Whatsapp Marketing is Cheaper Than Facebook Remarketing. Here’s Why!

While social media platforms like Facebook have established opportunities for businesses to reach their target audience through paid promotions, standing out from the noisy campaigns being run by thousands of brands is getting tougher by the day. As per statistics, the average click-through rate on Facebook ad campaigns across all industries is a mere 0.89% - which when compared to the 60% increase in spend ever since the pandemic, is too low.

Worse still?

The 0.89% of users who do click through the ad campaign and reach a website (in this case, an ecommerce store), don’t necessarily convert on their first visit to the website.

Owing to this behavior of internet users, businesses started to use Facebook remarketing to reach these unconverted visitors with reminders, offers and discounts to re-engage their interest and bring them back to the website.

Now as per statistics, retargeting ads are 76% more likely to get clicked by the 0.89% of users who showed interest in the campaign before.

What are Facebook Retargeting Ads?

Facebook retargeting ads are ads that allow you to re-engage an audience that has previously interacted with your brand in some way - this includes both on and off Facebook. These consumers could have shared their email address with you at some point through subscriptions, notifications or cart abandonment, could be your existing customers or have followed/ interacted with your Facebook page in some way.

Retargeting ads are essentially targeted at reaching out to those who have shown interest or intent in what your brand has to offer, making them more likely to be clicked on as compared to targeting someone who is entirely new to your brand.

Why are Facebook Retargeting Ads Not Enough?

In comparison to the first-touch ads, Facebook retargeting ads definitely offer a higher click through rate on campaigns. But let’s understand how this works with an example to put things in perspective differently.

Suppose you’re running an ad campaign that reaches about 100 people on Facebook.

Now 5 of these people reach the checkout stage on your store, sharing their contact details to receive order status alerts and shipping information.

But the 95 others who clicked, chose to browse through your website to explore the products, deals and discounts you offer and left without making an interaction that gives you their contact information.

In this case, your brand will have to run ad campaigns on Facebook all over again to bring back these 95 people to the website - with no guarantee on how many of them will engage with your brand in a meaningful way in their second visit, leading to a repeat of this cycle.

Now if you think about reducing a sales cycle or a purchase cycle for a consumer, think about the number of stages and the back and forth involved in the above approach.

In addition to that, the need to pay per click for their ad campaigns continually increases the spend on the campaigns over a period of time.

So, is there a better way to run retargeting ads for interested consumers?

Introducing WhatsApp marketing for ecommerce.

How is WhatsApp Marketing Better Than Facebook Retargeting?

Continuing on our example above.

Let’s assume you run a click-to-WhatsApp ad for your store, and get people to opt-in to your list on the messaging app - let’s say about 100 people again.

You now run a WhatsApp broadcast marketing campaign for promotions of a new product, discount or deal.

Out of this list again, let’s say 5 go to your website and complete a checkout.

But the 95 in this case have engaged with your message in some way - they have either replied to your message seeking more information or have clicked through to your website.

Now contrary to Facebook ads, this time you have the contact details of these 95 people, who you can reach out to individually with tailored responses and personalized campaigns - this could include sending product recommendations, offering shopping assistance, sending them checkout links of items they wishlisted and similar.

With a more conversational approach to marketing and retargeting in this case, businesses are able to see at least 17% more conversions. Take a look at some of our success stories here.

Here’s why:

- WhatsApp campaigns see a 98% open rate on messages owing to its frequent use across all major demographics

- The messaging app offers a more 1:1 and personalized channel for communicating with interested consumers, as compared to the traditional one campaign for all retargeting logic used in Facebook retargeting

- With the help of the WhatsApp Business API, businesses can set up timely follow-ups and automated campaigns tailored for engaged/ interested consumers, leading to better personalization and hence, higher number of conversions

But that’s not all.

Another benefit that WhatsApp marketing offers over Facebook retargeting is the cost of running the campaigns.

WhatsApp marketing cost is fixed; a business API provider like QuickReply.ai charges $ 0.0076 for the first message to each contact and $0 for the follow-ups made to everyone who has engaged with the audience. Learn more about WhatsApp marketing pricing here.

On the other hand, if Facebook retargeting ads cost you $0.5 per click to the website and the visitor still does not convert, you’re charged the same amount for every follow-up reminder you set up in the campaign, leading to $1 for just getting a retargeted consumer twice to your website - and you don’t know how many times you’d have to run retargeting campaigns to get them to convert.

Additional reads:

- WhatsApp marketing vs Facebook advertising‍

- How to optimize WhatsApp marketing costs for higher ROI‍

Different Ways In Which You Can Retarget Consumers With WhatsApp Marketing

Think about the last time you visited a website and started seeing the same products in ad campaigns across Facebook and Instagram.

A typical retargeting ad simply displays the products you may have visited or added to the shopping cart on a website, alongside a picture, product name and a generic description that usually offers a discount or creates urgency around its availability.

Here’s an example of the same:

But when it comes to retargeting interested and engaged customers on WhatsApp, let’s take a look at the different types of campaigns you can run using the WhatsApp Business API:

1. Send Follow-up Reminders

Simply remind them of the products they had visited on the store with a quick message like “You were looking for pink cotton kurtas on our website. Don’t forget to check out our new additions to the collections!”

