Facebook Launches “Click-to-WhatsApp” Option for Ads

The world’s largest social media platform has just launched an update to their ads with a WhatsApp Chat button now available as a call-to-action. With a simple click on the button, people can directly open a WhatsApp conversation window with your business over Facebook.

WhatsApp novices and experts alike know the first step to engaging in chat messaging is to add and save a contact to your phone. The next step is to then find the contact within the app and create a message. But did you know there is a really great workaround with the “Click to Chat” feature that eliminates the tedious step of “add + save”? And we all know fewer steps mean better user experience = better sales.

Facebook Gets Onboard

The feature is hot and Facebook knows it. Since being acquired by Facebook in 2014, WhatsApp has bid to stay away from paid ads — for now. But Facebook has other plans. The world’s largest social media platform has just launched an update to their ads with a WhatsApp chat button now available as a call-to-action. With a simple click on the button, people can now directly open a WhatsApp conversation window with your business from Facebook. And once you are chatting directly with your (potential) customers, it’s full steam ahead.

Source: Techcrunch

Setting up Click to Chat

The feature is also available outside of Facebook ads and you don’t need to spend on advertising campaigns to use it. This WhatsApp hack makes it easy for your business to generate a link that will direct your customers straight to a chat window from your website, email, newsletter… you name it. Essentially anywhere you can implement a link. It even works if your number is not saved in the recipient’s phone. Let’s walk you through how it’s done.

Using this link https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone= simply add your business number at the end following the “=“ using international format.

International format means no symbols, zeros or other. For example +1 555–123456 should be entered 1555123456

Share the link via email, on your website or in newsletters for a quick direct-to-chat window

And it’s a simple as that.

If someone tries to reach you on a mobile phone they should see something close to those screenshots:

The feature also allows you to pre-populate a message in the link, more of which you can find on WhatsApp’s official website here.

What’s Cooking?

In a massive marketing campaign run in Brazil, renowned Hellman’s mayonnaise used the Click to Chat feature to engage their consumers. The campaign involved collaborating with top chefs who were admins of the company’s WhatsApp account. Consumers were encouraged to take photos of food in their refrigerators and reach out via a link, after which the chefs would help them put together a meal step-by-step with the ingredients on the photos.

The results of the WhatsCook campaign were outstanding. A total of 13 thousand people opted in for the service with an engagement rate of 99% and conversations averaging 65 minutes in duration.

How Can This Benefit Your Business

Florists, food delivery, cleaning services or other. Enabling customers to directly chat with your business at the click of a button will help drive sales. The link is easy to integrate into your website and allows chats to continue even if your customers close their browsers. The real-time experience lets you offer a very personalized approach to your business and helps you easier ascertain your customer’s needs and speed up the buying process. And by enabling in-chat payments with Sendbee you can make WhatsApp your one-stop-shop.