Facebook Messenger Ads: How To Push Your E-commerce Business

You probably know that Messenger Marketing is effective for engaging an audience who dislikes checking their email and prefer social media for communication with businesses. Facebook gives you an opportunity to take Messenger Marketing one step closer to making a sale with Facebook Messenger ads.

From setting up to the execution, here’s how to push your e-commerce business with Facebook ads.

What are Facebook Messenger Ads?

Messenger ads take the public into the private field. They’re ads that show up in the Messenger app as Sponsored Messages. Essentially, this is just a message from your business popping up in the app. The message can contain whatever you want, from a questionnaire to a sales offer.

Unlike Sponsored Messages, these ads can only reach people that have already interacted with your business. This makes them far less intrusive, and your audience will not be put off by you getting into their inbox unwanted. After all, they’ve already visited your page or even sent you a message.

Online chat and social media are the preferred way of communication for people under 35, as Kleiner Perkins 2016 report suggests — placing ads in Messenger is a smart move that’s going to drive traffic.

Source: Slideshare/ Kleiner Perkins

Messenger ads don’t just appear in the inbox, they also can show in the Messenger Stories with a link to your website or to a conversation in the Messenger.

How to Create Facebook Messenger Ads

Creating a Messenger ad for your business does not have to be a challenge. Start by adding a new set of ads to your campaign, or create a new campaign altogether. To make this work for your e-commerce store, the goal must be one of the following: A certain amount of traffic, number of messages, or conversions. 

If the campaign goal is either traffic or conversions, you’ll have the choice of the medium: Go for Messenger.

If you choose messages as your campaign goal, you will only have two options. Choose “Sponsored Message” to create an ad campaign that will be displayed directly in your users’ incoming messages or “Click to Messenger” if you want to create ads in stories.

Your display options will be limited depending on the goal and destination you choose. “Sponsored Messages” are only available when you choose the said destination. The others allow you to include “Messenger Stories” to the list of ad placements.

You’ll see this placement available only if you choose messages as your campaign goal and choose “Sponsored Messages” in the ad destination. Even though you can preview your ad as a sponsored message if you use other campaign objectives, it may not be displayed as such.

Let’s start by covering sponsored messages this time. So choose the objective of the campaign to be messages, choose the “Sponsored Messages” in the ad set, and attach your business page. You can go with automatic ad placement since there’s only one option available.

The first thing you have to do while creating the ad itself is to write a message and attach an eye-grabbing image. Make the message more personal by adding the customer’s name to it.

The next step is giving the user some options to kickstart a conversation. Here’s how it may go:

The issue with quick replies is that they don’t work on their own. You’ll need a manager to answer that reply. You can use buttons instead to open a page on your website.

Both quick replies and buttons can be used to trigger bot responses.

And that’s it for creating a sponsored message ad. 

If you want to create a “Click to Messenger” ad, you’ll have more options and more work to do. Connect your page, attach an image, and create a primary text that’s going to be displayed in the ad. 

Go to the “Messenger Setup” section to continue working on the ad. You can choose your goal to be simply starting a conversation or generating leads. If you choose the latter, you’ll be able to clarify some information about your clients to add to their lead scoring portfolio.

That may be all you have to do to create a message, but your ad campaign is far from done.

How to Make Messenger Ads Effective

The final steps towards making your ad campaign effective go beyond merely creating a message. Here’s what you have to do to excel.

Razor-sharp Targeting 

You may get into peoples’ incoming messages, but it will not be effective unless you find the right people to talk to. It’s a bit easier for you when you’re using the sponsored message format since it only connects you to people who’ve already had an interaction with your business.

But even then, you have to work on getting to know your audience and make your reach even more narrow.

Attention-drawing Message

When you have so few words to attract users’ attention, every word matters. You need to make your message appealing to users to make sure the CTR is at its best.

The users will only see a snippet of your message in their app,  so the first words are crucial for drawing attention. Include personalization and attention-grabbing words in the beginning.

The writing and proofreading agency Pro Essay Writer tested two messages for their ad campaign. The first one read, “Are you interested in content marketing? We’re giving the first month free to new arrivals.” The second was, “First month free for new arrivals. Discover our content marketing plan.”

The second wording had 67 percent more CTR because it included the word “free” in the snippet.

Chatbots

With an ad campaign covering thousands of people, many of whom are going to start conversations with you, your sales team simply can’t handle the number of messages the page will get. This is why Facebook lets you connect a chatbot.

Develop a chatbot that would cover most questions your audience may have, and you won’t lose customers due to waiting time.

Wrap up

Both sponsored messages and click-to-Messenger ads are a great way of engaging your target audience. Follow the simple instructions in this guide, and perfect the ad campaign with the three key tips to make every dollar you spend on it count.

Split test the ads to make sure you’re doing the right thing, and your ad campaign’s success is only a matter of time.