's unsubscribe fact sheet is blunt about relying on suppliers: "Your business is liable, and you cannot outsource your risk." If your booking platform, CRM or an agency sends messages for you, you still need to know what each template says and who receives it.

• Keep service templates free of offers, discount codes, sale banners and links to promotions.
• Identify your business and include current contact details in every message, service or marketing.
• Record marketing consent in its own field, with who agreed, when and how.
• Send marketing only from the stream that checks that consent and honours unsubscribes.
• Review shared footers, signatures and default content blocks whenever a template changes.

Keep readingGet marketing consent the right way at your enquiry form

Check your SMS sender ID is registered

If your texts show your business name at the top instead of a phone number, that name is a sender ID. From 1 July 2026, texts sent with an unregistered sender ID have that name replaced with the word 'Unverified', and they're grouped with other unverified messages, including scams, on the customer's phone. A reminder that lands in that thread is easy to ignore or delete.

Registration goes through your telco or message provider, and if you have an ABN, your authorised contact or service of notice email address on the Australian Business Register must be up to date. The ACMA says "There is no cut-off date for registration", so a business that missed 1 July can still register. It also says "If you don't use a sender ID, or you send messages from a phone number, you don't need to do anything." If an agency or software provider sends texts under your name, the register has a separate process for an organisation sending on someone else's behalf, and you have to confirm your consent to it.

Sender IDs also affect unsubscribing. The ACMA has seen businesses ask people to reply to a sender ID to opt out, but "people generally can't reply to an SMS with a Sender ID, which means that these unsubscribe processes don't work, and will therefore break the law." Give marketing texts a reply number or a working link instead.

Worked example: a cleaning business tidies up its reminders

This example is hypothetical. Imagine a Bendigo cleaning business that uses its booking software to send four automatic messages: a booking confirmation, a reminder the day before, an "on our way" text and an invoice email. Someone suggests adding "Add a carpet clean for 15% off, book here" to the day-before reminder, because it reaches every customer.

That one line makes the reminder a marketing message. Every customer who hasn't agreed to receive marketing would now be getting one, and the reminder text has no unsubscribe. Its texts also go out under a sender ID that customers can't reply to, so simply adding "reply STOP" wouldn't fix it.

The business keeps the reminder factual instead: "[Business name]: reminder, your clean is booked for Thursday 8am at the address you gave us. To change the time, call us on [number]." The carpet-clean offer goes into a separate monthly email that only goes to customers who ticked the marketing box when they booked, with an unsubscribe link at the bottom. The owner also confirms with the SMS provider that the business's sender ID is registered.

A pre-launch check for every automated message

Run each template through these questions before it goes live, and again whenever someone edits it. If you're building a larger automation that sends messages on its own, this is also a good moment to agree who owns each template and what happens if one goes out wrong.

If you'd like help designing customer messaging into a wider workflow, Demandify's AI Systems & Automation service can scope it with you, including who reviews what before it's sent.

• Does any part of this message offer, advertise or promote something? If yes, it's marketing.
• If it's marketing, do we have provable consent for everyone on the list?
• Does it clearly identify our business and give current contact details?
• If it's marketing, is there a clear unsubscribe that works without a login and that we action within 5 working days?
• If it's a text with a sender ID, is that sender ID registered, and can people actually reply or click to opt out?
• Who checks shared footers, signatures and default blocks when the template changes?
• If another business or tool sends it for us, have we seen the final message?

Keep readingPlan what happens when an automation sends the wrong message