Advertising is an important part of every company’s marketing strategy. And although companies may use a variety of search engines and social media sites to run advertising campaigns, WhatsApp, in particular, is becoming a more popular choice for marketers seeking to engage their consumers directly.

WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, has approximately two billion users worldwide, and those users exchange more than 60 billion messages each day, with a significant percentage of those communications being delivered directly to businesses. Businesses seeking to conduct advertising campaigns that may reach a worldwide audience can take advantage of the platform’s active user base.

But, before we go any further, there’s something you should know about WhatsApp advertising: you can’t really advertise directly inside WhatsApp. No, you can’t put a banner display ad in a discussion or on the main page that shows a user’s whole chat history. Facebook planned to integrate advertisements directly into user discussions, but consumers were not enthusiastic, and the project was shelved before it was set to debut in 2020.

However, this does not rule out the possibility of running ad campaigns inside the personal chat app. You may run click-to-message advertisements that lead users who click on the “Send Message” CTA from Facebook or Instagram to WhatsApp using Facebook, Inc.’s other social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram. An illustration of how that transition works is as follows:

These WhatsApp ads are a fantastic approach to start a discussion about your business with your audience. And, because you’re probably currently running ads on Facebook or Instagram, altering the CTA on a handful of them might be an interesting A/B test to do. We’ll go through how to include WhatsApp into your Facebook marketing and social media advertising strategy in more detail below.

How Do I Set Up WhatsApp Ad Account?

You may still advertise directly on WhatsApp, as we stated before. When creating advertisements for Facebook or Instagram, though, you may choose to redirect individuals who click on such ads straight to WhatsApp. It will initiate a discussion inside your WhatsApp Business app if you include a “Send Message” button on your integrated advertising on Facebook and Instagram. Users and consumers of WhatsApp may immediately speak with the company by adding this button, and these kinds of conversational advertising are growing more popular.

Let’s take a look at the steps involved in creating advertisements for WhatsApp.

1. Connect your ad account: If you want to start running advertisements that lead users to WhatsApp, you’ll need a WhatsApp Business account first. You may acquire one by installing the WhatsApp Business app or utilizing the services of one of the company’s partners who has a WhatsApp Business API connection.

2. Connect Your WhatsApp Business Account to Your Facebook Page: Once you’ve created a WhatsApp Business account, you’ll want to link it to your Facebook Page. Before connecting your WhatsApp account to your company, Facebook will verify your information. You may analyze your traffic and obtain additional advertising data connected with the performance of your WhatsApp ads campaign by connecting the two accounts. You can’t see the multitude of data and statistics to improve your strategy or run click-to-message advertisements linked to WhatsApp until you go through the authentication procedure or connect.

3. Choose Your Ad Objective: In Facebook’s Advertisements Manager, go to Ads Creation and start creating your ads. The first step in creating a WhatsApp marketing campaign is to decide on a goal.

Because the process of creating the actual ad differs somewhat based on the goal you select, Facebook has divided WhatsApp ad objectives into two types.

Category1: Ad campaigns with Traffic, Website Conversions, or Messages goals

Category 2: Ad campaigns having a goal of increasing reach, brand awareness, engagement, or video views.

You’ll be able to more readily evaluate the effectiveness of your WhatsApp advertisements if you have a clear goal in mind.

4. Create Your Ad: Here are the processes required in establishing a WhatsApp ad depending on the first type of ad goals (Traffic, Website Conversions, or Messages), according to Facebook:

1. Next should be selected.

2. Then, under Ad Type, choose Click to Message.

3. Select WhatsApp from the Messaging Apps menu.

4. Establish the criteria for your Audience, Locations, Budget, and Schedule.

5. Next should be selected.

6. Complete your ad setting by selecting an ad format.

7. To make your flow, click + Create.

8. When you’re finished, click Save and Finish.

9. To post your ad, click Publish.

If you selected any of the second-category goals (Reach, Brand Awareness, Engagement, or Video Views), then complete the steps below:

1. Set your campaign budget once you’ve decided on your goal.

2. Next should be selected.

3. Set the criteria for the audience, the locations, the budget, and the schedule.

4. Next should be selected.

5. Click Add Website URL under Links.

6. Include the URL of your company’s website.

7. Select Send WhatsApp Message from the Call to Action drop-down menu.

8. On the drop-down menu, choose your Page with the WhatsApp number attached.

9. To post your ad, click Publish.

Choosing the Right Audience for Your WhatsApp Ads

In order to create a successful WhatsApp marketing campaign, you must first understand your target audience. Within your WhatsApp Business account, you can select from three kinds of audiences to guarantee the greatest outcomes for your focused marketing.

Saved audiences, bespoke audiences, and lookalike audiences are the three kinds of audiences you may target.

The location of your advertisements will also affect who sees them, and there are many options for placement inside the Facebook ecosystem. On the Facebook News Feed, Instagram Feed, Facebook Marketplace, and Instagram Explore, there are areas devoted to advertising. Your WhatsApp Business account will be directly linked to the advertisements.

Tip: In the future, keep a lookout for new methods to connect advertising on other formats with WhatsApp, such as Instagram Stories.

You may also put the ad in the Facebook Search box. In this manner, it reaches out to anybody looking for a certain product and leads them to a WhatsApp discussion that you can control via your WhatsApp Business account. Despite the limited placement possibilities, all Facebook-owned products are getting more interconnected, and additional advertising opportunities will undoubtedly emerge in the future.

WhatsApp Ads using Multimedia

When it comes to establishing a WhatsApp-connected ad campaign, you have a lot of multimedia choices to pick from. You may exchange a variety of media types inside the chat platform, including video, GIFs, music, PDFs, and even Microsoft Office documents (though sharing an Excel file with a client is extremely improbable!).

However, if you want to build campaigns that use all of Facebook’s products (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp), there are three formats that operate on all of them:

Carousel:

When you have a product catalog, this is the ideal choice for your company. Customers will be able to choose from a variety of goods by scrolling through them.

Images:

Great for a marketing poster or conveying vital product and service information.

Videos:

Because your audience will most likely notice (and be attracted to) the movement on the screen, videos may be an excellent method to capture their attention.

Wrap Up

Given that organic reach on major social media platforms has been declining for many years, conducting social media advertising campaigns is an efficient method to get your brand’s message in front of your target consumers. And if you want individuals who view your advertisements on Facebook or Instagram to actually contact you, you may want to think about running ads that click through to WhatsApp in Ads Manager while planning your social media advertising strategy.