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WhatsApp has become a popular channel for eCommerce businesses to run promotions and broadcasts on. While most businesses can now be seen exploring the potential of WhatsApp Business to get their products, deals and discounts noticed, there are very few who are seeing success in actually making a sale.
But click to WhatsApp ads are now giving brands a chance to change this.
Instead of using click to WhatsApp ads to run the usual promotions for products and discounts, it’s time to use this smart ad format for lead generation.
What are Click-to-WhatsApp lead Generation Ads?
Click-to WhatsApp ads are a feature for WhatsApp businesses that Facebook came out with, in 2018. These ads are comparable to those you see when you click the "send message" button on Facebook and Instagram. But these advertisements start a conversation in WhatsApp as opposed to directing a user to the platform's messaging section.
Click to WhatsApp lead generation ads are ad campaigns targeted towards getting to know consumers - to capture their interest, understand their intentions and collect valuable customer information before selling it to them.
Why Run Lead Generation Click to WhatsApp ads?
Click to WhatsApp ads are already proving to be a success for online businesses. But when running direct deals and discounts around products is working, why should you focus on using this ad campaign format for lead generation instead?
Here are some of the reasons why you should run click to WhatsApp ads for lead generation:
1. Helps Understand Consumers Better
Understanding audiences or consumers is a common requirement for any business to prosper. Click to WhatsApp ads offer a great way to pick up info on customer interests, preferences and needs. By allowing them to open a conversation with your brand from different platforms or channels, customers can better communicate with you about their interests.
Using the WhatsApp Business API, you can set up an automated greeting message that initiates the conversation and gets the consumers into a flow that is targeted at understanding their purchase intent.
2. Helps Personalise Recommendations
By advertising your business and driving conversations on the WhatsApp Business platform with the Click to WhatsApp feature, you can collect better consumer data instantly that will let you create a personalised experience for your buyers.
By asking and listening to customers first and nurturing the lead through conversation, you will be able to push contextual promotions, deals, discounts and product recommendations. And all these while assuredly remaining relevant to each customer!
Higher the level of personalisation, greater are the conversion rates and sales you make from the messaging app.
3. Helps Segment Consumers
Knowing your customers and appropriately segmenting them is key for personalised and strategic marketing. Segmenting your audiences will help businesses craft campaigns suitable and relevant to different customers.
Irrespective of whether the customer does share info or not, based on the responses that you receive through your Click to WhatsApp ads and conversations, you can segment customers.
You will be able to differentiate between buyers who are actively looking to make a purchase and the ones who are passively browsing. This way you can identify your priority leads and respond with an appropriate follow-up while attempting to convert casual browsers who have responded to your Click to WhatsApp with the right promotions.
Tips to Run Effective Click-to-WhatsApp ads for Lead Generation
For achieving the best results from your WhatsApp lead generation campaign with Click to WhatsApp ads, you need to know the ways in which the campaign performance can be enhanced.
These are some of the tried and tested ways to run effective Click to WhatsApp ads for lead generation:
1. Have a Clear Goal
The first thing your Click to WhatsApp ad campaign needs is a clearly defined goal.
Your campaign objective will help you outline how your campaign should work. Just as with other social media ads, when creating a click-to-WhatsApp ad, be sure you have a specific business aim and goal in mind. It might be to raise brand exposure, produce more leads, promote customer engagement, get feedback from customers, qualify leads, and other goals.
The primary objective of your ad campaign in this case will be to generate more leads and having a complete idea about this is the only way to expand and formulate a proper campaign strategy for reaching out to customers.
2. Know Whom You are Targeting
The news feed, stories, Facebook Marketplace, and Instagram Explore are all places where you may target your audience with your Click to WhatsApp ads.
But knowing whom to target and whom to avoid will save up both time and resources. This particular target demographic should be reached by your ads, and you can only do this by correctly identifying this audience.
A good idea is to start with the usual demographic data - age, gender, location, and then move to additional parameters like interests, purchase power and previous interactions. The closer you are to defining an individual shopper, the higher are your chances of turning them into a lead.
3. Know What You are Selling
The next most important thing for click to WhatsApp ads for lead generation is to know your product and align your strategies to how they work.
For example, if there’s only one product and a customer would prefer to make the purchase directly from you, there is no point in introducing them to lead-gen ads. This might only complicate the process for the buyer, as the ads will simply increase the number of steps involved in making the purchase. This can turn off customers, increasing the number of drop-offs and adversely affecting your business.
But on the other hand, if you have a product that requires some level of shopping assistance, click to WhatsApp ads for lead generation are your best friend!
4. Run These Ads at Non-Peak Hours
Timing your ads and knowing when to send them is another important point to keep in mind. Bad timing ruins a lot when conducting business, and this fact remains the same for advertising as well- finding the right timing can make the difference.
Run your Click to WhatsApp ads at non-peak hours. You require a response from your customer to further follow up and nurture the lead. You should run your ads at the time when your customers are least likely to be distracted by other promotions and advertisements, or by other things in their life so that they can respond to you coherently.
5. Run Retargeting Click to WhatsApp Ads During Peak Hours
Retargeting ads are way cheaper and more suitable for peak hours. Saving you time and money is one of the main advantages of WhatsApp retargeting campaigns. Instead of investing in lead generation ads to run during peak hours, you could rather opt for retargeting Click to WhatsApp ads.
You can run retargeting campaigns so that you will remain on top of your customer’s minds.
6. Send WhatsApp Broadcasts
Knowing how to nurture your hard-earned leads is another skill that needs to be focused on.
As you start capturing audiences and winning leads, the next best step is to segment buyers based on their interests.
Reach out to them with your follow-ups using WhatsApp broadcasts to promote relevant products, deals and promotions. Open up doors for repeat sales and convert your customers further into your brand-loyal followers.
Improve Lead Nurturing and Conversion with Click to WhatsApp Ads!
The powerful features of the WhatsApp Business API combined with the targeting of Meta and how click to WhatsApp ads work, can open new doors for businesses. This is an opportunity for eCommerce businesses to use conversations to learn more about their potential customers and then add a layer of personalisation to their paid ad campaigns.
By simply following the above click to WhatsApp ad best practices, we have been able to help eCommerce businesses reduce their customer acquisition costs by almost 30%.
Want to know how we do it?
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