When you’re spending millions on your digital marketing campaigns, you need to ensure that you’re getting a decent return on every service you invest in. And if there’s one area where most enterprises struggle, it’s getting people to actually engage with your key marketing assets.
WhatsApp click-to-chat is emerging as a high-ROI channel for enterprises leveraging conversational marketing. When you bring a discussion to the world’s most popular messaging chat app, you can massively increase one-on-one engagement, which means more sales and leads.
Let’s take a close look at WhatsApp click-to-chat and how your enterprise can make the most of this tool in future marketing strategies.
What is WhatsApp click-to-chat?
The premise of WhatsApp click-to-chat is simple: click a chat link, open a WhatsApp chat. It’s just like a traditional lead capture form but condensed into one single click.
All you have to do is leave a link or a WhatsApp button on your website, email, social media, or anywhere else, and a business chat will open in the Android/iPhone app or in WhatsApp web. A pre-filled message template encourages engagement.
It's a multi-platform, dynamic, and wonderfully simple way to put potential customers directly into contact with you.
What are ads that click to WhatsApp?
Click-to-WhatsApp ads have a similar premise, except you’re able to use WhatsApp click-to-chat in your Facebook and Instagram advertising campaigns.
With this feature, you can add a call-to-action to your ads that instantly connects users to your brand’s official WhatsApp Business account. Rather than sending them to a landing page, a WhatsApp chat opens and interested users are able to voice their needs directly.
WhatsApp click-to-chat ads allow people to initiate conversations with brands directly from Instagram and Facebook. Handset images courtesy of Meta.
What are the benefits of WhatsApp click-to-chat?
When you’re running a large business and juggling leads, you can’t waste time and money on solutions that don’t work. So what makes WhatsApp click-to-chat worth your attention?
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Global reach: With over two billion monthly active users around the world, you can benefit from nearly unlimited campaign extensibility.
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High engagement: People are more open to having a conversation when you approach them on a platform they’re familiar with. WhatsApp has average open rates of over 98% – if you have a good enough pitch, you’ll get bites.
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User-initiated conversations: You’re not just here to blindly advertise, but to have a genuine conversation. WhatsApp’s free entry point conversations incentivize 72-hour chats between brands and consumers.
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Lower cost-per-acquisition (CPA): Thanks to facilitating direct user engagement, WhatsApp click-to-chat links eliminate the need for intermediaries. Engagement, conversion, and marketing happens entirely within WhatsApp.
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Convenience: To convert customers, make the process for them to reach out to you as easy as possible. For example, WhatsApp allows users to easily add your business to their contact list without needing to hunt down your phone number.
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Better customer experience: Offering your customers a comfortable and streamlined experience is a great way to convert, and it allows them to get in contact any time.
Use cases for WhatsApp’s click-to-chat feature
Other enterprises are already successfully leveraging WhatsApp click-to-chat in their own marketing channels. Here are just a few of the many use cases:
Targeting and retargeting ads
Meta’s Ads Manager allows you to pick from six campaign objectives for your click-to-WhatsApp ads, including engagement, conversions, or sales, and push your ad to relevant audiences by age, location, gender, or lookalike audiences.
Retargeting strategies also hook in users who slipped out of the funnel. By personally re-engaging these users through WhatsApp chat, you may just be able to make the lost sale.
Lead generation
Fostering a one-on-one connection allows you to personally guide potential customers down the sales funnel. Many enterprises are ditching traditional, impersonal landing pages in favor of starting a conversation.
WhatsApp’s one-click chat and the right business template instantly gets users talking. Click-to-WhatsApp ads, in particular, benefit from this efficiency, dropping potential leads right into a chatbot where the user can find product information or having automated AI conversations 24x7 as well as speak with an agent to address any questions or concerns.
Online advertisements
Integrating WhatsApp click-to-chat into your Facebook and Instagram ads facilities seamless communication via WhatsApp Business messaging. The interactive nature of this, along with the direct communication line, can lead to more ad clicks, engagement, and higher-quality leads.
Customer support and service
Advertising isn’t the only area in which WhatsApp click-to-chat excels. You can also use it as a live customer support and FAQ tool, offering assistance to anyone, anywhere and anytime of the day.
Support agents can send photos or videos to assist with troubleshooting, or even voice chat and screen share with people who need extra help. And when you have a large volume of support requests, integrated chatbots can cut down the load.
Appointment scheduling and booking
Scheduling appointments and bookings can be a logistical nightmare for large businesses. WhatsApp’s click-to-chat solution integrates with WhatsApp Flows and allows you to smoothly handle any volume of incoming appointments.
Order placement and tracking
The click-to-chat functionality can also be used to place product orders, track existing order status, and answer user inquiries about your products. Along with selling products, you also offer a better customer experience and foster long-term brand loyalty.
Feedback and surveys
Gathering meaningful feedback from users can be tough. People are more willing to answer a few extra questions while actively engaged in conversation and will likely be receptive to follow-up feedback requests down the line.
Best practices for click-to-WhatsApp ads
If you’re going to use click-to-WhatsApp ads, you want to make sure you do it right. Keep these best practices in mind as you design your ad campaign.
Get opt-in
WhatsApp chats are a great conversation starter, but make sure you get permission before you take the discussion further. Follow these opt-in guidelines if you want to keep messaging after 72 hours:
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State your request clearly: State your business name and ask for permission to continue the conversation.
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Explain what you’ll send: Outline what messages the user can expect to receive, from order updates to product recommendations. If you want to send different categories of messages, obtain another explicit opt-in.
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Let people opt out: Give clear instructions on how users can opt out, and if someone asks you to stop, discontinue right away.
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Offer incentives: Provide discounts or other rewards if users agree to receive WhatsApp messages and notifications.
Integrate a chatbot
When you have thousands of potential leads and far fewer support agents, offloading the simple queries and letting them handle the difficult problems can be very valuable.
AI chatbots are capable of answering even moderately complex questions and product inquiries. Give users the option to speak to a human, but don’t overlook the value of a 24/7 chatbot plugin.
Follow through on your ad’s promise
If you want to make users happy, then don’t beat around the bush. Whatever you promised in your ad, be it a discount code, freebie, or answers to their questions, give it to them ASAP.
This might seem obvious, but you’d be surprised by how many brands don’t fulfill their promises and wonder why their customers have lost interest. Once you’ve followed through, you can start a conversation and engage further.
Upsell and cross-sell with product recommendations
WhatsApp is a conversational platform by nature, and slipping relevant products into the conversation is easier than you may think. When engaged directly, customers are more willing to entertain your recommendations.
Chatbots are also capable of helping you with upselling and cross-selling, since they can reference your entire product catalog. When you’re making thousands of sales a day, offering users higher-quality or complementary products can greatly increase revenue.
Get started with WhatsApp click-to-chat
If you’re ready to launch your WhatsApp marketing campaign, start by connecting your WhatsApp Business account to an existing Facebook Business Page. You’ll then unlock the full assortment of WhatsApp Business features.
But for enterprises handling thousands or millions of requests a day, the free mobile app won’t do the job. The WhatsApp Business API is much more powerful, streamlining and automating your click-to-WhatsApp ads.
Download our step-by-step WhatsApp API guide for a full picture of how you can leverage the API in a large-scale business.
Or if you’re ready to get started with WhatsApp click-to-chat right now, our team is around to help you make your campaigns a big success. Contact our team to get started with crafting your winning marketing strategy today.
