Facebook Messenger Ads is one of the most effective ways to tell people about your brand, product, or service. More than 200 million businesses use different Facebook tools to connect with customers and exchange more than 20 billion messages monthly with Messenger users. That’s why investing your resources into Facebook Messenger Ads to convert users is an excellent move. But let’s start from the very beginning and dive deep into using and optimizing it correctly for the best results.

What is Facebook Messenger Ads

Ordinary Facebook ads invite people to click and check out your website or landing page. The thing is, they can be costly, and you won’t get detailed information about your visitors. On the other hand, Facebook Messenger Ads are a paid method of promoting your Facebook posts. It invites people to open a Facebook Messenger conversation and start communicating, leading to a cascade of engagement. To help you handle it, Facebook Messenger ads rely on chatbots that can easily start a dialog and lead your potential customers further down the funnel. 

If you’re going to use any of these advertising options, make sure that you got someone to cover your back when the conversation gets going. The main use of these ads is to generate real, organic conversations with your customers. Once you’ve made initial contact, you have the opportunity to personalize your customer service and tailor the experience for each particular user. Ignoring a chatty customer can harm your brand’s reputation, and you don’t want that to happen.

Why You Should Use It

So, why exactly should you invest your marketing budget into Facebook Messenger Ads? What are the key aspects and advantages that you need to know about?

Fast response time 

Customer support is moving towards messaging, and if you are not using any live chat service, you risk losing a lot of conversions. It’s no secret that responding to a potential lead faster will only increase your odds of closing a deal. According to The Harvard Business Review study, if you don’t respond in the first five minutes of a customer reaching out to you, you decrease your odds of converting them to a lead by 400%. 

In today’s world, the standard response time is only shrinking, so you need to respond ASAP if you want to find success when driving sales and qualifying leads. Nobody wants to wait four days to get a response, and that’s why messaging apps have started to surpass social networks in their usage. 

Personalize ads

You can send personalized messages to users who you aren’t connected with and land them straight in the user’s inbox, except you can’t target non-brand-aware users – meaning you can only do this for people who have interacted with your ads previously. And this is a good thing because otherwise, it could be a really creepy experience. Sending a personalized message gives you a better shot at starting conversions than a basic remarketing ad.

Better local targeting

If you want to build localized brand awareness, there is no better way than Facebook Messenger Ads. A new “Local awareness” feature can help you create newsfeed ads that drive huge waves of engagement. Find a specific local audience depending on where your business is located and determine who will see your ads. You can come up with specific offers that people can use at your local business and reach customers that live nearby with deal-based conversion offers.

Start conversations easily

When you can’t simply ask users to convert instantly, you need to start a casual conversation and assess their needs and interests. You don’t want to spend two weeks talking to a lead before finding out that they don’t even care about your brand or product. Facebook Messenger Ads can help you find a perfect balance between ads and real sales conversations. Instead of instantly asking prospects to buy your product, asks them to message you directly and chat about it a little. Let them see if it’s really a good fit, rather than expecting to know immediately. Regular remarketing ads simply can’t provide such a personalized user experience. 

How to Set Up Facebook Messenger Ads

It’s a relatively simple task, and all you need is a Facebook Business Manager account and a few minutes of your time. But first of all, you need to have the “Messages” if you want to be able to use the Messenger placement fully. 

To use the Messenger Ad objective, choose the “Messages” campaign objective under “Consideration.”

After this, choose which messaging apps to enable. You can choose between two options: 

• Click to Message – allows you to create sponsored messages with new customers.
• Sponsored messages – allows you to reengage existing customers who have already messaged you.

To set up a Click to Message Ads:

1. Choose Click to Message in the Ad type list.
2. Choose which apps you’d like to enable.
3. Choose visuals, write a headline and a CTA.

If you only have a Messenger and Instagram Direct profile, you can leave WhatsApp off the list. Facebook will automatically take each user to the app, where they’re most likely to start a conversation based on their past app usage.

You can choose if you want to send people to chat with another Page and customize your call to action. The default CTA is “Send Message,” but you can write any of the standard CTA options that you would with other campaigns. 

To set up a Sponsored Message Ads:

1. Choose the messages objective.
2. Choose “sponsored message” placement.
3. Create the Ad & enter in quick replies.

You can include an image for this type of ad or skip it. Standard best practices would be to include an image that would draw the attention of your target audience. Once you write the copy, don’t forget to add some quick replies. These are also clickable prompts you can create to help users to continue communication. 

Facebook Messenger Ad Examples

​​Less than 2% of the entire website traffic convert on their first visit. Reasons may vary from not being interested in a product, high price, lack of research, or not building enough trust with a brand. Messenger ads are perfect to use at the top of your funnel to build authority and create trust between your brand and target audience. 

Here are a few examples of great Facebook Messenger Ads.

Shop Spring with its great shopping assistant

(Source: https://onlygrowth.com/blogs/posts/how-to-start-using-facebook-messenger-for-ecommerce)

Expedia’s omni-channel sales experience

(Source: https://onlygrowth.com/blogs/posts/how-to-start-using-facebook-messenger-for-ecommerce)

Wall Street Journal bot

(Source: https://onlygrowth.com/blogs/posts/how-to-start-using-facebook-messenger-for-ecommerce)

Conclusion

Facebook Messenger Ads allow you to personalize communication with customers and reach people faster than ever before. Instead of spending even more money on ads, you can deliver custom messages to your target audience in the form of messaging-based ads. Reaching a customer in several minutes is crucial to qualifying a lead, and personalizing those messages can help you build loyalty. Also, Facebook Messenger Ads it’s a great remarketing option and a tool for fast local targeting and local brand awareness. It’s great for starting conversations that are otherwise hard-to-obtain.