2. Offer A Discount

Additionally, you can make the reminders more enticing to a consumer by offering a discount on the products they were viewing. Running a WhatsApp campaign that says “Hey Jane, there is an exclusive 20% off on the pink kurtas you were checking out for the next 24 hours” can get back a lot of online shoppers.

Looking for WhatsApp templates to set up marketing campaigns? Click here.

3. Close The Sale On Call (Telesales)

Since you have the contact details of the interested shopper, you can also follow up with them asking if they’d like a call from your team to help with the purchase. Combining telesales and WhatsApp marketing is a great way to get more customers to convert on the intent they have displayed. Read more about using telesales with WhatsApp to get more sales here.

4. Send Product Recommendations

Using the intent and purchase preference they have displayed by interacting with your WhatsApp marketing campaign, you can also send product recommendations. This could include a bunch of similar products or even deals that are similar to the products they liked; this individual approach can lead to a much higher conversion due to hyper personalization.

5. Offer Product Information

If you see a customer who has engaged with your WhatsApp marketing campaign, clicked through to the website but hasn’t made a purchase, you can actually run a campaign to help them make an informed decision. This could include sending product information like how-to guides, style guides, lookbooks, FAQs, shipping/ delivery policies and similar.  

6. Seek Customer Feedback

The typical Facebook retargeting ads are angled at pushing the same products to the consumer time and again to serve as a reminder to the online shopper. But with WhatsApp marketing, if you see a customer not converting on the follow-ups either, you can run a campaign that is simply designed to understand the reason - why they haven’t made the purchase, what would they like you to offer better, what would motivate them to make the purchase, and similar.

Learn more about collecting customer feedback on WhatsApp using interactive messages.

WhatsApp Marketing vs Facebook Retargeting - Which One Should You Go For?

If you ask us one channel to run re–engagement campaigns, we’d say WhatsApp marketing has a much higher ROI as compared to Facebook.

But at the same time, we do recommend running campaigns on both the channels as each comes with its own set of pros and cons, to see where your audience tends to engage with your brand the most and what helps you boost brand recall the most.

One way to integrate the best of both the platforms is to run click-to-WhatsApp ads, so that you use Facebook as a first-touch campaign to reach more people from your target audience, get interested shoppers to the messaging app and then leverage WhatsApp marketing automations to convert them.

Want to see how the two channels can work well together to boost conversions on your retargeting and remarketing campaigns?

Book a demo of QuickReply.ai.

Frequently asked questions

What does remarketing mean?

Remarketing and retargeting are phrases often used synonymously. They both refer to the tactic of reaching out to a set of people who have previously interacted with a marketing or advertising campaign, to re-engage their interest with a reminder, discount or similar strategy to drive them back to the site for a conversion. Remarketing is a term mostly used for running these campaigns on the search engines; while retargeting is the term used to run these campaigns on social media.

What are the benefits of remarketing?

Remarketing or retargeting campaigns are designed to reach out to people who have previously shown an intent to make a purchase or displayed interest in what you have to offer. Contrary to an audience that is entirely new to what you have to offer or what your brand is all about, this is like a qualified segment of online shoppers who are more responsive to your offers.

What are WhatsApp retargeting campaigns?

WhatsApp retargeting campaigns can be set up using the WhatsApp Business API to retarget a specific set of people who have previously shown interest in a product or a promotion, using a broadcast message.

How does WhatsApp marketing work?

WhatsApp marketing is a type of messenger marketing, which implies promoting a brand, its products and ongoing deals/ discounts using the messaging platform. This channel helps brands reach an enormous audience owing to its wide user base demographics, build strong relationships with customers through personalized conversations, and increase sales. But it requires setting up various automations similar to that of emails, SMS and other channels using the WhatsApp Business API. You can do this using a solution like QuickReply.ai.

What are the benefits of WhatsApp marketing?

WhatsApp is one of the most commonly and frequently used messaging apps across all major demographics. Owing to this, it offers the higher percentage of open and click-through rates on messages - 98% and 47% on average respectively. It makes for one of the most effective channels to not just run promotions, but also keep customers engaged with order status alerts, feedback and review requests, and recommendations owing to its nature of message delivery and message formats including media files. To learn more, book a demo.

FAQ-

Q1. What is the significance of WhatsApp marketing?

Ans: Automation and FAQs are supported. Businesses can use WhatsApp Business to provide faster customer service. When customers are opt-in, businesses can contact them directly on their phones. This is significant given that 56% of people prefer to contact customer service via messaging rather than by phone.

‍Q2. What is Facebook Remarketing?

Ans: Facebook remarketing is a way to target people who have already visited your website. You can use it to show ads to people who have already visited your site, as well as people who haven't. You can also choose to show ads only to people who haven't visited your website yet but are highly likely to do so in the future.

Q3. What exactly is the distinction between marketing and remarketing?

Ans: Marketing and remarketing are both important parts of digital marketing, but they have vastly different goals. Marketing is the process of getting your brand in front of new customers while remarketing is the process of getting your brand in front of customers who have already visited your site. Marketing is a great way to get more people to visit your site while remarketing helps you keep them there longer when they do.