Amanda McGuckin Hager is Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Revenue Officer at TrueDialog, an enterprise SMS and RCS messaging platform headquartered in Austin, Texas. She brings more than 25 years of brand, marketing, and revenue leadership, and was named to OnCon's Icon Top 100 Marketers list in 2026. A regular Forbes Communications Council contributor on business messaging, she is a returning Winners' Circle guest and a back-to-back Sammy Award winner.
Amanda McGuckin Hager is helping brands use business texting as a high-value, high-trust marketing and customer engagement channel. At True Dialog, Amanda works with colleges, universities, retailers, financial services companies, and brands across many industries to connect with people through SMS, RCS, CRM integrations, APIs, and emerging AI-driven messaging tools. True Dialog recently won a SAMI Award for its work in SMS and business messaging.
In this episode, Russ and Amanda discuss why SMS has become such a powerful channel. Unlike email, text messaging lives next to messages from family, friends, and the people consumers trust most. That makes the channel incredibly valuable, but only when brands respect the opt-in, keep lists clean, and send messages people actually want.
The conversation explores RCS, or Rich Communication Services, and how it is turning messaging into a more interactive, branded, visual experience. Amanda explains how True Dialog built a no-code RCS visual composer so marketing and growth teams can create rich messages without relying on developers or API work.
Russ and Amanda also discuss lessons from analyzing more than a billion brand text messages, why customers who opt in usually want to hear from brands, how True Opt Out uses AI-powered sentiment detection to catch non-standard opt-out requests, and why list hygiene is both a compliance issue and a customer experience issue.
The episode also covers MCPs, AI agents, TrueConnect, verified sender, first-party data, RCS engagement, publisher sponsorship opportunities, compliance, global opt-out expectations, and why now is the time for marketers to start building their owned messaging lists.
Topics Covered:
[00:00] Welcome and intro, Amanda McGuckin Hager and True Dialog
[00:58] What True Dialog does as a business texting platform
[01:30] RCS and the rise of richer messaging
[01:51] No-code RCS visual composer for marketers
[03:12] Building RCS messages like rich email experiences
[04:00] Lessons from more than a billion brand text messages
[04:45] Why opted-in consumers usually want brand messages
[05:16] MCPs, APIs, AI, and vibe-coded messaging apps
[06:19] SMS as a critical notification and communication channel
[07:03] True Opt Out and AI-powered opt-out detection
[08:46] Sentiment analysis, compliance, and list hygiene
[09:46] Why opt-outs are part of healthy marketing
[10:28] TrueConnect and using phone numbers as unique identifiers
[11:38] RCS as a richer alternative to crowded email channels
[12:17] Engagement rates for RCS versus plain SMS
[13:23] Early customer results and RCS adoption
[14:00] Verified sender and branded RCS messages
[15:31] Why verification helps keep the channel clean
[16:41] Carrier blocking, TCPA pressure, and opt-out compliance
[17:34] Where messaging goes after RCS
[18:35] Publishers, first-party lists, and sponsored alerts
[20:14] SMS open rates, click-through rates, and return on ad spend
[21:26] Advice for marketers getting started with text messaging
[22:30] Final thoughts on RCS, SMS, AI, and the future of messaging